Staycation, and classroom despair

Philippa and I are looking to book a little holiday. We’re not going to drag Mathew halfway around Europe on a shitty plane, but there are plenty of decent little places within driving distance of Suffolk. It will just be nice to have a change of scenery, and to change nappies in a different location for a change. God – I used the word ‘change’ a lot in that sentence; good job I don’t have an A-level English teacher marking my blog postings the way they used to mark my essays. I still get a shudder of hatred and despair whenever I see someone writing with a red pen – it takes me back to several unpleasant encounters with Mr Hardiman, a sadistic {naughty word deleted} who took great delight in handing out ‘D’ grades, and who wielded his cheap BIC pen like a gladiator wielded a broadsword.

Now I’m in a terrible mood again.

Why is it that thinking of a teacher you didn’t get on with decades ago makes you feel like an unhappy 11-year-old all over again? I guess it’s all down to the lack of control. In my day, if a teacher was a bastard to you then you just had to put up with it for another four years or so. They held great power over you, and you knew it and felt helpless. Maybe that’s why it still rankles me twenty-five years later. Still – he was close to retiring then, and he smoked about 60 a day, so the chances are he’s dead by now.

I feel better now.

RC 8-5-19