Perrott Hill 1

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 Winchester, in Jewry Street, and I learned that an old Oxford friend of mine, Thomas Hamilton-Jones, was teaching at Winchester College. Tom suggested that I ought to try my hand at teaching. With the help a job advertisement in The Times Education Supplement, The TES, I found myself teaching English at Perrott Hill School in Somerset. 

 
By a bitter irony, I also found myself coaching the rugby team. And no, I am not sure that poachers always make the best gamekeepers.

 
Perrott Hill School was (and still is) housed in a rather splendid Victorian country house. The grand staircase, leading down to the Grundy Hall, is quite posh. 
Even though I had absolutely no teaching experience and no qualifications, apart from a rather irrelevant degree in Theology, I found myself teaching English, taking games in the afternoon and doing a lot of boarding school duties. I really cannot imagine why the headmaster, Derek Hoare, gave me the job, but I am rather glad that he did. I remember my new headmaster saying to me, "I don't care how the children spell my name, as long as it is not with a W." 

At Oxford, I had been worried about what I was going to do with my life, how I was going to earn a living and where I was going to live. My first year or two at Perrott Hill were hard work and long hours, but at least I had some purpose and focus, with not much time left over for worrying about the future. Best of all, I had stumbled upon one of life's most precious assets: a career that you actually enjoy. When I started my first term at Perrott Hill, I had no idea that my teaching career would take me to the Middle East, Romania, Bulgaria and even China. 

What is happiness? Is it an aim, a goal, or is it a by-product that comes to us when we are doing what we enjoy and what we have some talent for? Teaching was (and probably still is) an exhausting, time-consuming and poorly paid vocation, but it offers a level of job satisfaction that few careers can ever match.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Educaring, 2

Image
Not so long ago, I wrote a post for my blog called Educaring . Please do not misunderstand me. I really do believe that teachers, youth workers, parents (and indeed anyone involved with young people) all have a duty to protect children and teenagers, to keep them safe. As I argued in my previous posting, I also believe that the task of protecting children is becoming more and more difficult - almost impossible, in fact. Yes, the Internet has a lot to do with it, I am sure, but there is another problem that is hardly ever discussed.  In a nutshell, anyone who genuinely cares about children finds it very hard to imagine how evil and how subtle child molesters and pedophiles really are. I think that is probably why many teachers and parents just do not know when a pedophile is "grooming" a child and why they often do not believe it, even when confronted with the unpleasant truth. Michael Green at Windlesham House School I knew Michael Green when I was teaching at Windlesh...
Read more

On the Cards, Part 1

Image
Getting our new Bulgarian residency cards from the Microwave Oven Woman Rejoice! Let's celebrate. Hallelujah! At long last, the Microwave Woman has given us our new Bulgarian residency cards (BRCs). As a special treat, just in case you do not know what a BRC looks like, here is my old one.  My dear wife suggested that I should "black out" certain bits, as there are lots of evil people out there on the Internet, all gathering my personal and financial details in order to swindle me or involve me in some dreadful scandal or some such nonsense. Of course, no one who reads my blog could ever do such a nasty thing!   Getting our new BRCs means that we can go ahead with our applications for our Russian visas. Then, maybe two or three weeks later, our passports will be returned to us, with new Russian visas stuck into them. The other good news is that the insurance agent in Dragoman did not lose my car registration document. When she had finished giving me my new car ...
Read more

A Eulogy for My Old Latin Teacher, Roger Terence Davies

Image
RTD, in his later years The great Mark O'Gorman, aka the One and Only Markoi, has asked me to say a few words about Roger Davies and so, of course, I must obey. For duty, duty must be done The rule applies to everyone Though painful though that duty be To shirk the task, oh fiddledee! A much younger RTD Roger Terence Davies, RTD, the Rather Tubby  Dinosaur or dinosaurus pinguior, was my favourite teacher at Lord Wandsworth College, otherwise known as LWC, or the London Water Closet, as I usually called it when I was a student here. RTD taught Latin and double Latin with him on a Friday was the highlight of my week. Not surprisingly, I went on from GCSE O Level Latin to do Latin A level and then Classics at Oxford. Since graduating, I have been a primary teacher in one or two places around the world. I think that it is no exaggeration for me to say that Roger had more influence upon the course of my life any other person. Caecilius is very much alive! ...
Read more