August 1986 to August 1997

London

e knew that for us there would be no big holiday in the August of ’86; indeed, we were waiting for the letter to arrive from Waltham Forest telling us that our accommodation was ready! How naïve we were. By the third week, we decided to act, and travelled from Rustington to Walthamstow. We eventually tracked down the education department in Leyton, and actually managed to see one of the advisers - who was most sympathetic.

It transpired that they had no authority whatsoever to allocate council houses, and what had made the deputy director of education make such a promise was beyond him! So much for our hopes, and a wasted August.

We then started to look at appropriate housing, but saw absolutely nothing; our minds were made up - we wanted a nice modern block of flats (like Rustington), with balcony, and with a garage. We also looked for temporary digs, and eventually found a small room with a shared kitchen and bathroom for thirty quid a week.

o we started work in Walthamstow, arriving at our digs late on Sunday evening, and leaving for Rustington at four o’clock on Friday. Not our ideal living situation. Right at the start of term I mentioned it to the headmaster, Alec Cooper, and he said he would make enquiries to see what had happened. I reminded him that it was the deputy director who had made the offer, saying that it would be for eleven months only.

After about three weeks, I made further noises, and by the end of the day a one-bedroom flat was available. We were delighted - it would suit us just fine.

We moved into 16 The Grange, up three flights of stairs. We were a short walk away from St James’s Street station, which was just 15 minutes away from Liverpool Street in London.

At about the same time we had a firm offer for our Rustington flat, £44,000. This meant cramming everything into our tiny flat in Walthamstow, including contents of packing cases from Germany - and that immovable schrank!. God knows how we did it.

arwick Boys School was a lovely old Victorian building, with a large playground. I am sure it must now be a listed building. There were stone-carved legends above the main doors, for ‘Boys’ and for ‘Girls’ and, on the wall of a small building at the other end of the playground, ‘Manual Instruction Centre.’

I now discovered the background to my own good fortune in being appointed to the school. In a moment of radical democracy and educational reform, the education department of Waltham Forest had organised a big shake up. The name of every teacher went into the hat and, when your name came out, you were appointed to that school - for the remainder of your educational life. You retained your salary level, and would not lose out financially.

Naturally, quite a few teachers were miffed at the thought of moving, and when they discovered they’d been allocated to what was a former ‘sink’ school, in this area with a majority ethnic community and much unemployment, they sought jobs in other areas. Hence a late vacancy for a head of technology faculty.

Whether this educational innovation was ever analysed, or found to be a success or failure, I shall never know, but it left a lot of disaffected teachers as well as creating a gap for me to fill.

So it was that I found I was not the only newcomer to Warwick Boys; hardly anyone had ever worked together before, including the head and his deputies, so we all had a clean slate, with a new start.

arj had started at a local Junior School in the London Borough of Enfield. She was getting on fine here, although the headmistress was ever-absent on local political business and was never there for advice; consequently Marj become a source of help to many junior colleagues and, when the vacancy for a deputy came up she was urged to go for it. However, the journey time - for just a few miles - was hard work, and she felt that, if appointed, there would be nothing but friction with the head. So she finally went for a promoted post, as a Supply Teacher, with Waltham Forest.

After just one term here further recognition followed, and in April ’97 she secured an appointment as deputy head at Woodford Green Primary School - in the same Borough.

n November, I was at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. I had always promised myself that I would go; it is worth it, just for the atmosphere and the sense of ‘being there.’ Marj came with me the next year, when we arrived at Whitehall just as they open it to the public - at 7.0am. The following year I made on my own again, my last visit; I found it becoming hard work as it was all so claustrophobic and you just cannot move. In addition, you have to stay until about 1.0pm when all the marching of the old soldiers has finished. So from now on, I shall have to be a TV voyeur.

