The prime function of a school is to separate children
from human beings. As any teacher will
tell you, the inclusion of children in the designation of ‘human’ is as absurd
as linking Conservatism with “strong and stable” government. During the greater part of the year, with the
exception of those pernicious periods when children are allowed, nay
encouraged, to flaunt their otherness in public manifestations at Christmas and
Easter, we denizens of the human world are able to live reasoned and reasonable
lives. It is the summer that is the most
trying part of the year. In Britain the
so-called summer is mercifully confined to a few bright days, while the rest of
this season is usually the sort of rain-sodden dullness that encourages
children to stay indoors under the supervision of their keepers and plug
themselves in to various electronic devices.
Spain is different.
As various people have pointed out: Spain and Britain both have seasons,
but it is only in Britain that all four of them can (and do) occur on the same
day. You could say that summer in Spain
extends from May to October - obviously there are rainy and dull days, but it
is rare indeed that a whole day passes during these months without the sun at
least showing itself for a brief moment.
Eating outside, sunbathing, visiting the beach or just promenading are
all actions that our sunny months encourage.
Unfortunately, for two of the key months of July and August (with almost
two weeks of June) these are the same months of schools failing in their duty
of containing the childish hordes from being unleashed on the human
population. Swarming, as my grandmother
would say, like “black pats” (on
reflection I think that I will try and ignore the double racism suggested by
that oft heard dismissal) children spill onto the streets, the beaches, the
shops and my leisure centre.
That last one is interesting. As a child of two teacher parents, holidays
were never the problem that most of the non-teacher-parent population must
have. My childhood holidays coincided
with my parents’ holidays. The only
disruption that I can remember was when I made the transition from Primary to
Secondary school, when one holiday was slightly different. That problem was solved by accompanying my
father to his school and bouncing for most of the day on a trampet! [I
note, by the way, that the word ‘trampet’ has been underlined by Word, but I
have never referred to the small angled mini-trampoline used by those foolish
enough to vault over a horse as anything else.
Have I been wrong for the last fifty plus years of my life? You will also note that I have been too lazy
to look it up on line - though, oddly enough I did make the effort to look it
up in my massive Encarta dictionary! And
it wasn’t there.] We also lived with
my paternal grandparents when I was younger and so there were babysitters at
hand. Upstairs. So, it is perhaps a little disingenuous of me
to harrumph about how some children are treated during the long holidays. But it will not stop me.
As soon as the holidays (any holidays) start my local
leisure centre springs into action with Summer School or Easter School or
Holiday School. As far as I can see,
these estimable organized activities exist for one (or perhaps two)
reasons. The first and most obvious is
that of commercial necessity: the leisure centre makes money out of the invading
armies of kids that are contained by activity after activity to fill the
day. The second is, of course, to get
rid of the kids. The Spanish are a
tactile people and leaving your child in the leisure centre is accompanied by
much hugging and kissing and fond waving of goodbyes. But I have seen the faces of the parents as
they finally turn from their progeny and walk (or skip) towards their
cars. That look of delighted relief is
one that I recognize. And, another
thing, I have seen parents leave their children at times when it would be
difficult to imagine the workplace missing them. In other words, I think that parents go back
to something other than work when they leave their kids in the centre. Those smiles are not of delighted expectation
of what their profession might offer to fill the rest of their day!
And this is where things get difficult. Not for them (parents and kids) but for
me. I go to the leisure centre from my
swim each day. I swim a metric
mile. I feel smug and exercised. But now that schools have abrogated their
incarceration duties their escaped inmates impinge on my life. Because of the swarms of parents hurling
their kids with shrieks of delight towards the welcoming doors of the swimming
pool my swimming has become cabined, cribbed and confined - to quote a poet of
my acquaintance. Probably wrongly.
There are five lanes in our 25m pool and
nowa-summer-days by 9.30 am four of the lanes are given over to the young
pretenders to leisure time. This
morning, for example, there were three of us in a single lane.
Two decent swimmers in a single lane is easy, as it is
quite possible to swim expansively and safely in parallel. A third person necessitates swimming in a
clockwise or anti-clockwise way. This is
fine if all three swimmers are evenly matched, but if one swimmer is
substantially faster than the other two there are problems. None of which are insurmountable with the
application of Basic Lane Discipline.
