Friday, August 05, 2011

More of the 50

13. Learn kickboxing.
14. Do a 10K run.
15. Eat tripe.
16. Do an oil painting.

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

50 at 50


On September 19th I'm 50. I'm completely cool about this fact. My approach to ageing is similar to Woody Allen's, in that I can't help feeling that it's infinitely preferable to the only feasible alternative.

I've decided to come up with a list of small challenges to tick off over the course of my 51st year on this earth. Some of them will involve more effort than others. I'm going to start compiling that list now, with the first few things which sprung to mind as I walked Apollo this morning.

1. Stay alive.
2. Stay within 2lbs of 9 stone 9.
3. Pass my Spanish GCSE.
4. Complete book 3.
5. Sell one of my books.
6. Perfect a cheese souffle.
7. Go to flamenco classes. (God I do sound like an old bird, don't I?)
8. Start doing an activity with my husband.
9. Start doing an activity with my daughter.
10. Start doing an activity with my son.
11. Write in my blog every day. Maybe this blog, maybe another.
12. Spend more time with my friends. (I'll have to sharpen this one up a bit.)

I'll come back to this. Sensible suggestions welcome.

Monday, July 11, 2011

If you drop litter you stay at school until 6pm...


... and the same applies if you don't wear uniform properly or you fail to complete your homework properly. In return, teachers work hard to provide appropriate teaching for every child in their charge and assessment and feedback is careful and targeted. The children come from Hackney primary schools, where many of them were failing before they arrived at secondary school. Last year 10 of their sixth form left in possession of offers from Cambridge University.

In a world where the most stubborn educational statistic to shake, more so than differences in race or gender, has proven to be the social background of a child, this is a cheering story. This is Mossbourne Academy under the leadership of Michael Wilshaw, much beloved of Michael Gove.

Check out the video on this website: www.mossbourne.hackney.sch.uk

Being something of a zero tolerance teacher, I think this is great. I was taught very early in my teacher training that hildren live up OR DOWN to their teachers' expectations of them. It is the first rule of my classroom practice. People think that the idea of imposing strict rules to achieve ends is a right-wing attitude, and I feel uncomfortable sometimes espousing that notion, but if the end goal is that the child's life chances should be enhanced, then surely that is the over-riding consideration. I'm sure that a lot of sneering goes on when Mossbourne is mentioned, but quietly I wonder how many people would like to give their model a whirl.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Oh, no, Shane. No, Shane, no, Shane; NO!


What have you let her do to you, Shane? Weird chestnut hair, taut uber-polished skin around clear dead eyes, eyebrows belonging on a camp waiter... Do you look in the mirror and think "Man, you look young?" Or do you gaze at yourself in fear and horror, the dawning realisation of something beyond your control crystallising in your head? Is that glazed expression really masking blind panic, a 'how do I get myself out of this?' white haze?

You've got to worry about Liz Hurley, mind. I once had respect for her. She was bright, articulate, a bit of a party animal. And then she started believing her own hype. This erstwhile 'most beautiful girl in London' I read about in the early 90s has morphed into some kind of sniffy, over-cooked, age and looks-obsessed celebrity hag who has so far lost touch with what real people (or 'civilians' as she once so memorably dismissed us as being) look like when they haven't made use of the dubious gifts of assorted surgeons, needle-wielders, chemical-peelers, star hairdressers and eyebrow-shapers. You can't look a bit rough and characterful in that world. If you put someone in a shell like that I bet character and humour suffocates and dies. Does she really think she's improved him??? Really?

Well, Shane. I don't think you ever were or ever will be much of an oil painting but you did have bags of character in your face and your over-highlighted hair. I honour THAT Shane.


Oh, and one last thing, Shane...

RUN.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Iain McCallum 1929-2005

Dad died just over six years ago now. I won't pretend that I think of him every single day, because I don't think I do. My mother does think him every day; probably every hour. Everything in her life reminds her of something to do with him. Every month holds a dozen anniversaires; every day a thousand tiny micro jolts of memory.