t was in December ’86 that two significant events happened. First, I bought my first ever computer - the Amstrad PCW; this would now help me with word processing, which in those early days was - for me - the main reason for having one. It meant that I had crossed the dreaded threshold from electric typewriter to computer! From now on, all letters and documents would be done on my little machine. It was also great in helping me to produce a faculty hand-book - something which Alec Cooper thought was so great that he photocopied it about ten times and gave one to each other head of faculty and senior teacher, with the intimation that they should produce something similar. I was ribbed in a jocular fashion by my colleagues, but also complimented. Moreover, I will have you know, I obviously was not the only computer illiterate around, for they were all impressed with my keyboard skills, fancy fonts (well, all beginners overdo it, don’t they), and dot-matrix printer. So I had arrived on the computer scene and, forever after, could talk to my computer colleagues on (more or less) equal terms.

The second important thing to happen was that we went to a Christmas Carols evening in the Royal Albert Hall - our first visit. This impressed us very much, not least the magnificent building itself, and I was particularly taken with the little booklet that mentioned the history of the RAH and its ‘Corps of Honorary Stewards.’

I kept mulling over this, and saying to Marj that I would not mind being a member! But how do I become one? Eventually I decided to write to the RAH, addressing my letter to ‘The Senior Steward, Corps of Honorary Stewards’ and saying that as an amateur thespian attached to HM Forces (thought I ought to drop that one in) I was interested in joining their ranks.

The reply came during the evening of Boxing Day! A telephone call from some chap, telling me that “The Corps was now disbanded and we now all had to get paid - for doing the same job. So it is not the same really, as we did not get the same benefits (free visits for wives and girl friends) and so on. Was I still interested?

You bet I was. Along I went for an interview in my best suit. I merely spoke to a chap about my availability, and so I was in! I was delighted. Over the coming months I attended a variety of shows, the least enthralling for me being the pop concerts. However, I saw many famous names at first hand, Tom Jones being the biggest hoot because of the middle-aged women who made up the audience; they would string up panties along the front rows, with placards declaring the love for Tom. This was not the first time that I saw a team of about thirty heavies, in yellow sweatshirts emblazoned with the word ‘Security’ - they stood side by side along the front of the stage, ready to repel the invading hordes. It is amazing the number of them who attempt to climb onto the stage, each with cards, gifts, and bottles to give to Tom.

I saw Kiri Te Kanawa, David Frost, members of the Royal Family, and many others. I was particularly impressed with Liza Minelli. I enjoyed the evenings of Boxing, when they wanted as many stewards as possible. Its amazing how the old, senior stewards, were forever checking that no-one brought glasses from the bar into the auditorium, and haranguing the junior stewards if they did - but on boxing nights it was all booze and tobacco with no holds barred.

My favourite shows were the amateur ones - like the Womens’ Institute, Guides and Brownies, and the Methodist Youth Conference. I saw the Last Night of the Proms, also the Festival of Remembrance. The Messiah is performed some three or four times a year; the most interesting was the - again amateur - one where the audience all participate. The sopranos would have, say, a blue blouse and would sit in one part of the auditorium; the tenors in their dinner jackets would sport a red carnation and sit in another section, the bases a white carnation, and so on. It was great stuff. The demands at Christmas were particularly heavy, about 30 different shows, with lots of matinees; all on the festive theme, of course. It was about this time, with a visit to Germany pending, that I reluctantly came to the conclusion that I would have to give up the stewards job; I just couldn’t keep up the pressure of attending fifty per cent of the shows. So it was that, after exactly one year I gave in my notice. It was a shame, but inevitable. They were a good crowd, and we got on well. Our Stewards’ Trip to the Tower of London was most memorable, as after the guided tour we were then invited to relax in the Mess for a couple of hours, whilst awaiting the Ceremony of the Keys.

ur first Easter in UK for many years was uneventful enough, although we were soon to move into our new accommodation. At school, I tried out my spoof of the Decimal Timetable; it was quite well received. I had done this before, at Queens School in Germany. It involved an anonymous screed written by Loof Lirpa (it always helps if April Fool’s day falls on a working day) which was placed in everyone’s letter rack on 1^st April. It announced that, as a trial, next term would be decimalised - 100 minutes in the hour, 10 lessons a day, 10 weeks a term (four times a year) and so on. It usually causes a wry sort of smirk.

e moved into Aston Court at Woodford Green in May 1987. The cost of the maisonette was £60,000 but within weeks, we saw the prices going up to £80,000. We certainly bought it just in time, as all those who started buying up property in the summer of ’87 are the ones who fell into the negative equity trap. Even exactly ten years later we were aware of people who wanted to move, but were stuck with the property prices, and the fact that they couldn’t get anywhere near what they had paid.

