Fifty years ago: Thursday, 20th May 1976
(Sedbergh, age 14)
I woke early to revise German for a test. Normally, I would sit outside on the grassy bank by the tennis courts, but rain stopped play, and I headed back indoors.
We got the test results on the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Urrrh—11 out of 20. It felt less like learning and more like a pub quiz: disconnected factoids with no sense of speaking meaning or knowing the narrative. I couldn’t help thinking that memorising fragments like this would never amount to real understanding. It made me question the system—how we were being taught, and by whom. Where had these teachers trained? Were they the best, or—given this is Sedbergh—somehow the worst? Do they understand or want to understand that learning is not like Mastermind, learning parrot fashion?
French: quieter than usual because the choir had gone to Ripon. Having spent five years as a chorister, even head chorister, I found I no longer had any desire to sing in Chapel or church. We did a dictée instead—mechanical, contained, and oddly preferable.
Maths: a game linked to O-level work, which at least broke the pattern of routine. A younger teacher who understands how to teach. I went on to get As in both Maths and Additional Maths.
Break: a letter from Mum about the dentist.
German: No test. All that early revision for nothing! We simply went over a chapter. I couldn’t help wondering why I’d bothered. This often happens. With a Teflon brain, what I cram before breakfast is gone by lunch.
At some point, I wrote letters to Andy and Linda—though I realise now I had only the vaguest sense of who they were. People I’d met at the People’s Theatre? Visitors to Appleby?
One boy in the class, Ben Charlesworth, another Mowden boy, received a letter signed “a fan.” We figured it was a Casterton girl – so why anonymous? Was she just shy, or just a right brick-chewer, still in the cradle, or one of the teachers? We teased him remorselessly. We studied the handwriting for clues. It looked suitably ‘girl’.
Music lesson: no teacher. Presumably away with the choir. I used the time to prepare a new study, quietly getting on with it.
Swimming: We worked on turns and the 100m backstroke. I tried to learn the new backstroke flip turn, but wasn’t very good at it yet—timing off, movement uncertain.
Grubber.
4:49 pm: Mary N. Like birdspotting. I noted her return to the Sedbergh nest after the school bus trip to her school in Kendal.
Life-saving: grips and various situations, practical and physical.Prep: Latin and Physics to close the day
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