Bulgaria with Noodles

I cannot recount my days at Perrott Hill School without writing something about my old friend Richard Cottrell, a colleague, fellow wine lover and comrade-in-arms. Richard taught French and he started at P.H.S. at same time as me, so it was natural that we found ourselves in each other’s company rather a lot.  Each evening, after a long day of teaching, afternoon games and boarding supervision, we would have supper together, discuss the highs and lows of a prep schoolmaster’s daily life and drink a glass or two of wine. Usually a cooked meal was left for us in the downstairs kitchen and we would carry our supper up to my room, as Richard's room was right next to the dormitories and so we would have no privacy. During my four years at Perrott, Richard and I became friends and a couple of times I even stayed at his home in Tonbridge. Most of Richard's family worked in the City and were doing rather well for themselves, so it was a matter of some surprise to them that anyone they ...

The Croquet Lawn at Perrott Hill Well, not much is happening in Bulgaria at the moment, so I am going to continue with my memories of Perrott Hill School in Somerset, my first teaching job. September, 1982 was the beginning of my teaching career. Mrs Thatcher’s war in the Falklands was in full swing when I started my first term at P.H.S., a fairly small preparatory school in the South-West. The English Room   For the benefit of my American readers, I ought to explain that an English prep school is rather different to its American namesake. The Brit version is for younger children, aged roughly 8 to 13. There were a few day girls at Perrott Hill, but the clientele was mostly male. One of the main purposes of a prep school is to prepare the children for their senior schools, mostly rather expensive public (i.e. private and fee-paying) schools. Canford, Bryanston and Kings’s Taunton are good “second-division” schools that received quite a few P.H.S. students and occasionally we mi...

  Today I went into VT, to take my old Nissan to the garage. The brake pedal was a little bit mushy and I wondered whether there might be something a bit more serious that needed to be fixed. Yes, the mechanic said that there were some really bad problems with the brakes and they could have led to catastrophic brake failure! We are going to be driving to Greece on Friday, so what could have happened is too awful to think about. 150 euros well spent, I reckon. Any other news? My blog is still going. I wrote a view pieces about my Oxford days (I hope you enjoyed the rather splendid black and white photos) and now I have started on a series of blogs about Perrott Hill School down in Somerset, my first teaching job. It seems that there is now a Perrott Hill School in Prague! Amazing!   Starmer is gone. Hooray! And about time too. It looks as though this Andy Burnham character is going to be the next PM. I really do not like him. It is very strange that the Labour party swept i...

Perrott Hill School, in all its glory   “ I expect you’ll be becoming a schoolmaster, sir. That’s what most of the gentlemen does, sir, that gets sent down for indecent behaviour.” – Evelyn Waugh,  Decline and Fall , 1928 Well, I was not sent down for indecent behaviour, but I did become a schoolmaster. The main staircase at P.H.S., with the portraits of the Grundys   One of the grimmest buildings in Oxford, apart from the Examinations Schools, is the Appointments Committee, more commonly known as the Disappointments Committee. As I came to the end of my fourth and final year, it gradually dawned on me that I would be needing a job or, if I was really lucky, maybe even a career. I did not know what to do. I had worked for Barclays during one or two holidays and during my “gap” year, but I did not have much enthusiasm for banking. The Army? No, I did not like the idea of getting shot or blown up. After leaving Oxford, I was working temporarily in a Barclays in Winc...

Hooray! It has finally, finally arrived. Yes, my old friend Peter sent this parcel from the UK. Twice. The charming and delightful Bulgarian postal service sent it back to the UK the first time, so he sent it again. Another lot of postage and another wait. Twice I went down to the post office in Palitsi, only to be told, “Nyama kolet!” Then my dear wife found an official-looking piece of paper stuck onto our letterbox, so it was a case of third time lucky. So how much did it all cost? Too blooming much. Two lots of Royal Mail postage at £16 a time and then the P.O. in Palitsi charged me an extra 29 euros. We are off to Samothraki next week and that is going to involve a lot of lying on the beach. Irena loves flopping beside the sea, so I must have something substantial to read. Yes, of course I shall be ploughing through The Wind in the Willows for the ninth time, but it is also a good idea to have something a bit more highbrow and intellectually challenging. Napoleon the Great f...

The Wind in the Willows is one of my all-time favourite books. I think that I must have read it eight or nine times. At the beginning of the story, Mole gets fed up with the spring cleaning and so he goes up, up, up into the warmth and the sunlight. Pop! He comes out of his little tunnel and wanders off into the countryside. Then Mole encounters the river and the Water Rat. The amiable Ratty takes him for a little expedition (and rather good lunch) in his rowing boat. It is a magical part of Grahame’s story. Punting at Oxford brings back memories of lazy afternoons, willow trees by the Cherwell, sunlight, pretty girls in floppy hats and the green backdrop of the university parks.  Punting is a blend of balance, strength, timing and maybe a little skill. It is the perfect way to enjoy some peace, the silence and the watery sounds of the river as you leave the Cherwell (pronounced "Charwell") boathouse behind and take your punt over the rollers to Mesopotamia, the land betwe...