"What are you doing?" I ventured as I approached and noticed that the traditional wooden figures -- the usual Mary, Joseph, Jesus, shepherds, sheep, cows, camels and the occasional Wise Man -- carefully spread out by myself in conventional arc formation as if taking a post-performance bow, were being manipulated by the young lady rather than stared at in wonderment. I have incidentally always wondered what Joseph and Mary said to each other when they realised that they would have to toil back to Nazareth, weighed down by large lumps of heavy metal and weighty caskets containing greasy substances.
But more immediately back to Willow who had by now moved all the wooden figures, placing them in a tight circle, looking inwards. Responding to a request for why this needed to be so, I was told "Don't be silly", the usual opening when addressing her paternal grandfather, "That is the baby Jesus and all the people would be interested in him and want to get close to him." And that was it; Willow was right of course. If that little creature was God in human form, your average Judean shepherd would not be standing thirty feet away stage right, arms akimbo, gazing at the upper circle. He would want to be right there, inspecting the baby, giving him the odd poke and asking about the possibility of a proper 'We will rock you'.
Almost seventy five years of looking affectionately, if vacantly, at nativity scenes and my eyes had been suddenly opened by a child. I decided we would not delay breakfast any longer with a discussion on whether the arrangement of the personnel observing the baby Jesus might be a metaphor for Christians needing to have faith in something which they cannot see. On encountering some difficulty in opening the Marmite pot, I did however remind myself of one of the girls' great-grandfather's favourite biblical quotations from his near encyclopaedic collection: 'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hath he ordained strength'. Or, as Anne Frank wrote, 'Even if people are still very young, they shouldn't be prevented from saying what they think'.
And what about the old? I hear you ask and of course they too have their supporters, not least in the Book of Proverbs 'The grey hair of experience is the splendour of the old'; or more recently ' Listen to your elders not because they are always right but because they have more experience of being wrong'. But you are persistent and want to know if you should listen to the middle aged. In truth with the arrival of artificial skin adjustments, a bit extra here and rather less there, various signs of uplifting in one place and downsizing in another, we manage to retain the superficialities of youth until we are 64, then slide sublimely into old age. So try this for your next socio-philosophical essay Middle age is an outdated concept and has ceased to exist: Discuss.
And after the longest introduction ever, that all seems to be as good a starting point as any for a few thoughts on giving, receiving and appreciating advice. We will not be dwelling on instructions and request such as Keep off the grass [ all too rarely accompanied by a 'please '] but we may alight on the hybrid command and advice: Practise what you preach as the Downing Street inmates may have said to one another when the torrent of Partygate was in full spate. Advice given from the position of parent, teacher or guru is usually more comfortable than that directed at an equal, whether they be friend or spikey old so and so.
There now follows my only original thought in this blog: keep it simple; life is a lottery; do something.
'Just do what is right and be nice'.
But sometimes it's hard
To play the right card,
So just take a chance, roll the dice.
The Family Way
Having embarked on this cornucopia of tips and enlightenment and remembering you are always a child until your parents pass away, let's start with how to approach our nearest and dearest and begin with a question: how many of the 'positive' Ten Commandments can you quote from memory? If this is stretching your brain cells, let me help you by saying that eight of the ten tell you things that you should not do. When you have taken a break from committing adultery and coveting your neighbour's oxen, the only significant things you ought to do are remember the Sabbath Day and honour your father and your mother, adapted in one modern version to Humour your father and your mother. Either version can cause stress and frustration as your parents become crusty and fusty, causing you to approach them with a Let it go attitude.
However, long before you get to that stage, you will want to show respect to your grandparents as well. If you were a child in Scotland in the final quarter of the twentieth century, you will have hummed along to the tunes of the Singing Kettle, especially perhaps this little ditty, sung to the tune of 'She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes:
Naw ye canny shove yer granny off a bus;
Naw ye canny shove yer grannie
Cause she's yer mammie's mammie
Ye canny shove yer grannie off a bus.
