My Irish English Teacher

When I was thirteen we got a new English teacher. He was Irish. He spoke with a Irish accent, a shortish man (or so I remember) always wearing a pin stripped suit, if somewhat rumpled, and white hair and beard.

I went to a Secondary Modern School which meant I had failed my 11 plus and also meant that basically not a lot was every expected of me academically. Most of the time we sort of looked at bits of writing and bit of literature and bits of poetry and it felt like we were never really expected to understand it, never expected to care.

This man tried to introduce us to good literature, he talked about Shakespeare and poetry and literature. He tried to educate us. Trouble was he was Irish. I never knew whether he came from Southern or Northern Ireland (my memory of his soft accent made me think he came from Southern Ireland) but at that time, with the political atmosphere of the IRA and terrorism and bombing in the UK - it didn't matter to me. I heard on the TV that we were at war with Ireland (well basically we were) , that they wanted to maime and kill us. My dad used to visit London sometimes and I was terrified he would get blown up by an Irish bomb. It was a frightened time and I wasn't old enough to understand or even try to understand Irish politics - certainly nothing I saw on TV tried to show me another side to the story. Also my father was a devoutly religious man, being a strong Church of England Protestant so I was very influenced by his prejudice of Catholicism and what that might represent.

My teacher never had a chance - I just argued, played up, called him terrible names and was totally uncooperative. This was not the norm for me, often I was a quiet child who kept my head down and tried to get through the day. Yet he tried to teach us stuff that I now wish I had listened too - I wish I had discovered them then, some I wish I know now.

He left after a few months - it's amazing he lasted that long - it must have been hell working in a Norfolk country school with uneducated, uneducatable kids who just didn't want to hear him.

I often think about him - I often regret that missed opportunity to learn. I wish I knew what happened to him or could even remember his name. I am sorry I was such an awful pupil. I hope he found a school where he could teach and pupils could learn from him.

He once told the class that we would never learn anything - that we deserved the education we got. Harsh but with him this was probably true. I am glad I have fought to recieve and education, worked hard and got to the age of 50 with a better understanding and a way of looking at both sides (well sometimes).

Wish I could tell him that.

Going to the Tip

I know I have talked about this before on my blog but today I am taking a trip to the tip. Just really taking a couple of broken bits and garden waste - the thing is I have been putting it off for days and I was not sure why. I know the local tip can be very busy and sometimes you have to sit in the car in a queue waiting your turn but I don't think it is this that has made me reticent.

The thing is I have a bit of a magpie personality - I am not the worst but neither am I great. I collect bits - books particularly and I hate, I mean really hate things that are good going to the tip. If I get rid of anything useful I have to take it to the charity shop or it bothers me. It sits in my mind as wasteful thing to do. I am a bit 'anal' about recycling, I hate it when I see tin cans and bottles in ordinary bins when they should be in the recycling. I have sometimes gone as far as taking them out and putting them in a recycling bin - especially if there is one close. I know I nagged at college about people putting rubbish in the right bins. So when I get to the tip I mustn't look at all the really good stuff that is just going in the bin, garden furniture that is perfectly good but just might need a coat of paint, wooden furniture that is reusable or would make excellent fire wood, paintings, rugs, bikes and toys - the list goes on.

I just have to shut my eyes and get on with disposing of my rubbish.

Shut my eyes and not look at what other people are dumping.

Shut my eyes and not think about giving wasteful dumpers dirty looks.

Shut my eyes and not think about asking them for that perfect little wicker chair.

Shut my eyes and get on with throwing my rubbish away.

Dix

Mind you I might take some money and see what they have in the recycle shop - I'm looking for a hideous print to paint (long story and another post hopefully). Old habits die hard.

A Second hand poetry book

I may have mentioned this before but I like buying second hand poetry books - I will spend ages browsing and enjoying them before making cheap purchases. This book cost me a pound and has some wonderful work in it. I think some, or maybe all of it, is very female and so for me easy to empathise with but I still think others will enjoy this work. I am going to blog some of my favourites over the next few weeks. I hope you enjoy.

Is This Where I Was Going? by Natasha Josefowitz

Today's Women

We are

Today's women

Born Yesterday

Dealing with tomorrow.

Good Management Potential

If I'm assertive,

I'm seen as aggressive.

If I'm aggressive

I'm a bitch.

I won't be promoted.

Let's try it again.

If I'm nonassertive,

I'm seen as a patsy.

If I'm a patsy

I won't be promoted.

Let's try it once more.

If I'm very careful,

I can go unnoticed.

If I'm unnoticed,

no one will know

I want to be promoted.

Any suggestions?

Stereotypes

She said to him

"The academic life must be pleasant

You're a professor, how nice!"

He said to her,

"Well, maybe someday

you'll marry one"

She said to him,

"Why should I marry one

when I can be one?"

Promotion

If she wants to move up

but he wants to move in,

one of them will move out

and it won't be him.

Can't Do It All!

