These are the last four of the ten photographs I found recently of the Teachers v School Prefects football match. This keenly fought fixture took place probably just before Christmas in 1980, give or take a year either way. My beautiful new wife was watching the game, armed with my camera, if I remember correctly.
This first photograph shows myself and Ron Gilbert, the ex-Chemistry teacher who retired recently. We look as if we are holding a quick debate about who is going to chase after the ball:
The second photograph shows the then Head of Music, Stephen Fairlie, and the red shirted referee, Richard Willan. Red Fourteen is a Prefect playing in a staff shirt to make up the numbers. Incidentally, the staff are playing in the shirts normally worn by the school Second Eleven Football Team. These, in their turn, were, for reasons that must surely remain unknown now for ever, the second, change, strip of Sunderland A.F.C.
The third photograph shows three members of staff. Number Three on the right with his back to the camera is Paul Morris, the now retired Physics teacher. I myself am Number Two in the middle and Number One is Andrew Ayres, a native of Hartlepool if I remember correctly, a young teacher of Chemistry and a colleague of Ron Gilbert. Andrew moved on to Wisbech Grammar School in Cambridgeshire, where he became the senior tutor and examinations officer as well as continuing as a chemistry teacher. He retired in July, 2014. Once again, the Prefects will have to remain nameless:
The final picture shows Stephen Fairlie, the then Head of Music, as Number One on the left, and Bob Howard, Geography teacher and Best Man at our wedding, as Number Three on the right. In the centre is Number Two, Phil Eastwood, who was the then Head of Chemistry. Phil is a very keen supporter of Manchester City and that is where, I would imagine, his socks came from:
I would like to finish these three blog posts with a piece of medieval poetry. Medieval French poetry, no less. Well, from 1533. It was written by François Villon. (You can click on both names)
The days when I knew about such things are very distant, but ironically, that is the whole point of the poem:
Dictes moy où, n’en quel pays,
Tell me where, in which country
Est Flora, la belle Romaine ;
Is Flora, the beautiful Roman;
Archipiada, né Thaïs,
Archipiada, born Thaïs,
Qui fut sa cousine germaine;
Who was her first cousin;
Echo, parlant quand bruyt on maineEcho, speaking when one makes noise
Dessus rivière ou sus estan,
Over river or on pond,
Qui beauté eut trop plus qu’humaine?
Who had a beauty too much more than human ?
.
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan!
Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!
Où est la très sage Heloïs,
Where is the very wise Heloise,
Pour qui fut chastré et puis moyne
For whom was castrated, and then made a monk
Pierre Esbaillart à Sainct-Denys?
Pierre Abelard in Saint-Denis ?
Pour son amour eut cest essoyne.
For his love he suffered this sentence.
Semblablement, où est la royne
Similarly, where is the Queen
Qui commanda que Buridan
Who ordered that Buridan
Fust jetté en ung sac en Seine?
Be thrown in a sack into the Seine?
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan!
Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!
La royne Blanche comme ung lys,
The queen Blanche, white, as a lily
Qui chantoit à voix de sereine;
Who sang with a Siren’s voice;
Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, Allys;
Bertha of the Big Foot, Beatrix, Aelis;
Harembourges qui tint le Mayne,
Erembourge who ruled over the Maine,
Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine,
And Joan of Arc the good woman from Lorraine
Qu’Anglois bruslerent à Rouen;
Whom the English burned in Rouen ;
Où sont-ilz, Vierge souveraine ?Where are they, oh sovereign Virgin?
.
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan!
Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!
Prince, n’enquerez de sepmaine
Prince, do not ask me in the whole week
Où elles sont, ne de cest an,
Where they are – neither in this whole year,
Qu’à ce refrain ne vous remaine:
Lest I bring you back to this refrain:
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan!
Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!
John Knifton 