Julia is safely delivered to the woodturning class, where she is mass-producing pens for (a) Christmas presents and (b) the Christmas Fair at the Cathedral, where the woodturning group raises money for funds each year.

It was an easy trip as the schools are not yet back. I think this will end next week. Instead of setting off at 8.00 and being back before 8.30, I will be stuck in a half hour jam as the queue for the school works its way back to gridlock two junctions. At non-school times the section in question is a quiet tree-lined road of a semi-rural nature.

Yes, it’s a Narwhal. Be patient.

In my day, as I increasingly say, we had school buses and walked. A mere handful were brought by car and a few cycled. These days a few still walk but a huge number are brought by car, delivered like some precious package with neither legs nor the time to walk. This is partly also, I expect, due to the rushed nature of the parents’ life. There are very few buses to be seen and I don’t think I’ve seen a kid on a bike.

There are five school buildings along that part of the road and I have been taught in every one of them. We arrived in Peterborough in 1966. I went to the infant school, which is still standing. I then moved along to the newly built junior school, where I was amongst the first pupils to move in. After that, and having passed my 11+ I moved on to the Grammar School. A year later, I was introduced to the chaotic nature of what passes as education policy in the UK. We turned Comprehensive. This meant merging with the Secondary Modern school next door. They also built a new block in between the two schools, which included a Language Laboratory. This was as high as tech got in those days – locked in a cell and taught by a tape recorder. Later, we would have six BBC Acorn computers, though these were reserved for people doing Higher mathematics and the rest of us were locked out. This is probably why I never took to computers.

My sister, three years younger than me, did have some lessons about computing – the dizzy pace of change.

A Narwhal horn, or is it? It’s actually a long tooth, or possibly from a Unicorn

Although it was supposed to be the answer to all our problems, treating all kids the same, it didn’t quite work out like that. Basically, we kept doing Latin and the pupils who had been at the Secondary Modern, kept doing metalwork. After merging fully, my sister’s year did metalwork and Latin wasn’t offered.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, but neither was it a great advance in education.

In Lincolnshire, meanwhile, just twenty miles away, they still have Grammar Schools to this day.

On my more radical days I would drag the pupils of Eton and Harrow et cetera (see – that Latin was handy)  out of their classrooms and line them up in front of firing squads against their ancient walls. On my more moderate days I would just like to see all kids given a top class education so they can all do well and the country can benefit.

I’ll file that wish on my list next to “world peace” and “unicorns“.

Well, with all the science that we have, if we can make non-allergenic dogs we can surely graft a narwhal onto a horse.

Yes, a Unicorn. One day we could see Unicorns once again prancing in the fields. It would certainly liven up the game of Polo.