Summoned by Pips

The poet John Betjeman wrote a celebrated book of memoirs in verse, Summoned by Bells, taking as his theme his various experiences of being called to school-room or lecture hall by the ringing of bells - not to mention to church services. Over the last three weeks your correspondent has been at various secondary schools across London, in an exam invigilating capacity, and the sound marking the school day can only be described as 'pips': short bursts of noise as if from klaxon or loud hailer but put out across a tannoy system that reaches everyone on what is referred to as 'campus'. The word campus is used to describe schools as well as undergraduate colleges and the word 'student' seems to have replaced 'pupil'. With an environment, in some places, more akin to further education establishment than high school, the overall effect is one of democratisation of the school experience, albeit an illusory one.

Another innovation, and sign of the times, is that there are now members of staff dedicated to running the exams system. Such is the variety and number of exams these days that the Exams Officer is often occupied with the job full-time. Some schools recruit specialist administrators and some are drawn from the retired teachers ranks, often depending on the size of the school and its catchment area, which may determine the number of pupils with English as a second language. Administering exams in one language is challenging enough but with Asian, African and European languages as mother tongues of students increasingly the norm, particularly in London, the pressures on time and staff attention is that much greater.

From entering high school aged 11, the average pupil faces a seemingly ever-growing list of examinations. There are SATs; GCSEs; AS-Levels and A-levels with the usual provision for mocks and those taking exams early. The exam boards range in difficulty and what is called 'stretch' and schools choose different boards for different subjects - Edexcel for Maths and the WJEC (Welsh Joint Education Council) for RE as an example. A modern variation on the theme of eliminating disruption in the examination hall is the problem posed by that ubiquitous communication instrument of modern times - the mobile phone. The rules laid down by most of the public exam boards is as clear as it is uncompromising - if a mobile rings during the course of an exam the owner can be disqualified from the paper forthwith. Most schools have a system of mobile hand-in beforehand and hand-out afterwards. They are sometimes 'tagged and bagged' in envelopes. One pupil's mobile phone went off during a GCSE art exam causing upset and consternation - the phone had switched itself on so as to activate the alarm whilst it lay in its brown envelope. A case of functionality not having its uses!

The endless debate of the state of education generally and examination standards particularly rumbles on and is as regular as Summer downpours. From personal observation in the last few weeks of this year's season, the papers seem to be as they always were in subjects as English, History and Maths and a little more modular in languages. What does not change is the anxiety, worry and general tense atmosphere in exam halls up and down the land and the accompanying reactions of pupils undertaking them ranging from pyschosmatic illness, through to tears and high-jinks horseplay. Midsummer madness in all its manifestations accompanies examinations, for pupils, parents, teachers and invigilators alike.

Reflections on a London journey

The standing joke about travelling in my home country of Wales is that few people realise that we have a Welsh sub-continent, which takes up most of the middle of the country and consists mainly of two counties - Powys and Montgomeryshire - where rolling countryside gives way to small towns and country miles wind their way through hedgerow and field. All this bisected by the Welsh version of the M25, the A470 which runs north-south and is the major arterial route. Thousands of words have been expended on the inadequacies of this road in the form of reports, discsussions, debates, political manifestos. Plans come and go, elections are fought and lost, the talk goes on and still very little happens in the way of change to this enormous piece of tarmac which is literally at the centre of motor travelling life in Wales, apart from the highways in and out and surrounding Wales - the M4 and M5.

Travelling in and around London is a very different experience. Since I have been living in Kent I have cause to undertake journeys into the capital more and more. Yesterday was a case of car, tube and bus out to the East of London via the delights of a the Jubilee line and the DLR (docklands light railway) to Stratford (not the Warwickshire town and birthplace of Shakespeare although it would have been an interesting diversion) and thence to Leyton on the Central Line (did not feel that central at the time as the underground became the overground). The destination was as yet some way off and required a bus from tube station to somewhere near the road I had to walk down to arrive at the street which harboured the school I was visiting at its end. The school building was a revelation, all new architecural design and opened at the turn of this century by the then-Secretary of State for Education, Estelle Morris. Set in a borough of London that has been the recipient of government largesse and increased state funding for services such as education, the Lammas School at least has a modern building to serve the needs of a catchment area which reflects our modern wider community life: a high number of pupils with English as a second language; a sizeable provision of free school meals; special needs coverage (of all kinds).