There is unfortunately more than a hint of discrimination in verse 2:
Ye can shove yer other grannie off a bus;
Ye can shove yer other grannie
Cause she's just yer daddie's mammie;
So shove yer other grannie off a bus.
Subsequent verses tell us:
We'll all go round to see her after school
followed by:
She'll feed us mince and tatties when we go
and
Ma grannie wears an awfy woollie vest
And how, more generally, about those we call our ' close family '? One of my many failures in life has been to fail to persuade our own children to appreciate the great 1952 film High Noon, a classic western portraying the lone civilised man standing for the cause of righteousness against the forces of evil and apathy. The good guy sheriff is left on his own, facing colossal odds but his new, and of course glamorous, wife [ and this was the first western in which women came through in their own right ] responds heroically to the haunting refrain ' Do not forsake me, O my darling, on this our wedding day. ' And so it goes on: you can shout, stamp, rush into the suburbs or hurl the teapot at the wall but do stop short of forsaking the one you call darling on your wedding, or any other, day.
Of course Grace Kelly, who played the demur but spiritually tough Amy in High Noon did things the other way round, forsaking her career and her adoring fans and retiring at 26 so that she could enjoy one of the most elaborate wedding days ever. The make believe Gary Cooper was clearly no match for the real life Prince Rainier of Monaco.
And while you're humming along to that one, feel free to give a boisterous rendering of ' Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington', but don't put your son on there either and in fact, if you want to keep your sanity and your conscience intact, don't try to put any of your children anywhere. The occasional whelp of elation or grunt of semi-approval is quite enough. They will need to write their own voyage of discovery and they will benefit from the experience.
At some point in these meanderings we were bound to stumble across old man Polonius and all those incredibly wise things he said to Laertes as the latter left to study in Paris. We all recall ' Neither a borrower nor a lender be' and 'Take each man's censure but reserve thy judgement '. However, had he spent a little more time thinking about being in the right place at the right time, he might not have snuffed it behind the arras, courtesy of Hamlet's trusty blade. Perhaps Polonius should have kept it simpler. If you are parents and your children, on the threshold of something major, look to you, then ' Be there ' is a pretty sound piece of advice for success in life. You can't win if you don't play, as they say in all the best casinos and if you are always there, you may pick up the golden key that unlocks the mystery door before anyone else.
Incidentally there is a lesser known but equally wise [ and slightly less pompous ] equivalent to Polonius's Young Person's Guide to the Way of the World. It was written by Sir Henry Sidney when his son Philip [ he of much later ' Your need is greater than mine ' fame ] was going off to school at Shrewsbury for the first time. In it you will find ' Mark the sense and matter of that you do read as well as the words, so that you will both enrich your tongue with words and your wit with matter', and ' Let your mirth be ever void of scurrility and biting words '.
As we move from the family to education, it is worth remembering that young people will probably only pay attention to advice, however profound and telling, if it comes from someone they respect and ideally like as well.
Education
The safe houses for advice given in the cause of education are the rousing ' Be Prepared ', ' Carpe Diem ' or endless quotations from the celebrated poem If, by one known rather disparagingly in my schooldays as ruddy old Kipling. And is there a hint of reality behind the disapproval for who could disagree with ' If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat these two imposters just the same'? Perhaps it is not the poet's fault that his lines are addressed to only the 50% male half of humanity with strong overtones elsewhere of anti-semitism because that's just how things were. However, we may decide to treat his writings with a light stand-off touch in an age when we have moved a long way forward.
I prefer to seek out and hold up another twentieth century gentleman, my father, Arthur, who was tolerant and wise and knew how to impart his wisdom, particularly in daily practical matters. One of the smaller yet significant occasions for me at Gordonstoun was a session with those about to do their final exams and leave the School. On an evening before that fragmentation began, they and I gathered in the rather splendid South Room of the main building. I gave them ten pieces of advice; we had a brief drink; a photograph of all present was taken and we turned in at a reasonable hour. For these ten pearls of guidance I drew heavily on my father, particularly for number one ' Get the facts straight '. Before making up your mind, jumping to conclusions or shouting the odds, just pause and make sure you know precisely what the situation is. As pandemics, parties and Putin swirl about us, we could all benefit from a dose of that.