Conversely, those like myself who lost on the stock market, with the October ’87 crash - I had invested the hard-to-come-by sum of £4,000 and overnight saw it drop in value to £2,000 - could now sit back and rub our hands. I was one who had no option but to stick with my losses and hope for a recovery; it came, slowly, and ten years later, that initial investment was worth well over £9,000

n the August of ‘87, we went for the usual two-week package to Majorca. We needed the rest as, in just twelve months we had packed up and left one place, unpacked at another, moved into digs, then moved into temporary accommodation, sold a place, then bought a place, and moved again. Not to mention new career moves, with one job for me and three jobs for Marj!

he Big Storm of Oct ’87 was also something to remember. We were aware of a hell of a lot of noise during the night, but must have been relatively sheltered at Woodford Green. Somehow I managed to drive to school, and saw trees and telegraph poles in the road; the electricity supply had been cut off, and many telephones would not work. We only knew the full extent of the damage all later in the day.

ovember 1987 and I am 50 years old. No big celebration at all; in fact, it made me think about the future only in so far as I suddenly saw the opportunity to ‘get out’ or ‘escape’ from teaching. The London Borough of Waltham Forest issued a pamphlet to all employees, outlining its proposals for a reduction of well over 200 teachers. The surplus was in the secondary sphere (that was me), and they were hoping that either natural wastage or redundancy would reduce numbers.

‘Natural wastage’ was the accepted euphemism in those days for any number of possibilities. It could mean someone leaving to teach in another Authority, although this in itself was becoming increasingly unlikely, as every other LEA seemed to be over-loaded. Alternatively, it could, perhaps, refer to someone reaching the normal retirement age of 60, and this again was becoming extremely rare, as most teachers would have retired before then. On the other hand, they might qualify under another euphemistic option, namely death-in-service.

Naturally, I was very enthusiastic about this letter regarding the options, as the Authority also said that it might have to consider a limited scale of redundancy along with voluntary retirement. Needless to say, every single member over the age of 50 in Waltham Forest, male and female, applied for voluntary redundancy. This included the headmaster and me, the only two in our school who had reached the magical age, he being a month younger. The avalanche stunned the Education Department. It then sent out an amendment saying that teachers of mathematics, science, and technology were shortage subjects areas and that on no account could they ever be considered. Blast! For the only time in my life, when I was hoping to become a statistic, I found myself indispensable!

There was one other interesting option, one that I had first vaguely thought about many years earlier, namely the possibility of moving over to the primary sector of schooling. I had seen many of my secondary colleagues do this, and it didn’t seem to take them long to reach a headship although, ironically, their salary was only the same as mine, as a head of faculty. However, I think the fact that I was in such a specialist subject, using heavy machinery and making furniture, and so on, meant that there was no natural outlet for me in a primary school. This had held me back before, so that now - and particularly because of my age - it became no more than a passing thought.

t the end of that term I sent out - to all the usual recipients - an anonymous five-page missive entitled “The Staff Pantomime.” I was quite pleased with it, and it was well received. Inevitably, it had the odd skit about people trying (not too hard) to make themselves look over fifty, so that they could apply for early retirement.

or the Festivities over Christmas and New Year, we went back to Germany. It was good to return after eighteen months, and I was chuffed to see the small plaque affixed to the bar, and bearing the legend "Dave Hunt leaned here 1975-86"

If anything, we enjoyed ourselves on this brief visit more than we did in our last few weeks before departure from Germany. Perhaps it was the Festive Season.