So no, I don't think of him like that. I don't even, as I used to, see something, read something, hear something and think "I must ask Daddy about that". I do, however, often reflect on things he said, habits he had, aphorisms of his and wonder at how wise he was. (Most of the time; occasionally he got it spectacularly wrong!) I've passed many of his nuggets to my children. Among them:

- Never trust any group who gesture en masse above their heads with a hand shaped like a fist or a slap. Mass violence shows itself.
- Try as hard as you like, but never LOOK as though you're trying. It smacks of desperation and scares people.
- Swear to release pressure. Don't swear AT people. It's unattractive and violent.
- Be nice to every single person you ever meet. It's good breeding. Only ill-mannered oafs feel that there are people of lower status than they, and they can be unpleasant to them.
- If something's worth doing, it's worth doing well. If it's not worth doing, don't do it at all.
- Be yourself. If you try and be someone else, you'll be uncomfortable and you'll always get found out.
- Your body is ony a vessel to carry around your brain. It's nice to have a pretty box, but the present is more important.

Happy Father's Day, everyone.

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Sarah Palin. Oh Dear, I seem to be on about her a lot...

She wants to be President.

...


...sorry, I have to go and lie down in a dark room until it gets better.

I'm just going to come out and say it...


I LOVE teenagers. They're funny, sweet, sulky, endearing, infuriating but above all interesting. They speak their minds, don't smarm you (because they haven't learned how to yet) and make you splutter with laughter when they come out with gauche or ill-judged comments which, if you had no sense of humour, would make you give them a detention and register a formal complaint with the authorities.

They get a bad press because there are a small minority who, probably because of circumstances which pre-existed their ability to make a decision, have no idea of, or respect for, the rules of living in a society. If the logic which says 'some teenagers are feral and dangerous, therefore I will avoid them, especially when in groups," were in the ascendant, men would be avoided by all women. Women would be avoided by most women. Dogs would cower and hide from humans. Cats... well, you get my drift.

The ruth remains that the vast majority are hard-working, thoughtful, kind and funny. They love their mothers, but listen to their friends more. And they mostly turn into lovely adults.

So, I'm a teacher and a mother of teenagers, and I say "Up with teenagers!" They make the world a more interesting place to be.

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Another reason to loathe Tesco


You wouldn't think there were many more reasons to detest the giant conglomerate stealthily taking control of this country by spreading like a giant slug and suffocating small business wherever it goes, soaking up all objections to its progress and inexplicably leading councils, boroughs and government to gently push away piles of protests from men and women in the street, signing all permissions without demur, precisely as requested, and then rolling over and asking Tesco to slime their tummies.

But no. Apparently it is not enough to take £1 in every £11 spent in the UK. Now it is essential that no one should derive free benefit from its products, EVEN IF THEY HAVE BEEN THROWN AWAY. Tesco has decided to prosecute some poor woman who took a large quantity of ham from a Tesco bin. Apparently the fact of throwing something away does not mean that you relinquish ownerhip of it. Apparently.

Now, I don't know about you, but it is normally precisely in order to relinquish ownership of something that I put it in a bin. The bin is there to facilitate my relinquishing ownership of it. Because otherwise I would be living in an environment which would lead documentary makers specialising in films about mentally ill people who can't throw anything away and live in their own filth to come knocking on my door. If someone else can find a use for my waste, so much the better. The Freegan movement is well-established and I think performs a useful function, keeping down the tide of waste and utilising that for which most of society has no use.

What I see here is the biggest, fattest, most revolting dog I've ever observed in a manger, growling with aggression while cradling piles of past-sell-date ham.

I personally find the concept of Freeganism far less repulsive than this vile, vile giant slug of a corporation.

Thursday, May 05, 2011

Sarah Palin shoots her mouth off again


Apparently, according to the Great Gob that is Sarah Palin, Barack Obama's White House should publish the gruesome pictures of a mutilated Osama Bin Laden because it will "serve as a warning to America's enemies".

Yeah right, Sarah. That should do it. A man leads a worldwide terror campaign using suicide bombers, but the fact that after ten years of sending volunteers to their deaths to further the cause of the Jihad, because his followers see pictures of his dead, mutilated body, shot by members of the US armed forces, they will all cower behind the sofa whimpering and decide to take up stamp collecting instead. All the nasty men will go away and fluffy bunnies will have their tummies tickled on the streets of New York.