The infrastructure of education is linked with public policy in a very direct way. In towns, cities and villages all over the UK there are school buildings which are still standing and in use from the 19th century, when the era of state involvement in the provision of public education began with the various Education Acts of the 1870s. Indeed, I had encountered a typical example of swhen I stopped for directions at a primary school bearing all the hallmarks of a 19th century school build: red bricks; iron railings and the separate exits and entrances for boys and girls. A very twenty-first century group of school children, filled with the faces and languages of a dozen countries, played in the yard built by the burghers of Leyton and Walthamstow who had been mindful of their public duty to encourage 'useful lives' among the citizenry when Victoria was Queen Empress of India and Britain had an Empire (run from Whitehall and managed by a few hundred servants of the Crown). If those same men of affairs took a walk past the school they financed they would find that the Empire had come home to the mother country in all its variety, colour and diversity. I crossed the road and travelled over a hundred years in a few hundred yards, to a shining new building proclaiming the same endeavour in pursuit of the virtues of public education of a century ago. A long way to travel in so short a time. The challenges may be different but the ideals of education for all are the same.

The Lost Baggage Saga or skiing out of Terminal 5 in borrowed salopettes

This correspondent has been away from his blogging duties due to a combination of illness, Terminal 5 Heathrow, lost baggage and ski trip adventures.

The timing was spectacular. Having been excited about the prospect of flying out of the newly opened (by HM Queen no less) and recently operational, many billions-costing, Richard Rogers-designed Terminal 5, Heathrow's newest glory, our party found ourselves in the midst of one of the biggest public project false starts since the Millennium Dome met the Millennium wobbly bridge over the Thames. We being the intrepid school ski party. What should have been Day 3 of the new super-charged Terminal 5 (or T5 as the cognoscenti started calling it - the name got shorter as the baggage trail got bigger) showing the world its wonders turned into the third day of a Very British Airport Breakdown. The much-heralded superfast bag-handling system, capable of processing up to 12,000 bags per hour, had started malfunctioning and sending luggage various to variously different destinations, apart from where the passengers were headed. Flights were cancelled, passengers waiting hours on the concourse for flights delayed - the Chief Executive of BA apologising but not resigning - turning disaster into technical difficulties and a mea culpa into a marketing strategy.

Advised to keep checking the electronic board for news of our flight we had the green light it would be operating via the neon glow of the website, and the Party Leader (also doubling up as travel agent and this correspondent's wife) duly gave the order to implement Phase One of the Ski Party Reach Destination Plan - the airport run. This consisted of 2 school minibuses, about half the party and some of the luggage, driven by Party Leader No 1 Daughter and ex-HM of said school. Upon arrival checked in to an emptier-than-average departure hall (stunningly rendered by the Rogers outfit) due to cancellations, to be greeted by tales of woe from the long-suffering check-in desk staff: management not supporting front-line staff who took the brunt of passenger angst and aggravation. Disgruntlement was taken to an art form that day.

Along the concourse flagged by shops, designer outlets and eateries of one sort or another lay a noticeable lack of seating for those not inclined to shop or eat. After the misdirecting of the departure gate we eventually found ourselves sitting on a plane that was yet to depart for some time. Apparently, there was missing paperwork that had found its way off the flightdeck and had to be re-located. A very embarrassed pilot explained the delay and we eventually took off into the blue yonder. The usual talk on board the plane of family, history, education, careers. The mother sitting in the next seat was a photographer-turned fruit farmer. The party had a late arrival in Munich, and the luggage carousel told the story - 14 bags missing from the 42-member group roster, including all of the party leader's luaggage and her partner's (the author all present and correct). After more delays to fill out forms, collection of BA-issue emergency toiletry bags, food purchasing and general consternation at the lateness of the hour exacerbated by fatigue, the bus left Munich Airport bound for Austria, Salzburg and St Johann im Pongau. Our doughty travel rep, retired teacher who had recently been involved in a horrific car accident and wore a neck-brace, met us with the bus and the journey continued. We eventually arrived at the Hotel Sonnhof, Alpendorf, St Johann im Pongau to be welcomed with the typically Austrian soup dish, gulashsup.