While my father was keen that we should not leap to dubious conclusions, he was no less sure that when the opportunity or need to speak arose, we should not be found wanting. A question is asked, a provocative remark is uttered, an empty statement looks for cheap applause; it was then that he would tell us, balancing the two words with a pause between them to achieve equal emphasis; ' Say ..... something'.
When danger appeared, a breakage occurred or when a joke might be in danger of going to far, don't rush in, father would say, but ' Leave it entirely alone ', with a heavy emphasis on entirely and a slight pause afer it. In my ten pieces of advice to leavers this became ' Mind your own business ', primarily referring to matters of private lives and personal behaviour. Rather more prosaically and typical of one whose life was devoted to the upbringing and development of children, his advice on communication when dealing with a junior school community was clear ' Never give a message to (pause) or take a message from (pause) a small boy or girl'.
We might slip in here an epigram, much fancied by Kurt Hahn who knew a thing or two about social education. Presented usually as a strict disciplinarian and a domineering character, nevertheless he frequently quoted from The Rule of St Benedict, advising us that when the chips were down and someone was struggling, ' Never crush the bruised reed '.
Brevity may be the soul of wit; it is also necessary when you want to get a message across to young people. Oh how we school folk are tempted to embark on a homily of glorious detail when a few sentences would do. Standing at the back of the gymnasium of St Wilfrid's Prep School in the early 1970s on the day before Sports Day, listening to the excellent major domo going through every extraordinarily tedious movement of the morrow's celebrations, including the handwashing procedure for the nth time, my neighbouring colleague lent across and whispered ' Have you ever heard a man talk so much and say so little?' I suspect it may not have been an original quotation any more than when I was loudly bemoaning my fate in the staff common room one morning, he peered over his newspaper and, without removing his pipe from his mouth, asked ' Pyper, is your journey really necessary?'
Incidentally, Junior School Sports Days provide marvellous opportunities for pomposity and for levelling down the pompous. When I was promoted, or more probably promoted myself to being the unmatched colossus of the St Wilfrid's Sports Day spectacular, in addition doubtless to similar unmerited verbosity in briefings, I was accustomed on the day to stride bossily along the ranks of parent spectators and young performers, bellowing unnecessarily through a hand held megaphone. On the celebrated occasion in question my friendly colleagues, John and Philip, fitted a contraceptive of the rubber condom variety to the protrusion which sits at inside back of the speaker. I was unable to see the dangling object but the rest of the world could -- and did. I could not understand the high level of concentration and the muffled mirth which greeted me as I confidently summoned the under 9s for the egg and spoon race.
But the final word in the educational section rests with my father who, with more than a hint of the Ulster conservative presbyterian about him, was an advocate of routine and stability in schools, particularly when the young were prone to bouts of excitement and the staff to expressions of hyperbole at the approach of special events or holiday freedom. He would always say ' Keep things as normal as possible for as long as possible' and that, some of us have discovered, is extremely sound advice.
School Mottos
And so we come to the supplementary educational subject -- of weighty importance of course -- those wonderfully arousing, pithy or philosophical epigrams, known as school mottos. They bind us to our kindred spirit and point us in the direction of everlasting moral superiority. Amongst those I have personally encountered you may find the call to action Ready Ay Ready [ the Scottish version of Baden Powell ] or the more cerebral Sapiens Qui Prospicit or ' Wise is the person who looks forward ' [ Well done Sarah Gilbert although I suspect she was not a student at Malvern College ]. You can climb the dizzy righteous high ground with Bono Malum Superate, 'Overcome evil with good ' or the enduringly spiritual Justorum Semita Lux Splendens ' The path of the just is a shining light '.
