2023 Door Twenty: Breaking Up

Breaking Up

School’s out for winter:
Tomorrow, teachers will go back in as usual
to take down the displays already, with Spotify on
and their own music playing: Swift, or ska,
or heavy metal; songs with no educational value.

This early afternoon, the streets are full
with children, unmoored and aglow,
the secondaries on a sugar-rush,
ramraiding the newsagents five at a time,
and the primaries with their parents,
having cleared out their drawers at the end of term
now laden like the little donkey with artwork and bookbags,

and those of a certain age all with violin cases,
a mob of weary, anxious-looking gangsters
contemplating the rat-a-tat-tat
of the showdown, the shootout, the bloodbath, yet to come.

---

I don’t work in a school anymore, so I’m a bit surprised to have found myself returning to the educational sector for today’s Door, but having witnessed the above scenes in Witney while walking the dog this lunchtime, it felt like a natural subject for a poem.

I also visited two schools as Mayor yesterday, and got the briefest flavour of the exciting, barely-held in chaos that is the last week of term, so maybe that’s been percolating in my tired old brain over the last 24 hours too.

Seeing the parents staggering down Corn Street today with violin cases tucked under their arms put me in mind of Bugsy Malone, which is one of those films that isn’t a Christmas film but is such a fondly-remembered classic that it could easily nestle amongst the schedules across the festive season, a la Wallace and Gromit, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Great Escape. Four very different films there. If only the latter had featured splurge guns, the course of history might’ve been quite different.

I’ve always wondered why we expect primary school age children to learn the violin? Or the recorder, for that matter. Why always the instruments that sound pretty hideous unless you’ve really mastered them? You can’t fault their effort, or enthusiasm, but blimey, sometimes “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” sounded more like a fire at the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.

I’m off to Oxford tonight to see a play at the Old Fire Station, with Luci and our wonderful friend Rachel, so that’s all I’ll say for this evening. Have a lovely night folks, particularly if you’re a teacher putting your feet up for Christmas. Here’s to you.

Screeeeeeech. Five days to go…

Owen x

2022 Door Twenty: School Photos

School Photos

In the school corridor, there’s a school photo,
And dead centre, there’s me, 2001, eight or nine years old
Fringe almost in my eyes, pale face, impish grin,
On a grey day in the playground – I can’t say I remember it well

And he’s staring down across the corridor at a school photo
2022, my thirtieth birthday, I’m there, off-centre, hands in my lap
Round my neck a tie I didn’t tie from my old university,
Sat with the staff, Office Administrator, hair kempt, cheesy grin

And he’s staring down across the corridor at me,
Coat on for the last time, round my neck the scarf my Granny knitted.
Picking up my bag, taking my leaving presents and saying goodbye,
Staring down the corridor for one last time.

---

Over the course of the Poetry Advent Calendar this year and last, I’ve alluded a few times to working in a school. In actual fact, it’s the same primary school that I went to, for seven years, and it has been nice to be back – although today was officially my last day, as I’m off to pastures new. It’s a natural thing, a good move career-wise, but a gently sad thing too, as I feel like a significant chunk of my three decades on Earth has been intertwined with the place, and the building that has barely changed since I aced my Year 6 SATs. Even in my teenage years, when I was in an amateur dramatics group (as I think I referenced ages ago here) we used to rehearse in the school hall, so it’s been a big part of my life. I also associate it closely with my beloved Granny, who used to pick me and my brothers up every afternoon, always ready with a squashy cuddle and softmint, so I’m glad I was able to give her a mention today too. At one point, in the front garden of the school, there used to be a tree or shrub she’d had planted there in my memory of my Grandad, who died when I was five. I don’t think it’s there anymore, which makes me a bit sad.

I also mentioned my ‘kempt’ hair (no idea if that’s a proper word or not), and today, in the final assembly of the term, a Christmas singalong celebration, a girl in Year 2 sidled up to me, and very innocently told me “in your new job, you won’t be allowed to have messy hair like you do now.” After a minute’s pause, she looked up at me again, wide-eyed, and said: “What are you, lazy or something?” I threw my head back and roared with laughter, and then joined in dancing with the rest of them.

There was a lovely song that got sung today, that gets sung at Our Lady of Lourdes at any ‘leaving assembly’, as today was. It’s led by the Principal on the ukulele, and although the chorus is always the same the verses always change to honour who’s leaving. There was one for me today, along the lines of “You were here as a pupil so long ago/Today it’s goodbye, but forever, who knows?” The lovely bit though was the chorus – “So long, we’ve been glad to know you (x 3)/We’ll miss you when you are gone/But it’s time to keep drifting along.”

I’ve had it in my head all afternoon. I’ll keep it in my head, and my heart, as I keep drifting along.

Thanks OLOL. Good luck with Ofsted.

And it’s so long. Five days to go…

Owen x