That night the party leader and her assistant (the present author) were left pondering. The thing about losing luggage on a ski trip is that one has packed to ski and the whole raison d'etre, clothing-wise, seems a bit lost if the whole kit and caboodle (gloves, hats, ski suit etc) is having a holiday of its own. This was as nothing, though, to the worry of the missing parents the following day......

On David Lean - a film giant

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of David Lean. This giant of the film world was responsible for some of the twentieth century's iconic movies. From working on Noel Coward's In Which We Serve and launching the screen acting career of Alec Guinness in the film version of the Dickens classic Great Expectations, Lean was at the forefront of a dazzling mileu of British talent that adorned the cinema in the post Second World War years. Not an easy man to work with he nontheless helped develop the careers of several distinguished actors, Peter O'Toole and Omar Shariff among them.

He was responsible for some true masterpieces, such as Lawrence of Arabia with the opening desert scene, Dr Zhivago and The Bridge on the River Kwai, with a mesemerising peformance by Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson. As for the cream of the acting talent, Lean worked with them all, from Richard Attenborough to Jack Hawkins and Julie Christie to John Mills and many, many more. A perfectionist who drove himself and others to the point of distraction, at times a tyrant, he was not an actor's director or a particularly caring man. He was, though, a great artist and a list of even some of his films is a roll-call of cimematic delights. Read and marvel: Great Expectations; Oliver Twist; Brief Encounter; The Bridge on the River Kwai; Hobson's Choice; Lawrence of Arabia; Dr Zhivago; Ryan's Daughter; Passage to India . Shall we see his like again?

The triumph of Sunday night television

The BBC would have pulled off a televisual coup if it develops the brilliant series shown on Easter Sunday night, The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Based on the book series by Alexander Mcall Smith and adapted by Richard Curtis (of Blackadder and Four Weddings& a Funeral and Vicar of Dibley fame) and the late and hugely missed Anthony Minghella, it is set in Botswana and tells the story of the abundant Precious Ramotswe of the eponymous title. Wonderfully photographed and brilliantly written, it is a 'feel good factor' series if ever there was one, with combining warm African wit with profound messages, all shot on location with fabulous colours. Last night's episode was dedicated to Anthony Minghella (the English Patient, The Talented Mr Ripley and Cold Mountain to name just a few) who died suddenly last week at the achingly young age of 54. The world has lost two of its brightest in the firmament in the space of a week - Anthony Minghella and Paul Scofield. RIP artistic souls both.

A theatrical light goes out and another burns brighter still

The British theatre has lost one of its great figures - Paul Scofield. Famous for his role on the stage, and later screen, as Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolts's play A Man for All Seasons he was a Shakespearian classical actor of great power and presence. Choosing to remain in the theatre when Hollywood stardom beckoned, he was a modest and sel-effacing man - as his co-star in Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus, Simon Callow, said of him Schofield was not an 'actorly' actor. Having lived through the great days of the theatre in the mid-20th century, Scofield ranks alongside Olivier, Gielgud, and Guinness as masters of the art.

Another contemporary master of the art can be seen at the National Theatre in London playing Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing, Simon Russell Beale. In a truly magnificent performance, playing opposite Zoe Wanamaker as Beatrice, this most celebratory of Shakespeare's comedies is brought to vivid life. Both actors are at the top of their profession and a the top of their game. The cast is wonderful with the likes of Oliver Ford Davies lending his great experience on stage and screen in the role of Beatrice's father, Leonato. Directed with bravura by the brilliantissimo Stephen Hyntner the action is aided and guided by a revolving stage and there is a fabulously conceived, wonderfully funny and perfectly executed piece of stage business involving a sunken bath and the antics of the two warring principals.

It is every bit as exuberant and bouncy a production as Kenneth Branagh's film version set in the Italian countryside and boasting an all-star cast. As they say in the theatrical reviewing world: beg, borrow or steal a ticket.