Absolutely no chance that this will stoke the fires of terrorism and inflame the sense that America is even more of an enemy then?

Do you think she understands the meaning of the word 'sensitive'? Oh no, I forgot. She likes pictures of dead things, doesn't she? Used a couple of pictures of herself and her poor kid surrounded by dead things in her campaign as I recall. Silly me.

Thank God Obama won that election - that's all I can say. Thank God the USA has a President who understands cause and effect in foreign affairs...

Monday, May 02, 2011

The right person, not the right party.


With the prospect of local elections on Thursday I'd like to bang on another one of my drums.

What place does party politics have in local government? What does it add to what we end up with?

You'll probably guess that I think the answers to those questions are a) none and b) nothing. I think party politics represents a massive, costly and irrelevant distraction to the business of running a town, borough, county or city. We have MPs whom we elect on party lines, understandably, as that election goes towards deciding which set of ideals and policies the nation has chosen to dictate how it is run over the next few years.

But those are largely, if not totally, irrelevant when you're talking about your worries about that dangerous crossing outside your children's primary school, the ugliness of the new street lamps in the park replacing the old Victorian ones, or the fact that fortnightly rubbish collections are a health hazard when the sun shines.

Party politics is lazy electoral shorthand to which we all subscribe. I vote Labour/Liberal/Conservative and therefore I bin, without reading, all the other leaflets as they come through the door and then go out like an obedient sheep on Thursday and put my cross in the appropriate box. I may not even read the leaflet from my chosen candidate - why should I? I know who I'm going to vote for. The candidates don't even have to have any convictions. They don't have to DO anything, because, unless they mess up spectacularly, voters will choose them or fail to choose them according to decisions made in Westminster.

Local politics is where ambitious young politicians cut their teeth. It is in the main a proving ground for tomorrows MPs and MEPs, somewhere they can be spotted and elevated to considerations for Westminster. In the same way as many local journalists are working hard to be spotted for BBC or ITN, young politicians are aiming at somewhere a long way away from their council wards. There are some who are committed to their local area, of course, and they must be utterly frustrated by the status quo.

In fact the party political element of the council inhibits its efficient running. In Bristol, my home town, the council is more often than labelled as "no overall control". The councillors squabble like children, largely unaware of the appalling impression they're making to their electorate. The Conservatives shout a lot and get people on their side so that Labour initiatives don't get through; the Labour concillors get in a huddle and complain that the Liberals aren't talking to them; the Liberals sulk and turn their back on everybody. And all this on issues which matter to the voters and have nothing to do with what's happening nationally.

If it were up to me I'd ban all overt political affiliation in council elections and get everybody to compete as individuals with reference to local issues. They'd have to work harder and we'd have to work harder to select our preferred candidate. The council would have to work harder to sort things out with reasoned and issue-based debate, and the work of our MPs would continue without distractions because parties of dignitaries would no longer need to be shipped out to bolster support in 'marginal' councils and wards.

If Dave would like to give me a call, I'll help him organise the change. But they why would they, when the status quo is so lazily convenient for them, if not for us?

Sunday, May 01, 2011

My profile picture

Have you noticed that I haven't changed my profile picture? In about five years? I don't look like that any more. Now I look like this:


Well, that was the plan. This is Mariella Fostrup who, like Joan Bakewell in her day, is 'the thinking man's crumpet'. Not a bad epithet, I think. People used to tell me I looked like her, but she didn't put on a shed-load of weight and start to resemble a slightly run-down semi. She also didn't just have the worst haircut since monks decided it might be a good idea to shave a circle of scalp in the back of their heads.

Dukan diet and a visit to Hobbs and I might one day change that profile picture. Mariella is the only thing keeping me eating protein.

Incidentally here is my idea of the thinking WOMAN's crumpet.


Neil Oliver, historian; looks of Braveheart and a voice like warm Scottish heather honey. Yum.

The monarchy


Funnily enough, the existence of the monarchy is one of the very few subjects about which I do not have strong feelings. To anyone who knows me or who reads me, this will seem odd, given that so many other people can get so incredibly worked up about it.