Perhaps not entirely in an impartial state, I have always appreciated my own old school motto, Manners Makyth Man, [ although goodness knows what is to happen now that Winchester College is to admit girls ]. It rather appeals not primarily because it may encourage a Uriah Heap style of obeisance to what are sometimes seen as middle class concepts of saying 'Please ' and 'Thank you' [ and hooray for them anyway ] but because the self-discipline involved in having to think about other people can lead to a genuine consideration for them. Manners can thus make us more positively and generously disposed members of society and double hooray for that too.
At Gordonstoun they take pride in Plus Est En Vous, adopted from an inscription in a church in Bruges and signifying ' There is more in you '. Some like to add ' than you think ' as an imprecation towards self-confidence but I have come to ponder if it might not best be just left tantalisingly as it is, implying perhaps ' than other people think ' or perhaps that vous is truly plural, a rallying cry about moral strength in numbers? We must continue to muse.
Two young people of the next generation who are quite close to me -- or at least I hope they are -- work in schools with apparently conflicting Latin mottos. Perseverantia Vincit ' Perseverance conquers ' one proudly pronounces, goading its students as they enter the daunting lists of life's challenges, while Virtus omnia vincit, ' Truth conquers all ' the other firmly heralding the high ground of ethical morality. Both may have come too late to the essential merits of love and the followers of St Paul will be hissing ' What about faith, hope and charity? ' but we'll just note that the shield of perseverance and the sword of truth, if they were to come together, make a pretty formidable combination.
Returning to education for the last word, the motto of Oxfordshire Teacher Training, the board of which I am fortunate enough to chair, is The influence of a great teacher can never be erased. I am not sure who was responsible for that but no more need be said.
Life's Challenges
We must move quickly on, for you will be almost asleep by now, to the grander themes of life. There is endless advice for those who succumb to a ' Woe is me ' philosophy. ' O God, why don't you do something? '. ' I did ' replied the Almighty. ' What did you do? '. ' I sent you '. Sometimes we just have to discipline ourselves to get on with the job and, if we harbour any ambition about it all becoming a bit better, we just have to be the change we would like to see in the world. Easier said than done.
And don't hold others responsible for all life's ills. Budding boppers in the early 1960s [ we are literally a dying breed now ] yearned to get on to the dance floor to sample the Twist, the Locomotion and the Mashed Potato; not myself incidentally for I found all this hard to cope with at a number of levels and sought solitary solace in the peaceful isolation of the lavatorial facilities, thence to emerge possibly for a final shuffle to ' Don't blame it on the Bossanova ', implying that the culpability frequently lies with ourselves. So forget about pointing the finger at anyone else.
We should probably just accept responsibility but also be careful -- this will sound like heresy or sacrilege to some -- of those eternal phrases of encouragement: ' Be yourself ' and ' Fulfil your potential '. The sentiments may be sound but need qualification for as you pronounce these worthy edicts, remember you may be addressing a potential Joseph Goebbels, Harold Shipman or Vladimir Putin and would you really want them as the objects of your imprecations, fired with your encouragement, to achieve yet more thoroughly the particular perversions in which they are so skilled? A little qualification makes all the difference.
And when we think we're awfully good, we might with advantage remember that even the best in life comes to an end and that pride rides before a fall [ I first read that advice expressed most tellingly in one of the Billy Bunter books when the owl of Greyfriars came a cropper off his bicycle ]. Pride of course is a slippery eel, a tricky concept, on the one hand being regarded as thoroughly laudable -- taking a pride in what we do -- but you're not supposed to express ostensible pride afterwards. It's probably something akin to that thinnest of dividing lines between confidence [ a virtue ] and arrogance [ a definite vice ].
Balance is quite a handy idea if you can come anywhere near it: the individual and the group; the agony and the ecstasy; the pace bowler and the spinner. Lennon and McCartney, on the verge of breaking up the Beatles and in a constant state of grumpiness with each other, displayed their moods by composing one morning the depression being felt in The Long and Winding Road ; then, thinking the better of it in the afternoon, produced Let It Be. It is so important, is it not, to have our say but also to have the sensitivity to know when we have said or done enough? I was recently reminded by a good friend and former colleague how, when I was a Head, if a member of staff received an email or message from myself which finished ' There is no need to reply to this email ', you knew exactly where you stood. There was a barely disguised euphemism for ' You've had your say; that's the end of it; get on with the job '. And almost all of them did, far more effectively than I could have done in their position.