A broken window in Adelaide

As well as the excitement of the finale of the Six Nations rugby football tournament, made all the more sweet by the victory of Wales as champions and winners of the Grand Slam, the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne is playing out its drama as I write. Melbourne is Australia's 'second city' but it has not always played host to the Grand Prx. For many years the South Australian city of Adelaide gave itself over to the thrills, excitement and glamour of motor sport. Another memory springs to mind.....

In the year of grace 1991, as the long premiership of Mrs Thatcher was coming to an end, marking the close of the decade that would become to be known by the short-hand of ‘the 80s’, and what was to become the shorter but turbulent early 1990s under one John Major was just beginning, the Oldest Trainee journeyed to the other side of the world. At that time it was popular for gap-year students – between school and university or further/higher education – to take time to work and travel and in the Oldest Trainee's case it was mid-degree course and it was travelling to the Southern hemisphere. Due to a combination of academic exhaustion, an understanding university tutor and a suggestable nature, it was South Australia that became the focus of travelling attention . . Suffice it to say, he found a way through the good offices of a sympathetic tutor at the University to persuade the academic authorities to grant him leave of absence for a year – a suspension of studies – in order to take time out from the ‘treadmill’ of study followed for many a year since the age of 4. A friend of the family who had attended Cambridge University in the 1950s with the pater familias of the Legoe family and had subsequently gone out to Australia to live and work for a while, suggested both a visit Down Under and a sojourn with his old friend’s family.

It is not a highly recommended technique to endear oneself to your hosts, but launching oneself through the glass door of the host family on the first night of arrival is exactly what this writer did on his arrival in the city of Adelaide. Having been kind enough to respond to a telephonic entreaty from the airport to pick up the friend of a friend and having furthered that generosity by putting that stranger up for the night, these blameless citizens of the South Australian capital found themselves dealing with a long-haul traveller who leapt through glass doors. He had chosen the family, or rather the family had been unlucky enough to be landed with him by virtue of their names being on a contacts list provided by a family friend (of the Oldest Trainee) who seeded the idea of the Great Australian adventure in the first place.

Thus it came to pass that on a balmy weekend evening in the first flowering of a Southern Hemisphere summer, having left the Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, the Oldest Trainee found himself in the garden Jacuzzi under an Australian sky in the city of Adelaide. Having been reassured by the host father that he, the father, had not claimed on the house insurance for a while and warned by the host mother not to presume or expect help from anyone just because of the fact of friendship long ago between one family and another, he started his Australian sojourn.

After that window-shattering experience in the capital city of the free-settled state of South Australia – a distinction the burghers of its capital city and across the state never cease to point out, giving South Australia an Anglicised flavour of a certain kind, it was into the hands of the Legoe family of Adelaide and Robe and South east South Australia that he was passed before he could do much more damage.

In the year of his visit, the Australian Grand Prix was still being held in Adelaide. En route to meet George Legoe, eldest son of gentlemen farmers and as near-landed gentry of the South Australian state as it gets, the father of that most forebearing of host families showed him the sights of the city in preparation for the Grand Prix by driving the route that the drivers would race: at that time Adelaide shared with Monaco the distinction of being host to a motor race actually raced within the city itself – Melbourne was to steal the Formula 1 crown from Adelaide, but at that time the South Australian capital was Queen of the Australian motor racing world. It turned out that the Oldest Trainee was to be present at the race which was run in a sustained downpour of rain and viewed from an office block near the track.

The handover of the troublesome visitor to George Legoe having taken place outside the city limits, the journey continued southwards towards Robe in the south-east of the state. George was taciturn but friendly and he indulged the Oldest Trainee's stream of questions.

The Legoe family have major connections with Adelaide, as do half the farmers and land-owners of the state. George’s mother Marianne was from a family connected to the founder of the city and the state itself. Adelaide was named after Queen Adelaide. As was the case with many farming families, the Legoes had a house in the city and his younger brother Will attended one of the Universities in Adelaide (Flinders). The traffic from Robe to Adelaide was frequent and an unremarked feature of their lives: the family networks had friends whose children studied in the city at university or had attended as pupils one of the various boarding schools modelled on the English system. The Legoes themselves had a school link with Geelong in Victoria. All in all Adelaide was the nearest major city and in Australian terms, up the road in journey time: three hours. A country town and a small city, three hours apart, not a problem for citizens of this island continent.