Generally I look at the Royal family and for some reason, for all their weaknesses, they make me feel pleasantly British, part of something. I can't put my finger on why, because from a logical perspective there's not really much solid argument for monarchy. But I suppose the flip side of that is that republican sentiment, especially when virulently expressed, comes across as so joyless, mean-spirited and cross. It's like people who berate fashion, get annoyed by good news stories becase they're distracting from the serious problems of the day, or complain about those who spend lots of money on their pets. They sound as if they would call the police if they saw someone getting beaten up rather than wading in with their fists and shouting obscenities loudly at the attacker (which is the tactic I have planned, should I ever find myself in that position).

As I explained at probably tedious length here www.stuffstillhappens.blogspot.com/2006/06/democracy-has-its-limits.html , I have a bit of an issue with untempered democracy. I think people have been sold a pup with the whole thing. I don't want to see every position of responsibility and/or power in my country filled with beady-eyed, ambitious, power-hungry people who, once in a post, spend too much of their time holding onto their power and position rather than doing the job we pay them for.

I quite like the Queen and I'm glad she's not a President with an eye on the next election and therefore hungry for popularity. I quite like the fact that she doesn't really have to try, if I'm honest. She has to accept popularity or lack of it and carry on doing her job. If the monarchy looks like it's losing the battle she'll smile, shake hands limply, ask people if they've come far, cut ribbons and wave as if nothing at all is happening.

My generation; Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward; were a bit worthy and dull and then three quarters of them went and mildly astonished us by being interesting enough to have extra-marital affairs and/or ditch their other halves, and the fourth quarter raised eyebrows by turning out probably not to be gay. Who knew? The other slightly limiting factor in my enthusiasm for them as I grew up was that they were sadly plain, however much people tried to convince themselves that Andrew was a looker.

Charles has turned out to be less eccentric than he seemed in earlier life, his talking to plants probably having had more to do with the fact that he and his wildly popular wife couldn't stand each other than any deep-seated pottiness; Anne outgrew her reputation for being rude and difficult, turned out to be quite good at something in her own right, took part in the Olympics and is now the 'hardest-working Royal'; 'handsome' Andrew, well, he has continued being a bit of a buffoon and that's starting to look embarrassing as he continues to exhibit poor judgement into his late forties and fifties, and his ex-wife worse; Edward, bless him, seems... how shall I put this politely?... solid. But they smile and ask people how far they've come and cut ribbons and wave and brighten a lot of people's lives. And frankly I can't think of a job I'd like less, but they didn't really have the option to opt out and for that reason I'm grateful to them.

I suppose I have to mention Diana. She was born at almost exactly the same time as me and I felt great pity for her from the moment she started to be pursued by paparazzi from the nursery where she worked. I wasn't a great admirer of Diana's. I didn't buy in AT ALL to the whole Diana cult, seeing her as a nice and conscientious but rather dim and ordinary woman and, although pretty, not the great beauty she was billed as (bit of Emperor's new clothes going on there, I thought). However, she did a good job as a Princess, especially considering that life at home must have been miserable in the extreme. She was also a good mother and had the backbone to bring up her young sons to be modern royals. I was sad for them when she died, but found the slightly Stalinist demands that we should all bare our souls and make mawkish declarations of personal grief unpleasant and at times threatening. I didn't know her after all.

The next generation seem like a better fit for the future. William and Harry are DOERS. Yes, they are born to a life of privilege but it's a life I wouldn't wish on any young person. They have superficial freedom to pursue a career but then they are reminded that they are not normal joes and there are walls around those freedoms. Harry's frustration at not being able to serve as a soldier with his men on the front line being a prime example. The others are generally likeable and reasonably normal, given the circumstances.

The wedding on Friday was a great spectacle - a chance to get out the heraldry, dust down the carriages, wave a billion plastic Union Jacks and have a massive knees-up. It was about unity and goodwill and FUN.

Electoral events are about discord and disagreement. When they work out how to make the whole country want to party, THEN we'll talk.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Sums

I know that UK PLC is a little bit in debt, that it's overspent this month and is hiding in the bathroom with the music turned up so that it won't hear the phone call from the bank. I know that Dave is looking at panicking a bit.