or some months, Alec Cooper, my headmaster, would liaise with me. ”Have you heard anything?” he would ask. He would then encourage me to make telephone calls, and to write, asking if they had reached any decisions yet. He felt that in his position it would be wrong to appear to be too keen on getting out. Naturally, it did not bother me at all, but I was a bit miffed when, some time later Alec announced that he had got it! He was going, and I was staying! Just my luck.

n April ’88 I sent out a Staff Newsletter which I called “The Warwick News” - a newspaper-type sheet with all sorts of scurrilous little articles, like “Head denies rumours that he is building secret tunnel to Plough Inn” (The public house just across the road). It got good reviews, and at least broke the monotony of routine. I felt that everyone was a little introverted.

I shall never forget the occasion when I flopped into the staff-room armchair, during a free lesson on Monday morning, fairly exhausted. We had travelled up to Newcastle over the weekend, to see Marj’s ailing mum, and had done a lot of visiting before we finally arrived back at Woodford late on Sunday night. I could have done without Monday morning. Anyway, Ken Ellingham came into the staff room and flopped down next to me. “I’m shattered” he said. “What were you up to?” I asked.

“Went up north yesterday - never again; what a day!”

“Oh! We were up north at the weekend; where did you go?”

“To Ely. To see the in-laws. Never again!”

Now, Newcastle is some 275 miles from Woodford Green, along the murderous A1 trunk road. It takes several hours of concentration, noise, lorries, stops, diversions, petrol, refreshment, and demands unlimited energy. Ely is just 45 miles up the sleepy roads of Essex and Cambridgeshire.

Such was the different style of life, which Marj and I were now seeing at first hand.

n August, we were off to Majorca again, to Cala Mesquida; we had just Lucy with us this time. As ever, an enjoyable and relaxing time, with lots of walks, reading, eating, drinking and sleeping.

n September 1988 I started my third year at Warwick Boys’ School, with Mike Boyers as Head. I was now walking the two and a half miles to school, morning and evening. The return trip, at the end of the day, being much harder, not only because of the slight upward gradient but also because of the fact that I would have been on my feet already for about 10 hours.

I was becoming an increasingly disillusioned teacher, with my subject specialism being a hindrance - any semblance to the teaching of craft in my earlier years had gone. Pupils were not interested, mainly because of the changes we were trying to implement. Courses were being set up to train teachers to change direction. Meetings after school increased in order to make sure that we all taught the correct number of hours per year; or, more correctly, that we were pursuing educational thought or instruction, for the correct number of hours.

Whereas in the olden days we would have one staff meeting at the start of every term, we now had about five or six meetings a week! There was even a schedule published showing how many hours and minutes each meeting should last, so that it stretched to the year’s requirement!

The punishing schedule looked something like this. On Monday afternoon, when the pupils had gone home and I along with everyone else was pretty well shattered after a full day’s work, I would find myself at the heads of faculty meeting. This was usually boring, and of no great output other than current educational claptrap. That night, if I had been the secretary of the meeting (this happened about three times a term, by rotation) I would be typing up the Minutes.

On Tuesday I would photocopy the minutes, and distribute them to all concerned; this meant all the heads of faculty, the senior team, the head and his deputies, the staff room notice board and even the school secretary (for filing purposes). In fact, just about anybody who wanted a copy could ask for one, or make one; even the caretaker was included from time to time. That evening, after school, there would then be a technology faculty meeting at which I would report to my colleagues on all the business of the previous evening’s session, and which they had by now read and discussed amongst themselves, and prepared their ground. They would then go over all the same points, take issue with just about all of them - particularly any decisions that were made - and demand that I, as their head of faculty - would make their strong feelings known at the next meeting. That night I would type up my faculty minutes (I was always secretary!).

