MotherSoup

(*with apologies to the author of Sirah (Ecclesiasticus) 44:1)

In my very first posting, I expressed my concern about the potential for unprofessionality amongst staff who might read these parent blogs. This week, Don Ledingham has been considering a hypothetical dilemma involving parents using these blogs to criticise teachers.

Time for a bit of the positive…

I wanted to credit a teacher - albeit the East Lothian area - whose legacy to me has been so very precious for over twenty years, and seems to become even more precious with time.

Mrs Rita Wareing: a little trotty, bird-like woman. I’ve no idea now how old she must have been, older than middle age, I guess. She was ‘Deputy Headmistress’ at a school with three deputies - all with different titles - so I’ve no idea exactly what she did, but her original subject was English. Ironically, I don’t remember her ever taking my class, but somewhere along the line I started to go to her for support lessons after school (I was 13-15 years old). We covered grammar, punctuation and sentence structure to a level of detail which was never reached in class. My writing may be execrable at times, but it’s thanks to her that I have a decent grasp of avoiding things like the greengrocers’ apostrophe.

But it was what she did to the breadth of my reading which made a real difference. Together we read and discussed everything from Middle English poetry to the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Mrs Wareing would keep a pile of books on a shelf just inside the door of her office, and I was welcome at any time to reach an arm round the door and help myself to a random selection: classics and comedies, poems and bodice-rippers. I was a conservative reader and would never have dreamt of picking up half those titles by myself. That range of reading has meant I have gone through life so much better informed than would otherwise have been the case, and it’s been a springboard to inspire me to read a great deal more.

I was too much of a lout to express any decent gratitude at the time. Everything else about that school was tiresome, and I was too keen to get away from the bad stuff to credit anyone with the good things.

Twenty-odd years later, I often think about Mrs Wareing. My kids are growing up surrounded by a mouth-watering choice of books - many of which I associate with that little office. The tiresome school has been long since razed to the ground, and I’ve failed to track down Mrs Wareing through places like Friends Reunited or even the electoral roll (are there any teacher-finding networks out there?). For all I know she may no longer be around. I wish I could tell her how much her time with me has paid off.

Mrs Wareing - thanks.