I can see that it looks like a good idea to lay off tens of thousands of public sector workers. No employees for government to pay = no pay bill = joy all round, right? Looks attractive. That'll sort stuff out right? More dosh to cut that overdraft. Excellent.

What I can't quite understand is why, given that we quite a lot of people working in the Treasury, no one's looked at the other side of that equation. To whit no employees = (hefty redundancy + benefits bill) + (inability to spend non-existent pay in UK shops and businesses) = layoffs in private sector + second increase in benefits bill.

Very rarely is public policy as simple as it seems. That's why we need to elect really clever people to run the country.

Which is, as I think I've argued before, the problem.

Saturday, January 08, 2011

Trolls

Got stuck into a snit with some vile, right-wing, probably BNP idiots on the Telegraph website. I do this about once a year and it all makes me feel shaky with anger. Can't bear the kind of mindless, baseless assertions they come out with. Did you know that the far left encourage immigration as a means of destabilising "the system"? Or that Hitler was a far left-wing socialist (clue: Nazi = National SOCIALIST party?) Stupid, stupid people....

They probably feel the same about me, though.

But I'm right. Obv.

Why Stephanie Owen


This was a story I wrote a while back which was published somewhere on the web - can't now remember where - I suppose I should really keep a track of these things somewhere. It was written by an anecdote a friend told me, but I suspect happens every day.


Why Stephanie Owen



That girl was so badly behaved at school. If you wanted to find Stephanie Owen, you knew where to look. Just hop along to Miss Collins’ study and there she’d be, waiting for the latest telling off. In fact, on one occasion I was the one sending her.

It was in the fifth year and I was one of the prefects. Stephanie used to go on about how she thought the ‘whole prefect thing’ was ‘an anachronism’, but she was just jealous. She was so immature. I can remember once when I was overseeing prep in the library and the second years were all behaving themselves and Stephanie and her friend Sarah were sitting in a corner and giggling. I had to maintain order, so after a couple of warnings I sent her out.

“Right, Stephanie. That’s it. I’m afraid I’m going to have to send you to Miss Collins.”

She laughed out loud.

“You are joking, Polly, aren’t you?”

“No – I’m not. Please get your things and go to Miss Collins.”

She and Sarah exchanged looks and screeched with laughter. Honestly, just like a pair of alley cats.

All the second years looked up at Stephanie, shaking her head and trying to speak.

“Oh, Polly Minter. You are just so funny...”

She was still almost crying with laughter as she went out of the door. Which wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. The second years all looked back at me.

“Well get on with it,” I said, “And the next person who opens their mouth will be writing 500 words on ‘listening to the grass grow’.” (I was good at those. My favourite was ‘watching the paint dry’.)

As I went back at my own revision I had the idea that they were laughing, but I couldn’t look up fast enough to catch anyone.

Stephanie and her little gang used to roam the school, talking too loudly, as if anybody could be remotely interested in their self-consciously left-wing opinions. I mean, really! How could anyone come to a school like the Charlotte Asprey and profess left-wing views? To prove their point, they’d be clad in skirts that were too short, jerseys that were too tight, shirts with three buttons undone and ties undone sufficiently to show their hoiked-up breasts. Presumably socialists can’t dress themselves properly. They would wear their hair loose around their shoulders and try and find excuses to come to school without their regulation shoes. Stephanie was the worst. “Sorry, Miss Plumley – my lace broke”, “Sorry Miss Plumley – Mum accidentally put them in with the washing”, “Sorry Miss Plumley, I was late and didn’t want to miss the start of school.” And Miss Plumley, who was ridiculously wet, would smile and let her get away with it. And as she teetered to the back of the class on her black platforms, chewing on the gum she’d temporarily stowed behind her molars, Stephanie would wink at me. These days you can’t use the word, but let’s face it - she was common as muck. God, I loathed her.

Stephanie was a scholarship girl who utterly abused the privileges afforded her by the generosity of the Governors. She never acquired the manners which characterise a Charlotte Asprey girl. She never really understood the standards expected by the school, the responsibility which a position in society demands. Or perhaps, as I sometimes suspect, she did understand, but simply chose not to conform . But then that’s breeding, I suppose. You’ve either got it or you haven’t. Someone like Stephanie, poor thing, was confused. She’d been taken out of her normal environment so of course she wasn’t going to fit in. Oh, she had that odd, rebellious little gang, of course, but she didn’t fit in properly.

