Education, Headlands, RattleBag and Rhubarb

And of Course We Called Her “Nutty”

Before I learned to be afraid of Miss Jacob I was terrified by Miss Almond. First week, first form at Headlands. First history class. Miss Almond, in her academic gown presiding. She was one of those teachers who could see round corners and knew what you were up to even though she was busy writing on the big roller board…

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Education, Headlands, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Changed Face of School Leadership

The schools we attend and work in help shape the people we become. Seven of my sixty plus years in school were spent here – at Headlands Grammar School, Swindon. It is long gone and the site redeveloped.  When people go into education as a career they sometimes seek to replicate the good experiences of their own schooling. Others dedicate…

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Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb

“Gervase, I’ve Lost a Toy Shop”

Always fun to find half-remembered books. One bonus of this decluttering lark is that you find so many of them. What to do? Choices: Keep: The book has an enduring value. While there is no more room you just have to hold on to this one. It’s either irreplaceable or just a core component of your identity and emotional furniture. …

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Clearing the Clutter

These days find me busy clearing and chucking, sorting and sifting, storing and saving. Three truck loads of stuff cleared by the junk removers, hundreds of books donated to the Poughkeepsie Library and wardrobes full of clothing to the Salvation Army. And still there’s more. As I clear out the clutter and crap and treasure and trove of decades, I…

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Art, Film, Photography, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Games They Played

A recent visit to Montreal found us at the MAC Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal Fortified with coffee and breakfast treats at Olive et Gourmando on Rue St. Paul, we walked up Rue Saint-Pierre and onto Rue de Bleury to Rue Sainte-Catherine. We managed to miss the entrance – even though it was right in front of us – but nonetheless…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

Sports Report and the Spots of Time

It’s a late afternoon on a winter Saturday of my childhood. And that means the big Ferguson radio – the one that had the exotic place names on the dial – Hilversum, Strasbourg, Luxembourg, Limoges, Toulouse – is warmed up. The fire is lit, the coal scuttle is full and the kettle is on.  And my father – who was…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Escape from the Spirit People

When a re-wired, pack-rat educator takes a deep dive in the basement there’s no telling what she will find in those decades worth of edutrivia. (This post by the way is  Part Three of “My Life with the Spirit People”. Part One is here. You may ask: “Where is Part Two?” Well – I haven’t written it yet.) Take this…

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Art, Film, Photography, RattleBag and Rhubarb

From Minty to Moses – the Extraordinary Fierce and Fearless Harriet Tubman

In September we heard Ta-Nehisi Coates in conversation with Oprah Winfrey at the Apollo in NYC. The topic was his first novel The Water Dancer and the ticket price included a copy of the book. The conversation was interesting – Oprah is really good at this kind of thing and she clearly loved the book. And so did I. It’s…

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City and Country, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Look Up, Look Down, Look Out

Before all the leaves are down take a moment to look up. This is Innisfree Garden last Saturday.  Big Halloween storm came through and probably tore a few more leaves down. Certainly took three shingles off the roof. And then look down. Robert Macfarlane tweeted about “beechmast” this week and certainly this has been a mast year for our oak…

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW1

The Irish Airman and Time for a Flu Shot

Yeats wrote the poem “The Wild Swans at Coole” (see Game of Swans) in 1916 /17 when he was staying with Lady Gregory at her home in Coole Park, Galway and feeling lovelorn. In 1919 he used the title for a collection of poems  that he dedicated to her son –  Major Robert Gregory – the Royal Flying Corps fighter…

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Decomposition

Decomposition I have a picture I took in Bombay of a beggar asleep on the pavement: grey-haired, wearing shorts and a dirty shirt, his shadow thrown aside like a blanket. His arms and legs could be cracks in the stone, routes for the ants’ journeys, the flies’ descents, Brain-washed by the sun into exhaustion, he lies veined into stone, a…

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Game of Swans

A group of swans is a wedge when they’re in flight, likely because of the shape a group of swans takes in flight. And while we can call a group of swans a bevy, a herd, a game, or a flight, they can only be a bank when they’re on the ground. Merriam-Webster But there’s more:  a gaggle of swans  a whiteness of swans  a herd of swans…

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Books, Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Angela Brazil, the Tribal World of School and School Change

Scooterons-nous vite. It’s Back to School with Angela Brazil Long before Harry Potter – and indeed long before all those school story authors who gave us Malory Towers and St. Clare’s and the Chalet School and the Abbey School and Jennings and Billy Bunter – there was Angela Brazil. Brazil – rhymes with dazzle – didn’t invent the school story…

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Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb

All Hands Above Board for the Scuttlebutt

It’s always fun when someone you know – a friend – has a book published. Here’s Three Sheets to the Wind by Cynthia Barrett about the nautical origins of everyday expressions.  This is not a compendium of sailing idioms – all that tacking, luffing, jibing and heeling language of the business of sailing. This is rather the expressions we use…

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