Posted in personal on Feb 14th, 2009 4 Comments »
We held a wonderful thanksgiving service today for my mother Barrie Ledingham who died on the 8th February 2009. I gave this eulogy.
Barrie was named after her father’s favourite writer J. M Barrie who wrote Peter Pan, sometimes known as “The boy who never grew up”.
In a peculiar way mum lived up to her namesake’s [...]
Posted in personal on Dec 14th, 2008 No Comments »
Lewi - our youngest boy - is settling into life in Christchurch, New Zealand. He sent me this photo of him posing in his surfing gear (he’s on the right). The hospitality and welcome he has received from the local people has been amazing.
It’s only been two weeks but I can already see him benefiting [...]
Posted in personal on Nov 15th, 2008 12 Comments »
Ever since our youngest son Lewis was ten years old he’s been telling people that he would go out New Zealand to play rugby when he left school.
In the intervening eight years we’ve humoured him with the good old Scottish double positive “aye right”.
Well the boy has proved us all wrong as he sets out [...]
Posted in personal on Aug 3rd, 2008 7 Comments »
Our eldest boy (he’s the one launching himself into the darkness!!) returned from Australia on Friday. I know this sounds like a terrible cliche but he did leave as a boy and has returned a man.
I’m now more convinced than ever of the value of a gap year experience - or at least something before [...]
Posted in personal on Jun 28th, 2008 2 Comments »
Je suis en vacances pour les deux semaines suivantes.
Posted in personal on Jun 18th, 2008 No Comments »
Our son - Doug - is currently out in Australia playing rugby and generally having a tremendous time (I’m not really envious!). In the past week he’s been staying with Mark Walker’s family in Melbourne.
I met Mark out in Harvard last summer and we struck up a great rapport. He’s doing some very innovative work at Elsterwick Primary [...]
Posted in personal on Apr 13th, 2008 4 Comments »
Our eldest son is out in Australia playing rugby for Nelson Bay - which is just North of Sydney - and is having a great time.
He has received an incredible welcome and Nelson Bay seems to be a beautiful place.
We are sorely tempted to try to get out to visit him during the summer but it [...]
Posted in Culture change, Inclusion, Leadership, Positivity, Power/influence, Unconditional Positive Regard, personal on Apr 12th, 2008 5 Comments »
Over the last 6 weeks I’ve been doing two jobs - the Head of Education and Director of Education and Children’s Services. We appointed my successor this week in the form of Maureen Jobson, who is the Manager of our Learning and Teaching Team. Maureen is everything I’m not - methodical, practical and reliable. She [...]
Posted in personal on Apr 12th, 2008 2 Comments »
We visited a gallery this morning and came across this sculpture entitled “A wolf in sheep’s clothing” by Susan MacInnes.
We’d been keen on the piece before and when we saw it again this morning made a decision to purchase. We used the Scottish Arts Council “own art” scheme which allows you to pay it off [...]
Posted in personal on Apr 3rd, 2008 4 Comments »
Douglas, our eldest son, set off yesterday for Australia. He’s going to be playing rugby in Nelson Bay, which is a couple of hours North of Sydney.
Douglas is on the right with his Granny and his brother Lewis.
We saw him off with mixed emotions - we won’t see him again for nearly five months but the opportunity [...]
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