She would talk to anyone. ANYONE. I saw her once on the bus laughing and smoking with some oik from the local comp. He was practically drooling into her chest. I wasn’t on the bus, of course. Mummy was driving me to maths coaching – I just happened to glance up. And she and her lot used to drink cider in the park in school uniform. In fact I once went and had a discreet word with Miss Collins about it. After all, it was a suspension offence. But nothing happened. In my opinion, she didn’t take it seriously enough.

In the sixth form mock election Stephanie stood for Labour. Helena Cumming stood for the Conservatives and polled 647 votes. Stephanie polled 22. Which was as it should be. She laughed and said she supposed that that was what she got for standing on a socialist ticket in a school where they gave out deportment badges. I couldn’t see what that had to do with anything.
After she and I both left to go to university I forgot about her. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? We weren’t exactly moving in the same circles. I met Rupert at university and we married the year after we graduated and had Henry and Jemima within a few years. After Rupert came out of the army he took over his father’s successful bathroom fittings company. We have a very nice life together. Henry’s busy, of course, and so am I, but we make time to play golf together. Henry’s doing Media Studies at university. Jemima, who’ll make a lovely little mother, goes to the Charlotte Asprey where I’m one of the Parent Governors. In fact, between ourselves, I’m under some pressure to take up the Chair next year, which is a real honour when you consider that the outgoing Chair is none other than Lady Olive Portland, the famous biographer.
Now I’m not one for politics and all that. Rupert and I vote Tory. What else is there to say? How people can go on and on beats me. It just causes friction at dinner parties, as far as I’m concerned. Or it would if I didn’t skilfully change the subject whenever we’re in danger of veering into that sort of territory. So when Lady Olive approached me in the run-up to Founders Day I was caught entirely off-guard.

“Polly! You never told me that you were in the same year as Stephanie Owen!”

“Who?”

“Stephanie Owen!”

“Oh! Yes, yes... Yes, I was.”

“Well, don’t you think that she’d be the ideal choice to speak to the girls at Founders’ Day? A terrific role model, I should say!”

“Well...”

“I can’t believe that you didn’t mention her when we were discussing the matter at the last Governors’ meeting!”

“Well...”

“Recently appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary for International Aid? I’ve heard she’s tipped for a cabinet position. Extraordinary achievement for an old CA girl! Was she always such a crusading firebrand at school?”

She was smiling lightly, waiting for a reply, but I couldn’t speak. When I recovered myself I croaked.

“She drank cider in the park in school uniform.”

Lady Olive looked momentarily confused, then burst into laughter.

“Did she really? What a character!”

I laughed along uncertainly.

“She probably smoked behind the bike sheds as well,” she volunteered.

“Yes, she did.”

Lady Olive shook her head merrily as she composed herself.

“Anyway, Polly, I think you’d be the appropriate person to write to her and invite her to speak at Founders’ Day. Stress how much of an inspiration she’d be to the girls. You know the sort of thing...”

“I don’t know her address.”

“Oh Polly, you are funny! Stephanie Owen MP, House of Commons, of course! Actually, Right Honourable Stephanie Owen MP.”

“She never married, then .”

“Polly Fanshawe! Don’t you ever read the papers? She’s married to Nick Martin; you know, the union chief – can’t remember which one... health, I think. You don’t get left-wing dynamos like her using taking their husbands’ names!”

She tinkled that by now rather annoying laugh. As if it wasn’t a ridiculous idea. As if it wasn’t a silly bit of left-wing nonsense. As if it wasn’t MOST un-Charlotte Asprey. Why bother getting married, for heavens’ sake, if you weren’t going to have the same name as your children?

“Actually, you’re right, you know. Writing to her would be silly. Why don’t you just call the House directly? I’ll get her number from Bernard.”

“Oh, you don’t need to trouble Sir Bernard!”

“Nonsense, dear. No trouble. I’m sure he spends most of his time in Westminster fast asleep... He only wakes up when one of the younger lady MPs comes into the tea room. And you know how all these old men go on about buxom ‘Ms’ Owen and her, how shall we put this... her feminine credentials!”

