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Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905


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Maybe ‘cross country’ means a different thing in Aus, but how could he follow in a car? Certainly our CC routes were pretty much the same as rural dog walks, narrow footpaths through woods and fields, plus the odd muddy farm track. An all terrain motorcycle might just have made it, but not a car.

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19 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Mr Clarke would follow close behind us in his car and threaten to run over the slower kids. 

 

Last one back had to hold a shot put  in outstretched arms for 5 minutes or get hit on the head with a screwdriver. 

 

I think his unrealised  dream was to be a WW2  Japanese war criminal but he was too young and not Japanese so he'd take it out on us.

 

There was a theory in our school that all of the teachers were people who hadn't quite hit their career mark.

 

English: failed authors.

Social studies: failed politicians.

Geography: failed explorers.

History: failed archaeologists.

Science: failed inventors

Music: failed musicians.

Art: failed artists

 

PE: failed Nazis...

 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

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So, finally he is sent packing

Thinking that he is special and can do what he likes

Thinking his job is more important than public health

Thinking that the rules don't apply to him

Lying about it and being caught out

 

Good riddance.

 

Oh, but wait .....

 

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IQ3lIbz.jpg

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I’ll have to test this theory on my bro, he having been a PE teacher for quite while. He became head of sports education for the county council, and later deputy head of a whopping great school, but at no point did I ever detect fascistic tendencies. Maybe I just wasn’t looking closely enough.

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9 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Maybe ‘cross country’ means a different thing in Aus, but how could he follow in a car? Certainly our CC routes were pretty much the same as rural dog walks, narrow footpaths through woods and fields, plus the odd muddy farm track. An all terrain motorcycle might just have made it, but not a car.

 

We had about 200 yards of pavement from the school and then it was over a stile into a alternating swamp and woods. There was also a section across dairy fields on the way back where it was amusing to discover that several of the hard kids were terrified of cattle.

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1 minute ago, Nearholmer said:

and later deputy head of a whopping great school, 

 

Only deputy head, I note. Headteachers, in my experience, however good at their job and however personable and pleasant characters they are - as nearly all I've encountered have been - do at bottom have the Will to Power, at least in their professional capacity. It is, it seems to me, a necessary characteristic to survive the appalling things the job throws at you. 

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10 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I’ll have to test this theory on my bro, he having been a PE teacher for quite while. He became head of sports education for the county council, and later deputy head of a whopping great school, but at no point did I ever detect fascistic tendencies. Maybe I just wasn’t looking closely enough.

 

You would need to ask everyone who was in his class at the age of thirteen and didn't want to be there to get an accurate picture.. ;)

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2 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Maybe ‘cross country’ means a different thing in Aus, but how could he follow in a car? Certainly our CC routes were pretty much the same as rural dog walks, narrow footpaths through woods and fields, plus the odd muddy farm track. An all terrain motorcycle might just have made it, but not a car.

 

The last section of our school cross-country runs (after wading through drainage ditches and negotiating our way along bramble strewn woodland paths), was via the main road back to the school. Some lads would hop upon buses for that final stint (not me, I was a good boy I was).

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My cross-country episodes centred on running around Sutton Park.....

I found the tracks of a miniature railway one day...

Got into trouble when I innocently asked about them.......to be harangued for being ''off-route''..   :(

In less than ten years, there came the Royal Marines.....Brought a whole new aspect to 'cross-country''....

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12 minutes ago, alastairq said:

My cross-country episodes centred on running around Sutton Park.....

I found the tracks of a miniature railway one day...

Got into trouble when I innocently asked about them.......to be harangued for being ''off-route''..   :(

In less than ten years, there came the Royal Marines.....Brought a whole new aspect to 'cross-country''....

 

At least when running around in full kit with a 75lb pack (except when some joker has sneaked a big lump of drystone wall into it during a rest break, thank you Sgt  Andrews, everyone but Pvt Davinson thought it was hilarious) you have the knowledge that you have volunteered to join up.

 

School being somewhat less democratic. ....:D

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5 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

PE is meant to be “character building”, isn’t it?

 

Clearly it doesn’t work for everybody.

 

It may have had some contribution to "stamina building", and for those that had an aptitude for it "ego boosting" but that is about the extent of credit that I would give it. 

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13 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

PE is meant to be “character building”, isn’t it?

 

Clearly it doesn’t work for everybody.

 

Most of us thought that it was more about establishing and reinforcing the heirachy amongst pupils.

I actually enjoyed sports, despite not excelling at any the school offered.

What I didn't like was the divisions it created outside of the lessons, which meant that other opportunities to build character were missed.

I knew quite a few kids who were hopeless at sports that found it character destroying. They were picked on endlessly. At least I had a reputation of getting pretty mean if bullied, so I was largely left alone.

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15 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

PE is meant to be “character building”, isn’t it?

 

Clearly it doesn’t work for everybody.

 

For me, it was misery, to the extent that cross-country was the highlight: one was on one's own, could set one's own pace, and had no team-mates lamenting the extent to which one was handicapping the side.

