Surviving the past one day at a time
Posted in School on Aug 16th, 2011
Not long ago a friend from Grammar school days made contact; the first time we’ve been in touch since the mid 70s. Conversation inevitably turned to our shared experience of those times when the Headmaster, in all seriousness, accused me of being “a corrupting influence on the entire sixth form”. The event that Chris remembers [...]
The new school year brought big changes. While it was great moving up to Top Class it was also scary because the Headmaster was now our teacher. Mr Poole was a nice man but he was the Headmaster and in the bottom drawer of his enormous desk lurked the dreaded slipper. While Mr Poole didn’t have a [...]
Posted in Childhood, Health, Medicals, School on Sep 27th, 2010
There is a very good reason for my delving back into the dawn of history to tell you tales from my very young days. What I hope I’m getting across is the fact that, apart from a truly horrendous health record and living in awful conditions, my childhood was very happy until the events that [...]
Thanks to Rich’s support and his trenchant stares at would be mockers, very little was said on the coach or at school. The high point of the day for me was one of my classmates asking plaintively, almost despairingly “Miss, do those specs mean Malc’s even cleverer now?”. Miss Beevis laughed, all my classmates laughed [...]
Posted in Best Friend, Childhood, Malc, Rich, School on Sep 4th, 2010
Rich’s loyalty, support and protection helped to make the worst day of my young life almost tolerable. I was seven years old, had moved to the second block of the class and had already secured my place at the back right hand desk. Nobody was going to take that away from me, ever! One morning [...]
Posted in Best Friend, Childhood, Malc, Rich, School on Sep 2nd, 2010
Rich and I devised a naughty trick to play on Mrs Chalfont, the Infants Teacher. When she got cross with us for whispering to each other she called my name then Rich’s. I stood up but Rich didn’t and when she got even angrier I said innocently “But, Miss Malcolm Richard is my name.” That [...]
I was amused to read on the BBC website that there is concern in Wales over the fact that women teachers outnumber men by a ratio of three to one. I’m actually astonished, in these paranoid times that any man who values reputation and liberty would even contemplate a career in teaching. To illustrate my [...]
Posted in Memories, Mental Archaeology, School on Aug 21st, 2010
There were times at Grammar school when I really did seem to go out of my way to court unpopularity; usually with a flagrant display of elitism. In lower Sixth Form those of us studying French Literature for A Level were invited to the University of Sussex at Brighton for a day of study along [...]
Posted in Achievement, Public Speaking, School on Aug 15th, 2010
You may have got the vague impression that I didn’t like my school very much and you would be right. Whether I’d have been any less bullied and unhappy at any of the other Grammar Schools that offered me a place is moot. Wherever I went I’d still have ginger hair, a “funny” Scottish surname [...]
Posted in Anger, Mental Archaeology, School on Aug 3rd, 2010
My best friend and I had already organised a post exam 3 week cycling trip in the West Country, with a 2 or 3 day stop at my Nan’s included, so I didn’t have time to fret over the slow progress with the grant application. That holiday was quite an adventure itself so I’m not [...]
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