Awali Days

Mike Knight, a former sales executive, radio station manager and DJ_is now a civil servant living in Luxembourg. He is sharing his magical memories of Awali School with a series of articles in GulfWeekly about life in the Bahrain of yesteryear. Right, Mike then and now.

My final teacher at Awali School prior to my boarding school days was Miss Tiffany.

Mrs Mountford had marched me from her classroom near to the headmasters office, down the corridor, to hand me over to the stern looking Miss Tiffany.

I have a clear memory of Mrs Mountford saying "Miss Tiffany will sort you out!" It felt like she breathed a huge sigh of relief as she passed her problem pupil over to the care of this small lady, who walked with a stick as a result of a brush with Polio, which I believe happened in Awali.

Miss Tiffany had heard about my wayward attitude towards homework - so she had set up a system whereby my father had to see my "homework book" which listed the work I was supposed to do. I used to chuck the book in the hedge regularly on the way home - more trouble!

My career as a 'trade unionist' was cut somewhat short as a result of an incident with Miss Tiffany. A group of us kids in "Tiffies" class had got together to discuss the fact that we hated the amount of homework she was piling on us - I was the one with the best handwriting - so I had taken notes on all the things we disliked about her - and the fact that we were considering a homework strike!

There it stood, all our complaints, all our hates, everything we disliked about her, all clearly laid out. Only problem was, she spotted this large amount of work (which was incredibly rare for me remember) in my desk, and asked to have a look at it.

This was decidedly one of those life moments, when you want the world to open up and swallow you!

All the complaints were only in my writing - so it looked like it was only me who harboured these thoughts! None of my fellow conspirators were about to stand up and say they were involved - so there I stood, alone! Miss Tiffany took my notes away to read - and handed them back to me the next day without saying a word.

I don't ever recollect that our homework was reduced in any way. I'm sure that what I wrote must have hurt her feelings, but she kept the matter to herself, and never marched me down the corridor for a caning by the headmaster.

For the remainder of my time with Miss Tiffany - we sort of had a truce from that moment on. She tried her best to teach me French - I wondered why knowing the correct way to say "my aunt's pen" (la plume de ma tante) would ever help me in any way ... Given that I have lived in Luxembourg for the last 30 years, and that French is now my second language, I still have never had a cause to use that phrase! I do, however, often ponder what Miss Tiffany would think of my current (imperfect) French. Like most Awali School kids, I could not wait to hit that moment in life when you went to boarding school.

This meant you had grown up a notch, and that you would be considered as a "teenager" when you returned for the long summer holidays, and if you were lucky and your parents could afford it, Christmas, or even at Easter.

Being a kid in Awali was special enough - but being a teenager was even better. Eight weeks of lolling about by either of the two pools, bowling in the club, or playing snooker in the very well-kept snooker room, beach days down at Zallaq, with visits over to the "Shaikhs Beach" where Shaikh Isa had a beach house, and ran almost an open-door policy to anyone who wanted to pop over and say hi - it was all very relaxed and easy going.

Continues next week