Dispatches From a Dilettante Read Online Free PDF Page B

best a ‘satisfactory’ school, but in reality was a hugely under achieving one. It goes without saying that one of the weaknesses was the fact that they employed me. Although I thought of little else other than how I could get out of the position I had got myself into, it was never the kids that made me want to leave. They were challenging but direct and always funny. They played the hand they were dealt in life without complaint. Force fed religion alongside some subjects that had no relevance to their lives they exuded a knowing resilience, and in the circumstances, handled it all with minimum fuss, albeit with little enthusiasm.
    Three years after I left in the totally unprofessional way I described in the prelude, I bumped into two members of staff that I had known quite well. We were in a pub, and they were having a Christmas drink with friends before going onto the staff party at St. Augustine’s where they had remained. Predictably I had consumed more than a few drinks and in a moment of madness agreed to accompany them to the party. The initial coolness, and frankly puzzlement, that I was greeted with was well deserved. To their eternal credit those that did remember me, including the same head teacher, soon thawed and were friendly to a fault. I almost missed Education more than it clearly missed me.

3.
BAHAMIAN IDYLL 1980-1981
     
    My panting was increasing both in volume and speed my profuse sweating caused a damp stain to appear on the bed cover. I have a recollection of a vague feeling of nausea and embarrassment in the instant before I fainted. Meanwhile less than a metre away my wife was giving birth to our second son without a murmur. By the time I came to it was all over or more accurately it was all just beginning for Joseph Edward Rowson.
    The faint was a result of a frantic dash from the train station after an equally traumatic interview in London that day for a job in Bahamas. I sense that I may lose a few female readers if I continue to use the word trauma in respect of my own condition that day, given what my wife had been doing. Nevertheless this being in the days before emails and mobile phones, I had spoken from London by landline to her after the interview and as usual she had listened patiently. Only as an afterthought did I enquire as to progress on the pregnancy front, to be informed that a taxi had just been ordered to take her to the hospital as the birth was imminent. The train journey home, not surprisingly, seemed to take an eternity but gave me the chance to realise that it would be better to hit the platform running than get a taxi to the hospital on arrival into Leeds.
    Three months later we hit the Bahamas still running after a frantic readjustment to our lives. En route the plane had stopped in Hamilton, Bermuda for re- fuelling. The captain informed us that we would be on the tarmac for an hour and that the cabin doors would be opened. We were invited to stroll around the plane. Having left the kids in the care of two elderly Mexican women who were sitting opposite, we reached a door and a wave of hot air hit us with ferocity. “That must be the heat from the engines” remarked my wife sagely. It was of course the humid heat from the Caribbean climate which we then realised would take a little getting used to.
    On arrival we quickly came to realise that clichés are often truisms. Orientation in Nassau started three hours after the appointed time. The Customs officer had to be bribed to enable us to get our worldly belongings from the shed at the harbour where they had been shipped weeks before. After the appropriate sum had been handed over for ‘release’ we nearly lost it all. The fork lift truck which was carrying our stuff swerved to avoid a lorry on the quayside and the whole load swayed dangerously. For an instant it seemed about to tipple into the Caribbean.
    The national tourist slogan at the time was “It’s better in the Bahamas,” but the truth was that in 1980,