Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
It's back to school time for lots of kids this week! Families have been arriving back in Bahrain after their summer holidays full of holiday stories but for those of us who've remained in Bahrain throughout the summer, life simply goes on.
My daughter Hannah has gone to a couple of summer camps at Chaoss and Busy Bees, which she really enjoyed at first but was starting to tire of. She says she can't wait to get back to school, because this year she will be in the "Biggest Kids' Class!"
She goes to Little Gems and the oldest class there is 'Amethyst' (or to me the purple class) which is for four-year-olds. As I drove her in this morning she was so happy... she is totally different to me. When I was going to school, for me the best thing about school was when the bell rang and I could go home, if I didn't have detention that is!
I'm just not academically minded and I haven't exactly got much in the way of qualifications (But, I did get my cycling proficiency certificate at nine years of age). Though it's never mattered much to me and the way things are nowadays I could probably just go on the net and get myself some Bachelor of Arts or other.
That kind of reminds me of when I lived in Cambridge, a veritable seat of learning, and one of the colleges asked me to play football for it.
Naturally I jumped at the chance. I love football and would take any opportunity to play, especially on a nice posh field. I was 25 at the time and one of the students said to me, 'if anyone asks, you are doing a post graduate course in anthropology'. I replied, 'In what?' He tried explaining it to me but it just didn't sink into my small-celled brain. Anyway, we were in a cuppers competition and had got through to the semi-final. I was the leading goal scorer and at half-time when we where 3-1 up (me scoring 2) I encountered a chap at the side of the pitch who asked me (in a very posh accent): "Excuse me my dear fellow, what are you reading here at King's College?" I at first said the Daily Mail and then went through the whole anthropology bit, to which he replie: "My name is Professor Nigel Ponsonby-Smythe and I lecture in anthropology and I have never seen you at any of my lectures!"
Oops, rumbled, I didn't play the second half and I'm sad to say that we got beat 4-3! But it was probably for the best as I later found out that if we had won we would have been kicked out of the cup because of fielding an ineligible player - Me!
As well as all the kids going back to school, those poor hard working teachers are also back to instil their knowledge into our children. But what about the holidays they've had? Wow! I know loads of teachers who are great fun. (Pity I didn't have some of these during my formative years). I was talking to one recently who told me a story about when he first started teaching and was sent to a pretty rough school on his first assignment. The early days were hard work and one 15-year-old pupil in particular singled him out for plenty of abuse while he was trying to teach. At the end of one week there was a sports day and the PE master said to my friend 'I saw your CV and you used to play a bit of rugby,' my pal said 'well yes, but that was years ago' but the sports teacher suggested he come along and help with rugby practice anyway.
Ok, so he turned up and did a few exercises. Then a game was formed and he was put at full-back. After 10 minutes of not really touching the ball he saw in the distance (he wasn't wearing his glasses) someone running and pushing people out of the way. Suddenly, this figure loomed large, ending up directly in front of him. Instinct kicked in and he brought the big fellow down with an inch perfect tackle. The guy slid in the mud and was breathing deeply.
The sports teacher ran over shouting, 'oh no' and my friend looked down at the boy he had brought down and gasped; it was the 15-year-old bully who had given him such a hard time. The lad shook his head, got the mud out of his eyes, ears and nose and looked up and said 'Good tackle sir!' After that, the teacher had no trouble at all from his previously bad student.
It's funny, the lessons you learn at school are often not the ones that anyone sets out to teach you. Things can really get turned around at the most unexpected events.
Keep happy
All my love
Krazy Kevin