On Wednesday I would photocopy and distribute my minutes to all concerned (the same lot as before), and noted with some satisfaction my technical colleagues being chuffed at my rather vague comments that “the members of the faculty expressed their disquiet over the decision of the heads of faculty to ….” Honour was satisfied, more paper was produced, and so an apparently good job was seen to be done. Wednesday evening would be a ‘light-hearted’ year meeting, which I attended in my humble capacity as a form teacher. No minutes for me that night; things almost looked too easy!

Then comes Thursday with an emergency break-time staff common room meeting; we need to elect a new chairperson from next term. I was honoured to be asked, but bowed out, claiming pressure of work. Really it was lack of commitment; I just could not face hearing everyones’ grumbles about the squalid state of the staff-room - and I would be expected to do something about it. Thursday evening we had a full staff meeting - even the secretary’s came! Just to keep us heads of faculty busy, and to supposedly give us some experience of conducting large-scale meetings, we would take it in turn, again by rotation. The one issue that seemed to keep cropping up was how were we going to occupy ourselves during the non-teaching day at the start of the next term! It was even mooted that each faculty could organise the day - guess what; by rotation of course!

What a load of cobblers it all was. My loathing of it really got me down. It was with some relief that I discovered, some time later, that I was quite a normal teacher and that everyone else felt the same.

It was near the end of term, and just after I had been secretary of one of the senior team meetings, that I sent out my ‘spoof minutes’. This concentrated on what everyone was really thinking (like, “I wish to hell I wasn’t here”) rather than what they said. And when the headmaster gently asked if colleagues would look for the missing video player, my spoof report added his real thoughts “I know one of you bastards has got it at home, to watch blue movies, but for god’s sake bring it back to school!” I like to think it brought a smile or two.

or the New Year of ‘89, we went to Germany again. I was glad that we arrived in time to see Len and Jan Whittle - in fact, they stayed in Germany an extra day so that they could have a drink with us in the Mess; it was to be my last ever drinking session with Len.

n April ’89 I finally heard of my successful application for early retirement. My headmaster later intimated that he had got it for me, as he could see that I was so desperate to go; in fact, he reckoned that I had been suffering from stress for some time. Who knows whether that was the reason for my mild heart attack? It was just a few days after hearing of my early retirement (to take effect from September ’89) that I felt really sharp pains in my arms and chest, as I set off for school. I’d had minor warning signs over the previous few weeks, but had ignored them. This, I knew, was serious. However, I still walked all the way to school, with several stops on the way. Moreover, I actually managed to work through the day, but got a lift home that evening.

Next morning I saw the doctor, and gave him the full facts. He checked my heart and blood pressure, and everything seemed OK. He also took an ECG which he later thought seemed to indicate that I had suffered from a mild heart attack.

The consequence was that, having spent 28 years at the chalk face with barely a day’s illness, I now had my last term on permanent sick leave, and under medication. It was not until December that the balloon angiogram, taken at Bart’s Hospital in London, confirmed that I had one artery that was clogging up and needed attention. The consultant told me that, unfortunately, it was the important one, so could not be left or treated with tablets.

n to happier thoughts. Marj celebrated my retirement by reaching the pinnacle of her career, with a headship of a large (350 pupils) Infants school in the London Borough of Barking. She started in September, as I started my first day of retirement.

was sorry to hear that Len Whittle died of cancer of the bone, in the autumn. We managed to see him in August, just as he was on his way back into hospital. I managed to go to his funeral in Worthing. There goes another era.

t was not until March ’90 that I had the angioplasty performed at Bart’s. It proved to be difficult for the surgeon, ‘because of the bends in the artery.’ He took a couple of hours, instead of the usual twenty minutes or so; he said that he would not be able to do it again - he wouldn’t dare. No doubt my medical records have been annotated accordingly.