If I do this

I won't get that done

If I do that

this will slip by

If I do both

neither will be perfect.

Not everything worth doing

is worth doing well.

All poems by Natasha Josefowitz - blogged with admiration.

A Poem by Boy (with help from me)

A SPELL TO MAKE ME RICH

Heart from a horse
Followed by engine from a Porsche

Leg from a shiny lizard
Followed by a big snowy blizzard

Brain from a dog
Followed by a thick smoky smog

Ear from an owl
Followed by a big angry scowl

Arm from a spider
Followed by a cool pint of cider

Eye from a frog
Followed by a nice smelling hot dog

Head from a fish
Followed by a great golden dish

Foot from a cat
Followed by a spinning hat.




An exercise in rhyming couplets for Boy's homework - his basic idea with help from my rhyming dictionary and a few adjectives.

A poem by Miriam Dorothy Tripp

A bird now rests as high can be
On topmost twig of nearest tree
And watches, waits til red is grey
But still is loathe to go away
Both hardly sway uplifted twig
For birdies feet are not so big
And weight in grams so very low
‘tis hardly that the tree could know
Thy presence there; although dost bear
Thee, high up in the winter’s air,

Adjacent tree now bears a friend,
Cheep cheep and does she comprehend?
Appearing now that nearby tree
And birdie friend come sit with me
Uplifted wings – she’s come to thee
Together cheep contentedly
Then, off and up and swoop away
Perhaps they’ll come another day,

By Miriam Dorothy Tripp

I never met the lady who wrote this poem. In fact I never knew she existed until after she had died (she died in March this year). She was not directly related to me but was Boy's aunt. He (and I) were sad that we were never told about her, that he was never able to send her a card or meet her. We just found out she died and her brother sent a little money for Boy. She was in her late 70's so had a longish life. I know little else, or really nothing about her. Just a story that sounded like she had a sad life. Maybe her life wasn't sad, maybe really it was ok. I don't know.

This poem is strangely old fashioned yet I like it. It makes me think of the author and wish I had met her. I visualised a little robin or robin in a tree cheeping away contentedly. Apparently this poem was published in our local daily paper (I don't know when) and somehow I thought I must give it another chance of an audience, however small.

Hope you enjoy it; hope it gives you a little picture of nature; hope you remember the lady who wrote it if even in you minds eye.

Mog

End of Dream Time

I am fifty next week.

At the moment I am really unwell with the most terrible cold bug that will not go.

Bringing up boy is much much harder than I thought it was going to be.

My friend has moved away permanently.

In fact I don't really have much in the way of friends at all. I have made a list for my party and lots of people aren't coming - uhmm - are they telling me something?

I can't get a job - even one that I don't really want.

I am fat - really overweight, probably the biggest I have ever been and this makes me feel valueless and ugly and useless. It is probably the reason I can't throw off this dam bug as well.

So where am I in life.

Every job I have ever had, even when I have really enjoyed them and more importantly been really good at I have left, got bored, fed up, felt I wasn't good enough and moved on - or tried to. Now I don't really have a job (well bringing up boy is a job but I ain't doing to well at that at the moment). I really want a job and I want to stay in it, be reliable (another thing I ain't too good at) and have a job that I can see and make myself have a future in.

How am I going to make this happen?

I think it is time to stop the dream. All my life I have wanted to write, think that I am good enough to write and be published. Trouble is even when I have the time I don't. I just don't. There is always an excuse. My life is full of excuses for not doing, for not being.

Well it has to stop.

I don't write, I only dream about it. Yes I went to University and got a degree in Creative Writing and what has that achieved. Basically nothing. If I really wanted to write I would, I would stop making excuses. I would stop using it as an excuse for not getting on with my life, getting a job and being a successful, useful person.

If I had a job that paid OK I could go and see my friend in Scotland, I could afford to get the things done on the car. I could do a bit more with my time outside work instead of sitting and dreaming.

Today the dreaming is stopping - I have to get on my life and leave it all behind. I think I will be happier for it. I know I will be happier for it.

Dix

Ill again!!!

I can't believe I'm feeling ill again. Same old, same old. I feel hot and cold, full of yukky phlegm, running nose, headache, knackered, headachy (if that is a word) and cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough. I have always succumbed to things easily but since I had my tonsils out these colds had not been so virulent or often. But I had that grotty flu at Christmas and since then I have gone down with one thing after the other. And it is pissing me off. Today my nose is making a whistling, squeaky noise all of its own accord. It's like it has nothing to do with me at all and is just whistling away on its own. At least it shows I am breathing but hey, think I could do without the side effects and don't get me into the side effect of constantly coughing. I am a woman of a certain age and this constant coughing is well, putting it not very nicely, giving me damp drawers! The weather is brilliant today and all I want to do is curl up on the settee, dozing and watching crap day time TV (not Homes Under the Hammer - I still like that). It's just not fair. Please cold go away, stop my nose whistling, stop me snoring at night like a hog and stop me feeling either extremely hot or shivery cold. I hate being ill. Dix