Category: school

The recent graphic images of dying refugees, coupled with threats of a bombing campaign in Syria made me stop and think about what my daughters think of the world around them. 

Do these events frighten them? Are they scared for their own lives? How different is the world in 2015, compared with my upbringing in the 70s and 80s?

Threads

The image above is taken from a TV movie shown on the BBC in 1984 called Threads. 

At the time, as a school kid, this was a huge deal. 

The film showed what would happen in the event of a nuclear attack on Sheffield and the fallout thereafter.&nbsp
Continue reading “Are our kids growing up in a safer world than we did?”

There’s something magical about making the trip to work on the first day of half-term.

Suddenly, the roads are clear of 90% of traffic. The pavements are clear of another 50% of pedestrians. The trains are clear of another 20% of commuters.

All in all, an exceptionally pleasurable experience on a crisp, sunny October morning. Shame it only lasts a week!

I was walking home the other night from the chip shop and couldn’t help spotting a TV flickering through someone’s front-room window.

It was one of those 95-inch screen jobbies that you can see from space, so I was hardly snooping… anyway, that’s by the by.

Who should I see on screen but my former History teacher from school. And having Googled him, I now discover that Alex Kershaw is an author of some note and repute.

He was a talking head on one of those History Channel documentaries about WW2 from what I could tell and, even though it’s almost 20 years on, he looked very similar to how I remember him.

Alex Kershaw was one of those teachers you love as a pupil. As a sixth-former studying Contemporary History, it was pretty cool to be taught by a 24-year-old teacher almost fresh out of university with a passion for left-wing politics and bags of charisma with it.

I remember one particular trip into London to go to the Imperial War Museum when he was happy to take a few of us to the pub before the proper business of the day.

For some reason that escapes me now, the watering holes of London were left untouched, but the sentiment was there.

The moral of the story here, though, is keep an eye on people’s front room windows – you never know who you might see.