What I understand to be an unconnected result was that, just a couple of days after discharge I was back in hospital for a thrombosis of the left leg. I am convinced that the reason for this is because of the inexperience of a young, very pleasant junior doctor. When a catheter is removed from the groin, some fifteen minutes of very firm - even hard - pressure is applied, by a qualified doctor, to stem any possible leakage from the artery. When I had the first one removed, a couple of days previously, and before they wanted to re-check the whole thing, the catheter had been removed by a young female trainee doctor who, again, was very polite and friendly - but most brutal. I recall saying to her “Do you have to press quite as hard?” as I felt that she was pushing me through the headboard. “Yes!” she said, and explained why. The male doctor, on the other hand, was most gentle and chatted to me about the book I was reading. If only he had applied the same pressure! I am now left with an impressive six-inch scar in the groin, apart from having spent a worrying two weeks in hospital.

An outcome of all my visits to and treatment in Barts, and because of the strict questioning of a doctor who demanded to know what medication I was taking, and for what purpose, was that I was put on the books of the gastro-enterology department. This was because of the tablets I had confessed to taking, to combat my water spots and rashes. In due course, I was instructed to follow a gluten-free diet to combat my dermatitis herpetiformis; I was now diagnosed as a sufferer of the Coeliac Condition and, if I followed the diet strictly, my consumption of remedial tablets would gradually decrease to zero.

I am delighted to say that this actually happened, over the next two or three years, and it was such a joy after over twenty years not to be bothered with the daily tablet. I am just amazed that the consultant in Germany, whilst being so familiar with the condition, and recognising the spots immediately, did not himself know that a gluten-free diet was the answer. Of course, I am most grateful to him for relieving my discomfort, but I can now see why specialists, be they teachers or doctors, need to go on courses to keep abreast of developments in their subject areas.

Ironically, I now have to take a small aspirin every day, for the rest of my life, to keep my blood thin. Ah! well! I suppose some would say that I deserve this fate.

ur big investment during the year was a holiday home, or mobile caravan, situated at Allhallows-on-Sea, on the Isle of Grain, Kent. This proved to be an excellent weekend retreat, so relaxing and so bracing. It’s lovely being away from the telephone. This is where I always said I would write my memoirs! We can get away from all the pressures at Allhallows; little things like reading the newspapers, and their colour supplements, without discarding them because of lack of time. Our regular 48-hour retreats are most rejuvenating.

t was in the spring of ’92 that we started to think about a small part-time job for me, just to keep the grey matter turning over. I didn’t want a supply teacher’s job, whereby the telephone rings at 7.30 in the morning and you are asked to turn up to cover an absence that day. I wanted a nice little one-or-two-day-a-week job, where I could get to know the pupils.

Well, it was my turn to have a spot of luck, and up turned the perfect job just a mile and a half up the road, at Braeside School for girls, in Buckhurst Hill, Essex. I got the technology job, and taught there for the next five years, either on two-and-a-half or three days a week. Coincidentally, I left there just as I was coming up to my 60^th birthday - the normal retirement age for teachers, although some go beyond that. Indeed, I had made up my mind that, so long as Marj was teaching then I would also stay hard at it, and I had already planned that I would still be there for my 65^th birthday. However, our hectic life-style never abates, and I was to leave for another part of the world.

n the summer, and before I started at Braeside, we went to Majorca, this time staying near to Palma the capital. This meant that we could do several local trips to the city, using their dodgy and crammed local buses, and explore it in some sort of depth.

n the November, we had been in Reading, where there was a sort of Fire Brigade Open Day. As we sat having a coffee, we saw the two fire engines in the main street, suddenly start a bit of an alert - presumably to generate some sort of excitement - and off they dashed. On our return to London later that day, we saw Windsor Castle and what appeared to be smoke billowing from a main battlement. I said it could not possibly be the castle, and that it was obviously a factory somewhere immediately behind, and this perhaps gave the wrong illusion. How wrong I was.

e had by now included Ibiza on our itinerary of travels, and enjoyed the relaxing style of the place. But it was in the summer of ’94 that we had the really big holiday, with a month in Singapore and Malaysia. Our 8-day trip around Peninsular Malaya was most interesting, and we vowed that one day we would do it again - but on our own, and not as part of an organised tour.