No, actually. I didn’t. And I didn’t want to. But as Lady Olive made her excuses and moved away it looked as though there was no way of preventing the reestablishment of my acquaintance with Stephanie Owen.

So a few days later I braced myself, picked up the phone and dialled.

“Hello, may I speak to Stephanie Owen, please?”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“My name is Polly Fanshawe.”

“And what are you calling in connection with, Ms Fanshawe?”

“Mrs.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s MRS Fanshawe.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“I’m calling with an invitation for ...Ms Owen.”

“I’m her PA. Perhaps you can give me the details and I’ll see if she can make it.”

“No, I’d rather speak to her directly. We were at school together.”

“Oh, I see. What was the name again?”

”Polly Fanshawe.. Minter as was.”

“Just one moment Ms...Mrs Fanshawe.”

She put me on hold. I nearly hung up. But then...

“Polly! How are you?”

“Stephanie! I’m fine. Fine.”

“Good, good. Well... Goodness me, this is strange!”

“And you?”

“Yes., fine, fine. What are you up to these days?”

“Oh, you know... the usual. Husband, children, dogs, school...”

“That sounds nice.”

God, what a pointless waste of time. What was wrong with a nice little letter on headed notepaper from Lady Olive Portland in her capacity as Chair of the Governors? Why did I have to endure this excruciating conversation with a ghastly woman I hadn’t seen since she was a ghastly girl and whom I’d have been happy not to see for the remainder of my natural life?

“What can I do for you?”

”Well, the Governors of the school have asked me to invite you...”

“The Governors? Are you one?”

“Yes. They’ve asked me to invite you to speak at Founders’ Day.”

There was a silence at the other end of the line. I had the distinct impression of suppressed laughter, but I’m probably just being paranoid.

“Really? They want me to come back and speak at the CA? Aren’t they nervous about what I’ll say?”

“I think you’ll find that the Charlotte Asprey is a very open and modern school.”

“It’s changed quite a bit, then?”

There it was again, that slightly breathy sound. I had to bite my lip, I can tell you. Where would she have been without the benefit of an education from my old school? Working in Woolworths, I shouldn’t wonder.

“What date is Founders’ Day?”

“July 12th.”

“July 12th... let me see...”

Oh for heavens’ sake.

“Let me see... Oh dear. No Polly, I’m so sorry, but as I suspected, I can’t make it. I’m going to be in Belize on the Tuesday and Wednesday.”

“I’m sorry – did you say you’re not coming?”

“I can’t, I’m afraid.”

“Well...”

“Look, I’ll tell you what - I’d really like to visit. Why don’t you talk to my PA and see if you could get a reservation in my diary for next year? Do you have the date?”

Was she really saying no? The greatest honour that her old school could accord her – and Stephanie Owen, a gum-chewing reprobate who practically had her own naughty chair in the Headmistress’s study, was turning down the chance to address the girls? The cheek of it took my breath away.

“I don’t have the date.”

“What a pity. Well, what can I say? I’m really sorry, but you know how it is. In this job I’m discovering that my diary gets booked up unbelievably rapidly.”

“Yes, well, we all have busy lives.”

Miss bloody High and Mighty.

“Of course, of course. Well. I’m afraid I’m going to have to go, Polly. I’m late for a meeting.
Thank you for calling. Perhaps we’ll speak again.”

“Perhaps.”

Over my dead body.

“Bye then, Polly. All the best. Give my love to the school.”

“Will do. Good bye.”

I hung up and for a moment I felt faint with anger and frustration. Why, of all the wonderful girls in our school, all the fabulous, friends in our year, why had greatness been thrust upon the likes of Stephanie Owen?

Lady Olive was terribly disappointed. I couldn’t understand why. The question of a Founders’ Day speaker was not a problem – there was that rather nice girl from two years below me who’d had a book of chocolate recipes published. But Lady Olive immediately busied herself setting a date for next year’s Founders’ Day with the current headmistress, specifically in order to be able to book Stephanie Owen, which I thought was over-keen.

For days afterwards I felt unsettled and most unlike myself until Rupert, recognising my malaise, presented me with a Hermes handbag, which made me feel a great deal better.