WHERE I BIN…
Apologies to all regular Patteran pals: I bailed out without warning & haven’t even visited your comments boxes. Partly technology, partly circumstance. The guys who have been re-turfing the garden at Patteran Pastures drove their rotovator through the extension cable that connected the pc in the hut to the main ‘phone socket in the house. “Sorry, mate. Thought it was a washing line”. Yeah – twin-core cable, sited at ground level & clearly linking hut & house. Ideal for drying the smalls. So I’ve had no telephone & no router & thus no internet.
Circumstance [1.] This time last year I was steering a rickety production – The Nativity – towards the finishing line. It was to be my last school play after 29 years of preparing & presenting productions & I approached the task with very mixed feelings. Already the cracks were beginning to appear in the school community structure that had, for so many years, encouraged & sustained the arts & my very ambivalent feelings about retirement were compounded by a gathering dismay at the hints of what was to come. Not a good time. I didn’t enjoy the production process & was relieved when the dust settled in its wake. The overwhelming sense was one of relief that, for the first time since 1975, there would be no obligation in 2005 to go through the process again.
Well, last night saw the final performance of The Business of Good Government, a one-acter by veteran political playwrights John Arden & Margaretta D’Arcy. Having taken up at very short notice this post of Head of Drama on half-a-timetable at St Francis’ College, I could have pleaded insufficient preparation time & access to students; the very accommodating Headmistress gave me that option. But, in the face of the girls’ enthusiasm & real ability, I dug out the script & rehearsals began.
Prospects looked a little bleak to start with. The Business of Good Government is a fine play, but it’s a treatment of the nativity story &, initially, the sense of déjà vu was overwhelming. Also there were major constraints on rehearsal times & availability of cast. An additional problem was that the support infrastructure, human, technical & creative, that made production work so relatively straightforward at my previous school is entirely lacking here & I found myself stretched increasingly thin as time went by. Having to design lighting, stage manage, gather props & costumes & organise publicity as well as direct the play took me into areas where my skills were put under considerable strain.
However, spirit at St Francis’ was very willing. My fellow teachers were tolerant when lessons were disrupted & when I was late with reports; the girls were committed, cheerful, focussed & disciplined. The play is a small-scale piece designed for performance in a church & I staged it in St Michael’s Church, an octagonal ‘60s building with an altar raised up on a kind of circular stage. Father Paul, the Rector, was very cooperative & we had virtually unlimited access.
In fact, ultimately that willing spirit made things a good deal easier than I found them to be a year ago & on the last night I was able to sit back with script closed & enjoy some acting that was, at the least, extremely able, &, at the very best, excellent. Now, I’m relieved that it’s over, but gratified that I’ve been given the opportunity to continue to pursue the activity that has given me the most consistent pleasure & fulfilment during my school career.
Circumstance [2.] A few weeks back we discovered that Emma was expecting again. Now, maybe it will be believed that I should be handing out the cigars & hanging out the bunting. But both of us confronted the test results somewhat ruefully, to say the least. In Reuben & Rosie we seemed to have the ideal pairing. There is equilibrium in their balance of temperaments & the immediate future that both Emma & I contemplated had just four people in it! Additionally, with the passing of the years – only one or two of them, rather alarmingly – health risks to the baby increase notably.
However, we are accommodating the prospect before us day by day. We’re very conscious of the struggle that some couples have to start a family. And we know that, within the circumstances of the birth of a baby, nature beats nurture: love being hard-wired, we won’t have to struggle to care for Number Three!
10:51:48 PM 
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