It`s a very ancient saying, but a true and honest thought and these words from The King and I came to mind the other day when I saw a report that a primary school in East Yorkshire has ditched the names Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Nelson and Francis Drake for its school `houses` after complaints from a former pupil that using those names supported `institutionalised racism.`

Instead, the school `houses`will now bear the names of modern day activists - Malala Yousafzal, Marcus Rashford, US poet Amanda Gorman (no, neither have I) and of course this quartet would not be complete without adding Greta Thunberg, who should really be back  in school herself.

The head teacher of the school, one Lee Hill, explained that the ex-pupil had `educated` him about those former house names  - who apparently all have links to slavery, oppression and racism - but despite the significant roles and achievements of those historical figures, Mr. Hill said his pupils wouldn`t know who they were.

One anonymous parent suggested that `these historical figures need to be contextualised, not just forgotten about - will anyone even remember those chosen in the renaming in a few years?`   And another said that `People are going to roll their eyes and think, "Not this again."`

Now when I was at school - back in the days when at least in my experience school seemed to be a regime of fear, threats and intimidation - the `houses` in my secondary school were more classical in their nomenclature.  There was Athens House, Troy, Corinth and Sparta and somehow I found myself as House Captain of the Corinthians.  The role didn`t seem to attract too many onerous duties or responsibilities except a presumption that the business of the house would be conducted along Corinthian lines, especially on the cricket and football grounds.   How times have changed.

But back to East Yorkshire and a reminder that we`re dealing with a primary school here, not some left leaning woke-driven bastion of higher education and, maybe as a primary school, they should consider the merits of Fireman Sam, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb and their chums - if only in an attempt to retain the precious gift of childhood?

Anyway, the words of Oscar Hammerstein and Deborah Kerr and the truth they tell may well be right.....but I suggest it all depends on the lesson being taught.

A CAUTIOUS RE-ENTRY....

OK.  I`ve been away from these pages for some weeks now and so it is with some trepidation that I make this cautious re-entry into the wonderful world of blogging.   The reason for my absence?  Well, in a nutshell I reached the stage when there was so much to rant about, grumble about, even rebel against that I frankly didn`t know where to begin.

In that regard, not much has changed - if anything the mad world we live in has become even more bonkers.  Despite which, I have been inundated with the odd enquiry as to my absence and a little encouragement to have another go, chiefly from my neighbour the well known error of judgement, Mr. Slightly.  But more on that story later.  

I have discovered that finding something to rail against is an almost daily occurrence and it`s difficult therefore to chose something  but I saw a report yesterday that seemed ripe for the attention it deserved, so here goes.

First, the illustration at the top is self-explanatory - not just Orwell`s classic but also the fact that there is something of a local connection - there`s a smart rather exclusive `development` up the road with just a few `desirable residences` which goes by the name of Orwell Spike as it sits on the site of an old workhouse - a spike - which Orwell frequented in his tramping around the countryside.

I was reminded of this when I saw a report yesterday that a school student had been suspended from his school in Aberdeenshire for insisting in his opinion that there were really only two genders and that anything else was the result of `social construct.`

The incident took place when the teacher logged on to a website and found only male or female gender types listed as options, which he claimed was ‘old fashioned’. When the schoolboy disagreed, he was ejected from the class. After being allowed back, he secretly filmed the teacher. In the video, which has been watched on YouTube more than 90,000 times, the teacher can be heard telling the pupil: ‘You’re entitled to your opinion but it is the policy of the authority to acknowledge inclusiveness."   

Seems that Big Brother really is watching you, at least in Aberdeen, although I suspect that the Orwellian Thought Police are pretty widespread in the daft age in which we live.   Time to update 1984 to 2019 and see if we can spot the difference?   I can imagine that the student in question probably goes by the name KZ6090 Smith, W.  But maybe it`s another case of `if you become a teacher, by your students you`ll be taught.`

THE INNOCENCE OF CHILDHOOD ?

My own childhood was `interesting.`Having been born just before the outbreak of WW2 I spent the first five years living in that part of Hampshire which forms the approaches to Southampton.  Most nights I slept under the stairs and heard the bombing of Southampton Docks and other important strategic targets in the area.   I guess I thought that was how life was - I knew nothing different.