BLD is the thing that keeps chaos at bay, but it is a fragile concept
and swimming (just like driving) does not generally bring out the best in
people - especially if they are, or consider themselves to be, Serious
Swimmers.
Suffice to say that, of the three of us, I was the
slowest (and indeed the oldest, now I come to think of it) swimmer. There was a lady swimmer who was punctilious
in her adoption of BLD and was content to swim in circles and adapt her
swimming to compensate for speed differences, e.g. using a breaststroke or a backstroke
from time to time rather than her speedy crawl.
There was however, a gentleman swimmer.
With a goatee beard.
I have an unreasoning prejudice against this hairy
excrescence and was therefore prepared to think the worst of my fellow lane
sharer. And his actions more than
justified my concern. For him, BLD was
as a foreign language and he committed the signal swimming crime of overtaking
at a crowded end. Let me explain. If you are a powerful swimmer and you are
stuck in a lane with two slower plodders then BLD dictates that you can
overtake a slower swimmer as long as you can get in front of your target
swimmer without impeding the third swimmer.
There is also another approach that involves judging things nicely and
then reversing course mid length into open space. This swimmer did neither but swam parallel
with another swimmer so that he could push off from the side first and thereby
bumping in to the swimmer finishing his (yes, reader, ‘twas I) length. Very bad form.
My mood was not improved by noticing that one swimmer
from the aquacize class was given a created restricted lane to himself! Not happy - in spite of the fact that I have
had exactly the same thing done for me on some occasions. It wasn’t on this occasion and therefore I
felt aggrieved! And on either side of
us, occupying four lanes (or rather three and a half allowing for the
restricted lane) the children continued to bray and howl and generally gloat in
their exuberant there-ness.
And another thing.
We have a communal pool for the sixteen or so houses
that form our little community. Access
to this private pool is via a garden door for about half of us, and a lockable
gate from the street for the rest.
Imagine my disquiet on my return from the pool to find the silence of
the afternoon - usually only broken by the sound of the sea and the various
building work which seems to go on for ever accompanied as always by the
howling banshees of the electric leaf blowers - augmented by the shouting of
Strange Children. These were leaping in
and out of the pool with their towels and then whupping the wet towels on the
pool surround to produce a deep, resonant and supremely irritating sound. Then these imps rushed towards the gate that
they found locked and proceeded to scramble over it. One boy (they were all boys) indeed
re-scrambled over the gate to have one last plunge and thwack before he left!
I must admit to my shame that the use of superglue and
broken glass did flit into my mind before the word ‘curmudgeonly’ suggested
itself to cover everything that I was thinking, and indeed everything that I
have written.
But there is a serious point (ish) to this
musing. Since retirement I have been
delighted at the spaciousness that having the whole of a day to do something
allows. No longer trying to get things
done in a break-time or during lunchtime, or after 4 pm. I can go (and park) easily and if something
needs more time for it to be completed, then more time I have. And it’s the empty shops, especially
supermarkets that are the delights. I
sometimes forget and get to a shop at 5pm (when most shops re-open after the
afternoon closure) and am horrified at the number or children-clutching parents
who get in my way!
When I was with my parents, we rarely went anywhere on
Bank Holidays, my parents rightly suggesting that the roads would be clogged
and places crowded and, anyway, we had other holiday days to use and we shouldn’t
make things even worse by adding ourselves when we had other
opportunities. I well remember, for
reasons that I forget, going to Weston-Super-Mare on a bank holiday and being
scarred by the whole experience. I am
well prepared to admit that I am hopelessly prejudiced against that ‘seaside’ (sic.)
resort, and, to be fair, Burnham-on-sea on a wet Sunday was an even worse
experience, but I was not prepared for the horrific tackiness and
unpleasantness that Weston offered. And
the people, my dear! And didn’t the
odious ex-Chairman of the Conservative party and hack, Archer take his title
(has he still got it?) from the bloody place.
‘Nuff said.
I will now go out on to the terrace and take the sun
and allow the golden rays to sooth me to better thoughts!