Life's Expectations
When I was in regular employment I used to tell the young people in my care and their parents that the three dominant objectives for the former were that they should be happy, successful and considerate, probably in reverse order and always remembering those who did not have the opportunity to develop such qualities, An important qualification was that such things did not happen overnight and ten years after school was about the right time to see if the objectives had been achieved.
We, the loud and bombastic fraternity and sorority, should appreciate and be thankful that the meek will eventually inherit the earth, even if this is because they will be working below ground when the bomb of Armageddon goes off [ Do you remember Tom Lehrer's ' We will all go together when we go ' ]. And I think it is fair and reasonable in the UK to take a modicum of satisfaction, joy even at times, in considering how, over fifty years, dignity and more than a hint of equality has come [ often only after a struggle ] to those sadly regarded as second-class citizens -- women, people of colour, gay people and the disabled. There is still some way to go and the path is uncomfortably rocky. And let us note the words of Desiderata; read the whole piece but for the moment note, ' Go placidly amid the noise and the haste and remember what peace there may be in silence '; ' Beyond a wholesome discipline be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here '.
One of the ten items included in my advice to leavers at Gordonstoun was at least mildly irresponsible. Conscious that I was addressing in part at least a cautious and possibly detached generation, I encouraged them while still young ' If in doubt, do it '. There was a young man, Toby, who five years earlier had sung Christmas carols outside our bedroom window at 3.30am, a charming drifter. Having meandered after leaving school for a year or two, someone of the older generation suggested, with possibly a hint of despair ' Young men like you ought to be made to do national Service. ' Toby recognised himself as one of the world's least likely soldiers but the military life had some superficial appeal. For some reason he remembered ' if in doubt, do it ' and he signed up. Three years later he recalled it again as he prepared to hang perilously off a heavily mined bridge in Iraq, defusing various unexploded devices for several hours while under constant enemy fire. He was one of the youngest to be awarded the Military Cross in that war.
At a similar time in the school calendar as the ten pillars of wisdom were brought down from on high, another farewell event occurred to which I looked forward every year. This was a gathering held in the Michael Kirk, the School's smaller chapel, when the Colour Bearers [ Prefects ] demitted office and the parting, sweet sorrow indeed, was marked by each of them reading to their peers a passage which encapsulated how they felt about life. In 2006 one of the retiring number, Olivia, through whom integrity, common sense and the milk of human kindness flowed forever freely, read her own version of some verses which were written on the wall of Mother Teresa's home for children in Calcutta. I sadly do not have a copy of Olivia's thoughts but ever since I have kept Mother Teresa's not far from me.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere, people may deceive you, Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
Appreciating the talent and goodness in others is of paramount importance as is seeing the other point of view. Crises, populism, Brexit and all manner of other factors and excuses march us towards the margins from where we brag, snipe at or ignore any who disagree to the point where the centre not only loses its hold but ceases to exist. Perhaps that middle ground wasn't such a bad place after all and we might be wise to fight a regain it.
Only one person has ever seriously told me that they were ' in the zone ' but it may be that a degree of zonal mindfulness, getting on the right wavelength in preparation for a mighty task, is apposite or even necessary. In August 2012 I was at Dorney Lake, the rowing centre, to watch the final of the Olympic women's pairs event, with 50% of the British crew comprising a competitor, Heather, known to me from some years back. It was a considerable surprise and pleasure amongst the thousands of people there to see this superb athlete, and incidentally a most generous person, coming towards me on a parallel footbridge so I called out and wished her luck. Her gaze did not deviate from her chosen path nor did she acknowledge my superficial greeting in any way. ' Silly me ' I thought to disturb her concentration as I moved to my chosen spectator spot in good time to see Heather and her rowing partner win Britain's first gold medal of the Games and the first ever won in rowing by a women's crew. Eight months later I happened to meet Heather at a wedding in Oxfordshire. Straight up to me she came to say, quite remarkably, ' I am so sorry I did not say Hello to you at the Olympics; I was concentrating on preparation for the race '. Perhaps a few more of us would benefit from getting into that sort of zone of intense focusing from time to time.