On the island of Singapore I had written to the Chief of Staff of the Singapore Armed Forces, asking if I could visit both my old garrison barracks at Nee Soon, and also the island of Pulau Tekong; I knew that these were now both restricted areas. I was delighted, therefore, to have a fax giving me the names of the OC’s in both places; feeling somewhat embarrassed, but determined to see it through, I telephoned the majors concerned and made appointments for us to visit. We were treated like minor VIP’s, and particularly enjoyed the trip on the OC’s launch ‘Tekong One’ to the offshore island of the same name. It was a thrilling experience to tread the same ground, some thirty-seven years later. On my return I sent a note of thanks to the five people who had put themselves out, including the Chief of Staff; my words were written on the back of a very nice card of the Houses of Parliament

t Easter ‘95, Marj went on a tour of India; this was something of an educational trip, which the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham had organised the year previously, and which had received rave reviews. Marj was keen to go, and so was a colleague head whose partner would not fly! So, it was decided that the two of them would go, and I would stay. I firmly refused to be the third person which, inevitably, I would have been.

The outcome was that I went to Gran Canaria and Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands. Having done my old national service haunts in Singapore, I was keen to see the first piece of foreign soil on which I had stood in May ’57. I was a bit doubtful about going, but Marj would have felt awful if I had not gone somewhere abroad. We even considered things like painting holidays in Tuscany, and historical walks in Greece, but I felt that I just couldn’t stomach other people wanting to show off, which inevitably happens in any gathering of human beings; I’ve been on enough educational courses, so I should know.

We both enjoyed our holidays, but agreed that we missed each other. I realised then that, for a single person, the best type of overseas holiday was the one we did in Malaya, where you are travelling to new places with the same people every day; you can then strike up friendships.

hat summer we attended both the Anniversaries of VE and VJ Day Celebrations. It was a unique experience, particularly the concert in Hyde Park on a beautiful, warm, sunny evening; hearing Vera Lynn sing the old wartime favourites was quite something. We saw march pasts, fly pasts, old war vehicles (ambulances, fire engines, patrol cars), and the Home Guard who received the biggest ovation - images of ‘Dad’s Army’ being with everyone!.

The following year we had the thrill of being at the Trooping the Colour Ceremony, on Horse Guards Parade. Our names had come out of the hat, and we were not slow in taking up the offer. With many tickets being allocated to embassies, consuls and like, there are lots of foreigners there; no harm in that, but why can’t they arrive on time? It galls me that, at such a world-renowned event, people arrive not just five but nearly twenty-five minutes after the Queen! My simple answer of closing off the barriers at, say ten minutes to eleven, would be diplomatically unacceptable, I suppose.

t did not take Marj long to convince me that we wanted to go back to Malaysia. We finally left for another month-long tour, this time with a hire-car for a fortnight, where we could do our own thing. So after a couple of nights in the deepest jungle (on a well-organised trip!), we set off around the coast of the peninsular. It was great, and we enjoyed it immensely. We often ruminated on how much Marj would have liked it back in the 60’s when there were numerous postings all over Malaya and Singapore, for teachers. I often wondered whether I should have stayed for more than just three years, and whether I should have travelled more up-country. Still, it was too late now …. Or so we thought then.

nce we got back from our Far Eastern Tour (as we liked to call it), Marj started to think about early retirement. Her Junior School colleague had got it the year before with ten years enhancement! We discussed the issue and finally decided that she had nothing to lose by applying, particularly as she had been at the school for seven years. Her Chair of Governors was quite horrified at the prospect of losing her, and asked for a re-consideration. But Marj was adamant, particularly with the Chief Education Officer for the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham who just did not want her to go - such was the high esteem in which she was held. However, another issue was now becoming apparent, namely a political one. From next Easter no teachers would be allowed to take early retirement - they would have to continue until the age of 60. This caused a flurry of activity amongst all eligible teachers, and the CEO was inundated with requests.