But when peace arrived and the bombing stopped and I slept in a bed and when my father came back from his five years of incarceration in a PoW camp we moved to the village of Hythe on the western shore of Southampton Water.   And it was there that I discovered just how interesting, exciting and free being a child could be - our back garden backed on to the shore, the New Forest was just up the road and me and my school chums were given the freedom to explore - we were never indoors it seemed - there was so much to see and do and it was all done with a carefree innocence, devoid of health and safety issues and any thoughts of what adult life might bring.

And I now see reports that children in schools these days are to be given lessons in how to form relationships, how to become aware of and respect diversity, how to recognise and deal with mental health issues, to be taught about the abomination that is FGM  and, yes, to recognise health and safety issues and no doubt to be told about climate change and the perils of plastic.

I`m sure all this may be worthy endeavours but I do wonder whether much of this is designed to make the teaching profession feel better in this age of over protective political correctness.  But most of all I wonder whatever happened to the innocence of childhood when those like me were allowed to be children.

VINDICATION AT LAST..

As a long standing ex-pat from the beautiful south, one of the regular communications I receive each day is a dispatch from the Southern Daily Echo website, showing me all the news from Southampton, the Waterside and the New Forest area, along with the news from Southampton Football Club.   It`s a much appreciated service and essential reading. Well, for me anyway.

Yesterday some interesting news came my way, courtesy of the Daily Echo, which announced that Hardley School had been placed in special measures.  Now, having had my primary school `education` in the village school at Hythe, at the age of eleven I was, along with my equally tremulous school chums, pitchforked into Hardley School, which was then a good old fashioned bog standard secondary modern school.   

And there I encountered my first regime of fear.  The school itself was a forbidding piece of architecture with grey walls and it even had a quadrangle onto which no-one was allowed to set foot without the most dire of consequences.  I don`t remember learning very much - there were gardening lessons, lots of physical activity, quite appalling school dinners and a cast of teachers for whom the advancement of their pupils never quite seemed to top their agenda.  

But perhaps one of the worst aspects was that we boys from Hythe had to get the school bus home from Hardley and on those journeys too there was a constant atmosphere of threat and intimidation from the older thugs, such as the infamous Bluey Miller, who all seemed to come from Dibden Purlieu.  We all breathed a collective sigh of relief when they all got off and we coasted down the hill to the comfort and safety of our village by the sea.   Trouble was, we had to face it all again the next day and so it was with no regret that after a couple of fraught years at Hardley school, my parents and I moved away from the area.

It`s strange how memories of school days and formative years stay with you but perhaps it was the dispiriting time I had at Hardley that made me greet yesterday`s news of it being placed in special measures with a feeling of vindication that after more than 60 years chickens have come home to roost. And of course it has also enabled me finally come to terms with having been Hardley educated. 

THE WRONG ARM OF THE LAW ?

I see that a couple from Shropshire have been fined almost £1,000 for taking their children out of school during term time so they could have a family holiday together for the first time in five years.   Their `crime` was to do so without the express permission of the children`s school and thus they infringed recent legislation introduced by the Government.

Now on one hand it`s hard to disagree with the notion that it is wrong to compromise the education of children in such a way and yet on the other hand I remember very vividly how difficult it can be to afford a family holiday during school holiday times, simply because of the grossly inflated prices charged by holiday companies at those times.

We go away quite often and we rent holiday cottages and we have noticed the steep rise in prices from `term times` to school holiday times - summer, Easter, even half terms see prices almost doubled.   Quite simply, the holiday companies see the families coming, know they are ripe for being ripped off and proceed to do just that.

So, instead of having a law which penalises families  if they have the effrontery to have a family holiday during school time, why not have a law that penalises holiday companies from inflating their prices during school holidays?  They will kick and scream, of course, but all they have to do to maintain their profit margins is to even out their prices across the year.   Those like me wouldn`t complain about paying a little more if it meant that families could afford to go on holiday without compromising the education of their children.  Simples?

TWO OF A KIND ?..

It`s a curious thing but, having lived in Kent for well over 50 years, I still try to maintain some sort of contact with the places where I grew up (at least physically if not mentally.)   So I still follow the fortunes of Southampton Football Club and each day I get a news feed from the local Southampton newspaper, the Southern Daily Echo.   And it was reading an article today that brought back some poignant memories of a particular incident on my very first day at school.

In a nutshell, the story in the Echo is all about a four year old boy who on his own first day at a Winchester primary school, decided he`d had enough and so after lunch decided to walk home.   Cue parental indignation, school embarrassment, thorough going security review and big article in local paper - all very predictable these days.

