Our friend’s first lambs came before ours this year because Barney our Tup had sneaked off to visit his ovine seraglio in their field. He is a good tup and we shall be sorry to sell him but with only a small flock it is not wise to keep a ram too long. He is however a jolly fellow and we hope that another flock of nubile ewes will soon enjoy his company. He will leave behind a large number of solidly built breeding ewes and a couple of excellent ram lambs for the autumn sales.
However, if a Californian pastor is correct neither the lambs nor anyone else will be around for the ram sales at Hereford! According to Pastor Harold Camping the world will have ended and, whilst he is hazy on the details, he is confident that there will be radical changes on May 21st.. He is not alone in having apocalyptic thoughts as Eco warriors share his view. But whereas the pastor thinks God will end things in a couple of months; the Eco warriors are convinced humans will do it themselves but they are less certain as to the date.
Readers might recall the cry of Private Frasier in Dad’s Army, “We’re all doomed,” and as a child such claims troubled me. But having already lived through a number of dire prophecies’ I am now less bothered. Not of course that one should approach such matters without a sense of unease but, as regular readers of this column will know, its writer considers life to be so serious that it should be treated with a light touch. One must however, never sneer at it or take it for granted, but we may ask if the same be said about our education system?
One might suppose that a purpose of education would be to shape the young mind with ‘knowledge’ rather than opinion, – they will develop those soon enough – but a lot of youngsters leave school without a realistic understanding that life comprises both failure and success, and that fulfilling potential will always involve 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration.
Because potential and capability is different in each person, I am irritated when, because not everyone can get a university place, the metropolitan chattering classes moan defeatedly about youngsters as being a lost generation or of being on the shelf. I wonder if they realise that such prattling may be highlighting their own failures of policy, rather than any deficiencies of a school or its teachers.
The importance of a good teacher is obvious and probably most of us can remember a teacher who encouraged us and whom we now wish were alive so that we could thank them! Personally, I wish I had listened more keenly to my English teacher but as they say, ‘life moves on,’ and if life is a journey on the ocean of time we cannot spend all of it in the calm of the harbour, but must set sail and make the best of what talent we have.
Whilst on the topic of education: I reckon that if we spent less time listening to educationalists talk about their systems and instead listened to teachers talking about their classrooms, more youngsters would end up grounded in the three R’s and would be then able to use their own energies creatively as they sail the ocean of life.
However, whatever the level of an individual’s education there are always times when a slip of the tongue can be embarrassing, and such was the case when an educated and aspiring woman tried to keep up with the neighbours of her prestigious house in north London. Wanting a character house in the country she faxed a huge list of demands to a local agent.
The day for inspection came and the prospective purchaser revealed herself as having an ingratiating voice similar to that of Linda Snell of the Archers, but with a habit of badly mispronouncing her words. She visited a number of rural properties but dismissed them all. The roads were too narrow and muddy; the hedges too high, there were no neighbours, no lights and no buses. The complaints continued and she made clear that the locally educated agent was to blame for wasting her time.
In desperation he took her to a modern executive show house with under-floor heating and no chimneys. On entering the spacious and beautifully furnished lounge her eyes searched for the missing fireplace whereupon her foible for mispronunciation led her to exclaim, “This room has no vocal point.” Quick as a flash he replied,
“I hear what you say madam and I can’t see the point.”
View from the Pew 