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41 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

and had no team-mates lamenting the extent to which one was handicapping the side.

I have often found things to be the other way around.

Meaning, I frequently found myself handicapped by the rest of any 'team' I happened to be involved with.

Something that has been with me all my life.

Experience has taught me that anything involving a 'team'  was frequently aligned with the concept of 'lowest common denominator'...

Not a good 'team' person, me....

Maybe I have never really been forceful enough to put my views across? Reverting to the concept of ''letting the rest get on with it?''

Or , maybe, I could never really be bothered?

Lacy fare?

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58 minutes ago, alastairq said:

I have often found things to be the other way around.

Meaning, I frequently found myself handicapped by the rest of any 'team' I happened to be involved with.

Something that has been with me all my life.

Experience has taught me that anything involving a 'team'  was frequently aligned with the concept of 'lowest common denominator'...

Not a good 'team' person, me....

Maybe I have never really been forceful enough to put my views across? Reverting to the concept of ''letting the rest get on with it?''

Or , maybe, I could never really be bothered?

Lacy fare?

 

I too have found that, whilst others wanted to drag the job out and moan about it, I wanted get it done, get it done right and get the hell out of there to spend time doing something that I felt more worthwhile. 

The trouble is in my experience, there's a lot of people who just aren't interested in anything. Probably because they've either never been encouraged to by school or family or been actively discouraged by their peers.

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3 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

there's a lot of people who just aren't interested in anything. Probably because they've either never been encouraged to by school or family or been actively discouraged by their peers.

Which brings up the topic of railway modelling, and how admitting to having such an interest is perceived by the hoi-polloi [general public, etc]?

 

Still not got the same kind of cache as fishing, or Saturday afternoon football?

 

I get the modern equivalent from my neighbour..when commenting to me 'how come you know so much about these things?'

Especially when I fix his old car?

 

I think there's far too much superficiality surrounding 'knowledge'' these days?

 

 

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1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

When I said it doesn’t work for everybody, I was thinking of the fact that some people seem to move forward into adulthood almost completely devoid of character.

 

They fall into two camps I find. Those who followed the herd but had no worthwhile direction as youngsters who suddenly find themselves a little fish in a big bowl and those whose spirit was crushed at the same time for not fitting in with the expected interests and aspirations of their peers.

I've certainly never been accused of lacking character, although because I tend to walk my own path, a number of people have suggested that I have a little too much character.

 

One thing that I did take from school came from a teacher who I really respected (of course he was made redundant at the introduction of the national curriculum, then re-hired..)

 

He told me that no matter what you do say or like in life, somebody will tell you that you're wrong and try to take the p1ss out of you for it.

 

So you might as well just get on with it.

 

As a result, life has been interesting so far.

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6 minutes ago, alastairq said:

I think there's far too much superficiality surrounding 'knowledge'' these days?


You'd have to travel a long distance to find knowledge more superficial, or perhaps just plain trivial, than that with which we railwsyacs stuff our bonces.

 

I sometimes wonder whether there is any other subject the history of which has been recorded in such excruciating detail as that of the railways of Britain. When you step back from the whole carry-on, and look at it from a distance, it’s just plain bizarre. A prodigious body of knowledge (or is it actually just data or information? It certainly isn’t wisdom!), compiled or collated largely for the sheer fun of it, which serves no practical purpose, and which goes way beyond what is needed to form a view of the technical, social, political, environmental, or economic impact of railways.

 

Mad we is!

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10 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:


You'd have to travel a long distance to find knowledge more superficial, or perhaps just plain trivial, than that with which we railwsyacs stuff our bonces.

 

I sometimes wonder whether there is any other subject the history of which has been recorded in such excruciating detail as that of the railways of Britain. When you step back from the whole carry-on, and look at it from a distance, it’s just plain bizarre. A prodigious body of knowledge (or is it actually just data or information? It certainly isn’t wisdom!), compiled or collated largely for the sheer fun of it, which serves no practical purpose, and which goes way beyond what is needed to form a view of the technical, social, political, environmental, or economic impact of railways.

 

Mad we is!

 

It's the same with everything. You ought to sit quietly in a works canteen and listen to people talking about the minutiae of football, so often in a manner that would have you believe that they actually managed the teams and were close friends with every player! :D

 

But that's considered normal....

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2 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

It's the same with everything. You ought to sit quietly in a works canteen and listen to people talking about the minutiae of football, so often in a manner that would have you believe that they actually managed the teams and were close friends with every player! :D

 

But that's considered normal....

Same when discussing, [nowadays, having a conversation'.....whatever that's all about? What's wrong with calling it an argument??] politics?

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9 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

You'd have to travel a long distance to find knowledge more superficial, or perhaps just plain trivial,

 There's a huge difference [ in my world, maybe not that of others?] between 'superficiality', and 'trivia.'

 

Trivia..is, or can be, somewhat subjective, really.

What may be trivia to me, probably isn't to others  {The rest of the world, perhaps?}

Superficiality, to me, implies an 'attitude'.

 

 

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