Bulgaria with Noodles

On the whole, I did not really enjoy teaching at Windlesham House School. Duty weekends were a killer and the general lack of discipline made teaching at WHS pretty "challenging", to use that word headmasters often employ when they want the staff to do something that is not so pleasant.  As a teacher, I thought that Windlesham was too liberal and too trendy, a sort of rather upmarket (and much more expensive) Summerhill.  However, there definitely were some good things about WHS and one of them was my Threes class, better known as the Flumps. I really enjoyed teaching the Flumps and they really were a lovely and charming collection of children.  In the summer term, we had a very enjoyable class trip to Seaworld and Chichester, followed by a barbecue in the back garden of my flat in the stable block. At the end of the summer term, there was a strong tradition at Windlesham of putting on class plays in the school’s grounds. The parents seemed to like these al fresco dram...

Oh yes, it is. The Gardening Bore has returned. Sorry about that. These things happen, from time to time. My apologies. Normal blog service will be restored at the end of this post.  The tomatoes are the big success story. My dear wife says that the taste is more important than the size. What a relief! The badminton court is looking quite splendid with the new net. I just wish that I could actually win some games... The Jerusalem Artichokes are doing rather well. Thank you, Mila!  The lilies and the trumpet things also look rather good. That pampered, podgy, Plovdiv pooch is not interested in gardening. She is a lazy little doggie.

A school play that was not a “school” play. That would be my verdict on The Rocking Horse Winner . It was, in many ways, a shocking and disturbing drama for any school. Yes, I would agree that we do not need yet another dull and pedestrian production of Toad of Toad Hall, but The Rocking Horse Winner went too far in the opposite direction. The themes of the play made a powerful (and maybe poisonous) cocktail: the Occult, gambling and greed, with a strong shot of social climbing, pretentiousness and the break-up of a family. The threatening music (lots of Eric Satie) and the set’s nightmarish design added to the play’s alarming effect on the audience. As an adult, I found this play both powerful and painful. It really was not at all suitable for children of primary school age, but of course plays and the theatre are posh and they have snob value, so no one in authority at Windlesham was too bothered about whether it was appropriate for the children. Some of the teachers were worried...

One good thing about teaching at Windlesham House School was that there was a certain amount of creative freedom for teachers to try out new and unusual educational ideas. When the first computers started to arrive in schools, I suppose it was inevitable that they were usually given to the Maths department. Well, if you think that a computer is just a glorified electronic calculator, then this was more or less bound to happen, but it was also a big mistake. It meant that many Art, Music and English teachers felt a bit left out of the I.T. world and there was the impression that computers are really just mathematical devices that have nothing to do with anything vaguely arty or creative. At Perrott Hill, some BBC “B” computers arrived soon after I did and, sure enough, the head of Maths, dear old Paddy Logan, was put in charge of them. At Windlesham House School, computers were much more in evidence. Maybe WHS was a bit too “trendy”, so any new scholastic fad was going to be popular, ...

I had not planned on writing any more posts about Perrott Hill, but I have changed my mind! Well, my Canon scanner is now working properly and I have found a few more photos that might be worth putting into my blog. The English Room was my domain for four years, a large room at the top of what used to be a Victorian country house. The English Room was at one point divided into three separate classrooms, but then it just became one big classroom and the library next door.  Yes, my desk was one of those high ones, like something out of Dickens. Mr Squeers would have approved! Blackboards and chalk were still much in vogue, as overhead digital projectors had not been invented. I am just including these photos of various Perrott Hill pupils because they are good photos! Wright, McNeil, Mornement 3, Glenday and Larpent: Yes, I can remember all of their names, maybe forty years later.    Well, these photos are good for me, as I am not really much of a photographer. This is ...

Just before the start of the Second World War, the famous debate at the Oxford Union, “This House will not fight for King and Country”, became a national (and maybe international) legend. The story goes that when Adolf Hitler heard of the debate, it convinced him that Britain would not fight and so he made up his mind to invade Poland. So what are we to make of the more recent Oxford Union debate, “This House believes that the West is right to be suspicious of Islam”? As I have mentioned before, it was about thirty years ago that David Pawson started preaching about the dangers of Islam. Back in the 1960s, there was only one mosque in the whole of Britain. It was in Woking and you can see it from the train. Now there are something like 2,000 mosques in the UK and perhaps there will be a few more by the time you read this. Meanwhile, churches are closing at the rate of one a week (or maybe one a fortnight) and “Mohammed” is the most popular name for new baby boys.   The Presid...