After something of a battle of wits, Marj was granted her retirement - it was to be March ’97, the same time as thousands of other disaffected educationists who wanted to get out whilst they could. It just shows the brains of government that all the country’s experienced teachers should have to leave at the end of the spring term, when we all know that the end of the summer term is the normal time for a change-over and shake-up. Still, who cared now. Of course, Marj cared a lot about leaving her school in the middle of the year, but everyone understood the reasons why.

t was during the Christmas holidays that Marj spotted a nice little job in Malaysia for January ’97. “Just think,” she said, “If I was retired now I could have applied for that!”

So was born the idea of looking more closely at overseas vacancies - but only in Singapore or Malaysia, our favourite areas. Marj said she was quite happy to go back to the classroom for a couple of years.

So one afternoon whilst Marj was busy knitting (and watching television, at the same time), I typed out her CV. This, ultimately, prompted her to write out an appropriate letter of application. The first job that she applied for was one in Kuala Lumpur, then some weeks later came one in Penang, then Singapore, one in Thailand (miles away from Bangkok, which we didn’t fancy as a posting), and one in Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, E Malaysia. This was the territory of the former British North Borneo.

After some weeks of no response, and feeling that Marj’s age might have something to do with, (after all, younger, newly qualified teachers are half the price of an experienced one), we looked at this latter job only half-heartedly. It was me that said to Marj “D’you fancy this one then, or not?” In fact, we nearly didn’t apply for it at all, and left it until the final moment. I say ‘we’ because I would do everything on the computer, altering the tone of each job description, and Marj would merely sign it. More than once she was to say “What job is this I am applying for then?” So, the application was sent off.

At about the same time my own headmistress wanted a chat with me regarding the timetable for next September; I warned her about our interest in going overseas, but said that I felt that it was a bit of a forlorn hope because of our age. She was certainly disturbed at the thought of me leaving, as I was a bit of an unusual fish - technology, graphics, computers, school plays, displays, photography - and she couldn’t see the void being easily filled.

After about three weeks, we had a telephone call at 7.03am. It was the principal of the school in Kota Kinabalu asking for Marj. The rest is history: an interview in London, and just the next day the offer of the job. I telephoned my headmistress at Braeside at 8.25am on the last Friday before the May half-term; she was stunned that I was now finally confirming my departure, and we agreed that she could tell the staff when they all assembled that afternoon for a staff meeting. (I’d actually forgotten all about this staff meeting, and although I hadn’t intended going, I would at least normally have given my apologies). The Headmistress subsequently told me that when she ended the meeting with the announcement of my imminent departure, and to which part of the world, there was an intake of breath followed by absolute silence. Everyone was stunned, both at the rather exciting news, but also by the unexpected staff vacancy. How nice to be wanted!

rom then on, it was something of a slow-motion panic. Medicals and jabs all OK, finances sorted out, just about everything being paid by direct debit. As we firmly said to ourselves, as well as to everyone else, this is just for two years only. We therefore had no hesitation in deciding that we would not be letting out our maisonette; in fact, it was never even on the agenda. We just did not want anyone else in our house.

So, even at this early stage, we decided that I would return for a month in Jan-Feb each year. This would not only allow me to check on the house, and the mail, but also to visit the lodges of which I was remaining a member, and with whom I did not want to lose touch. Indeed, as the treasurer of one lodge, and the secretary of another, I was leaving something of a gap. Nevertheless, they would have to sort this out for themselves; it is a fact that many institutions are quite dependent on their office holders and only wake up when they realise that one of them might be asked to take it on. That’s when they all start to suggest so-and-so as the ideal person.

he birth of baby Thomas on St George’s Day made me a granddad, and I was rightly proud. Julian and Gail are rightly doting and full of love for him.

s if Marj and I did not have enough on our plate, we went off for our long-planned annual holiday to the Canary Islands, to Gran Canaria and Las Palmas. We were able to relax completely, even with several trips around the island - including one to nearby Tenerife; we did this by jetfoil. Only occasionally did we think of all the things we had to do before we left Aston Court.

e were somewhat blasé about the whole coming venture.