Page 71 - Through a glass brightly

The leaving photos resurrected a couple of mini-nightmarish A Level memories. I got the time of one of my German papers wrong, thought it was afternoon - it wasn't. School phoned and said they'd send someone to collect and escort me to school. But..I was alone at home with a baby - must have been my youngest brother, then 10 months or so. They had to dispatch 2 members of staff: a young male Geography teacher (really?) and I think Mrs Lawson to look after the baby till mum came back from the shops. To further sully my reputation, I then picked up dysentery when there was an outbreak at my brothers' primary school, and had to do my final exam (possibly a Latin paper) in isolation - with a bucket strategically placed (fortunately not needed). Oh happy days! At least I had some street cred to draw on when, decades later, I was forewarning many cohorts of students about the potential unforeseen perils besetting exams.
Continuing the celebrity encounters thread - I once sat beside Ian McEwan during a 3-hour delay at Kalamata airport. He was totally focused on his laptop, but I dared to mention that I was eagerly awaiting the soon to be released film of On Chesil Beach, and asked if he was working on his next novel. He said it was set in the Arctic - it turned out to be Solar, which does indeed feature the Arctic in its early stages. Not one of his most memorable works though. Atonement is my clear favourite.
I came across some school magazines a couple of days ago, unfortunately not a full set, though I found the reports both of the Queen's visit and Miss Balaam, Miss Rotherham & Miss Dixon's deaths. What an exceptionally sad few years for the staff. But in the Sept 1961 edition it was great to see the early flowering of literary talent in 3 of our number, Glenda's whimsical The Unfinished Orthography, Judy's poetic Now summer is gone, and Ann's witty and humorous Collecting Things. Who knew we'd be relishing their talents nearly 60 years later!
That's more than enough from me, but please keep the musings and memories coming.
Thursday, 7th May
From Mag P. at 10.11
Thanks Glenda I have now managed to get my drop box to receive your masterpieces!
I also have about seven of your books that you and Val kindly lent to Pat Kitto and I sat with her in hospital turning the pages for her. She loved looking at them.
From Janet at 13.02
I was only thinking about Miss Kitto the other day - and also Mrs Ottoway throwing books at us!
Thanks to their teaching, medical Latin words are not too unfamiliar to me these days - didn't help much with the Punic Wars though!
Friday, May 8th
From Glenda at 10.10
If you really hate the little beasts don’t bother with this (a video about cats).
(But for other cat lovers, you will know that it is not toilet rolls which are in universally short supply but ‘Dreamies’. I have scoured the shops (Morrisons, Tesco etc) and even Amazon said, initially, they were unobtainable. Then two tubs arrived. One tub was placed on a shelf. During the night, the two kittens knocked it off the shelf, bit off the plastic lid, clawed their way through the cellophane top, ate half the tub and then were sick all over my new hall carpet! There. I’ll never mention the cats again!)
70