For us older folk especially, whose necks grow tired in later life and who go around with our heads bowed, we spend too much time studying the blemished and unattractive ground beneath our feet. To us I say worry not about the example of little Johnnie Head in Air [ Struwelpeter ] and emulate Basil Fotherington Thomas [ Down with Skool! ], look up and say with delicate passion ' Hello clouds, hello sky '. And when you have had an ample sufficiency of the birds, the bees and the cumulonimbus, take a seat on a bench in the city and admire the wondrous variety there is of roofing and even guttering. There are, I have learnt, some glorious chimneys in Oxford.
The Eternal Questions
By now the reader will be exhausted, replete and weighed down with examples of wise and rather too often wishful pieces of advice, and beginning to wrestle with this volume of the ramblings of Mr Know All. ' How long, O Lord, How long ', I sense you are agonising. Well, we are nearly there and will break into a canter before the final pithy exhortations.
My two very different Prep School headmasters -- Sims and Crathorne -- espoused similarly positive ideals; the former with ' Any fool can destroy ' and the latter ' Try not to be anti things but find what you can believe in and promote it '. He might have added, quoting Winston Churchill ' Never, never, ever give up '.
When I find myself with the oarsman navigating the Styx or waiting like John Bunyan's Christian to cross over to the celestial city, I shall hope to hear the strains of Danny Boy from one direction and perhaps from another, based on that same Irish jerker of emotional tears, Josh Groban singing You Raise Me Up. We should look to forces greater than ourselves for both support and inspiration but we should never underestimate the possibility of becoming that force too, remembering that no-one can do everything but everyone can do something.
How wise Kurt Hahn was always to have the parable of the Good Samaritan read on special occasions. You don't have to be a stunningly original thinker; just ask yourself the key questions ' Who is wise and what is right? '. Then go and do thou likewise and compassion will be at the heart of your philosophy.
Outside my shed -- or office pavilion as it is more grandly known -- hangs a sign All you need is love given to me by one of my three favourite young couples. The inscription isn't true of course; no more than thinking that we can live by bread alone but the thought is a sine qua non, that prerequisite for any sort of successful contact and cohesion, whether that be personal, societal or global. It really isn't possible to be too altruistic and that is a quality we have to believe we can develop even if we weren't born with it.
And so to the grand finale, the coups [ three of them ] de grace. I have rambled so you now need to have some proper thoughts and words. Advising adults about their children is never an easy task as almost always guidance will smack of patronising pomposity. So I leave this to Kahil Gibran in The Prophet.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and he bends you with his might that his arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable.
Then there is advice for those who have been entrusted with responsibility or who just feel responsible for others. As you or they set out there is a short and simple prayer [ for the present readership I include only the secular elements ] which covers most of the basics.
Be of good courage.
Hold fast to that which is good.
Render to no-one evil for evil.
Strengthen the faint hearted.
Support the weak.
Help the afflicted.
Honour all men and women.
Finally the responsibility is ours to look at ourselves as we launch forth and the lessons in the final piece are for all of us for ever. It was written by an old friend, Iain Tennant, who is imagining what Kurt Hahn might have said to a young person leaving school. I can think of no better way of signing off.
Face the days that lie ahead with a spirit of adventure, compassion, honesty and confidence. Brave the stormy seas that are bound to confront you, determined to sail your ship on to the quiet waters that lie ahead. Help those whom you may find in trouble and stir clear of the whirlpools of destruction which you will meet on your voyage through life. Be not afraid of who you are, what you are or where you are, but cling implicitly to the Truth as taught in the religion of your following. If you do all these things, you will be 'of service'. If you are 'of service' you will make others happy and you will be happy too.
18th March 2022
Excellent Mark!
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