My own experience - back in 1944 or 1945 I`m not sure which - was essentially the same but with some added ingredients.  Now for quite some time before I started school, I had repeatedly been told that on that particular day, I would have to go.  I took it to mean just that one day - no-one mentioned anything about going the day after that and the day after that....... 

Anyway, just before the lunch break, I was convinced the teacher mentioned something to the effect that the best behaved child in the class could go home early. Looking back on it, I`m sure that wasn`t what she actually said but I convinced myself that it was.   Moreover, I also convinced myself that as I had behaved impeccably, I had earned the right to go home early.   So I did.  Just after lunch.

I began what was for me at that age a fairly long walk from Fawley school, shown on the right, back to where my mother and I were living during wartime with my aunt and uncle in the next village of Blackfield.   And as I trudged along, a couple of things happened.   It started to rain and also some doubts began to emerge as to whether I really should be doing this.  

So I hung around a bit, killing some time until, in my mind at least, I would arrive home when I was supposed to.   When I got there, far too early and soaked to the skin, my mother gave me one of her accusative stares, in response to which I could only proffer the pathetic statement which I still recall to this day - "I thought it would rain so I walked home."

No parental indignation, no school embarrassment, no thorough going security review and no article in the local paper - things were different back then.   But I`m pretty sure the adventures of the four-year old from Winchester will stick in his memory just as long as mine have    Maybe he and I are two of a kind after all, although I`m not sure I should wish that on him.

TEACHING MATHS IN BRITAIN..

This `came my way,` and I couldn`t resist passing it on:-

1. Teaching Maths In 1970

A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100.  His cost of production is 4/5 of the price.

What is his profit?

2. Teaching Maths In 1980

A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is 80% of the price.

What is his profit?

3. Teaching Maths In 1990

A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is £80.

How much was his profit?

4. Teaching Maths In 2000

A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is £80 and his profit is £20.

Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

5. Teaching Maths In 2005

A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habit of animals or the preservation of our woodlands.

Your assignment: Discuss how the birds and squirrels might feel as the logger cut down their homes just for a measly profit of £20.

6. Teaching Maths In 2009

A logger is arrested for trying to cut down a tree in case it may be offensive to ethnic or religious groups not consulted in the application for the felling licence. He is also fined a £100 as his chainsaw is in breach of Health and Safety legislation as it deemed too dangerous and could cut something.   He has used the chainsaw for over 20 years without incident.  However, he does not have the correct Certificate of Competence and is therefore considered to be a recidivist and habitual criminal. His DNA is sampled and his details circulated throughout all government agencies. He protests and is taken to court and fined another £100 because he is such an easy target.

When he is released he returns to find itinerant travellers have cut down half his wood to build a camp on his land. He tries to throw them off but is arrested, prosecuted for harassing an ethnic minority, imprisoned and fined a further £100. While he is in jail again  the rest of his wood is cut down and sold on the black market for £100 cash.  Several tonnes of rubbish and asbestos sheeting are left behind when the site is finally vacated and when the forester is released from prison he  is warned that failure to clear the fly tipped rubbish immediately at his own cost is an offence. He complains and is arrested for environmental pollution, breach of the peace and invoiced £12,000 plus VAT for safe disposal costs by a regulated government contractor.

Your assignment: How many times is the logger going to have to be arrested and fined before he realises that he is never going to make £20 profit by hard work, give up, sign onto the dole and live on benefits for the rest of his life?

7. Teaching Maths In 2010

A logger doesn’t sell a lorry load of timber because he can’t get a loan to buy a new lorry because his bank has spent all his and their money on a derivative of securitised debt related to sub-prime mortgages in Alabama and lost the lot, with only some government money left to pay a few million-pound bonuses to their senior directors and the traders who made the biggest losses.

The logger struggles to pay the £1,200 road tax on his old lorry. However, as it was built in the 1970s it no longer meets the emissions regulations and he is forced to scrap it.

Some illegal immigrant loggers buy the lorry from the scrap merchant and put it back on the road. They undercut everyone on price for haulage and send their cash back home, while claiming unemployment for themselves and their relatives. If questioned they speak no English and it is easier to deport them at the government`s expense. Following their holiday back home they return to the UK with different names and fresh girls and start again. The logger protests, is accused of being a bigoted racist and as his name is on the side of his old lorry he is forced to pay £1,500 registration fees as a gang master.

The Government borrows more money to pay more to the bankers as bonuses are not cheap. The parliamentarians feel they are missing out and claim the difference on expenses and allowances.

You do the maths.