The opening of this school year has certainly been one of the most difficult I can remember. The impact of Amanda Chapman's death has been huge on everyone in the school community, but the full effect has not yet, I think, hit us. Term has begun and that brings with it all those events and procedures that are urgent and which preoccupy our time and our energies to the point where there is no time left over to reflect fully on the events of the summer. In assembly this morning, the reading came from Genesis Chapter 1, the part where God, in effect, creates time by separating day from night. In the prayer, written by Laura Henry, we focused upon the great gift of time. It reminded me that so much of our time is taken up with the urgent and the immediate, and precious little is dedicated to the really important.
The beginning of the year brings with it new staff, new pupils and, generally, new beginnings - new courses, new teachers, new friends. This year is a little different, because we are thinking hard at the same time about an ending. We embark on a new phase of the school's history in the move at Christmas to Gransha Road and in doing so, say goodbye to College Avenue, so I am acutely conscious that this is the last term on this site after 106 uninterrupted years. Ends and beginnings are linked; one leads to the other and hope and expectation is inextricably mingled with regret.
As I introduce the new staff, most at or reasonably near to the beginning of their careers, I am conscious that this will be the thirty eighth year of my teaching career; as I look back, it does not sem anything like as long as the number suggests. My first post was a permanent one, a privilege denied to most young beginning teachers in these difficult economic times. As I introduce these young men and women, I am simply aghast at the stark reality that few have had the experience of a permanent job in a school where they can put down roots and really establish their careers. All are young
teachers of real quality and it is our good fortune to have appointed them but there is something
wrong when such talent is not allowed the time and the circumstances in which to flourish. I shall
introduce our new staff in alphabetical order, save for two, to whom I shall come in time.
Philip Cartmill is a graduate of the universities of Glasgow and Southampton and he has been appointed to teach PE and Geography, taking over from Mr Creighton. He taught for a year in BRA and comes highly recommended. He will bring much needed expertise in rugby, cricket and athletics.
David Graham joins the History Department to cover Mark Robinson's career break. He is a graduate of QUB with a PGCE from Cumbria University. He has left a full-time post as Head of History at the Newcastle School for Boys to return home. He also has considerable expertise in rugby, which he is employing in the services of the 1st XV.
Natalie Kinley-McCurry has been appointed temporarily to the History and Politics departments. She is a graduate of QUB in History, with a MA in Irish History and a PGCE from Durham University. She taught for two years in Giggleswick School, a distinguished independent school in North Yorkshire, before returning home to NI. Since returning, she has taught in both Hunterhouse College and BRA. She is also a graduate in Law from the University of Ulster, so she brings with her an impressive range of academic skills.
Katherina Nicholl joins the Modern Foreign Languages department in a part-time and temporary
capacity to teach all three languages, French, German and Spanish. She is a graduate of the University of Heidelburg and has been teaching for the last year in Regent House School. She is the
wife of our Head of MFL and has taken over a rather fragmented timetable at very short notice.
Jonathan Rea has become the full-time Director of New Irish Arts after a year's career break, during which his post was temporarily taken over by Claire Buchanan. Claire will shortly be taking
maternity leave and standing in for her we are immensely fortunate to have the very talented Paul
O'Reilly. Paul is a graduate of Ulster and Manchester Metropolitan Universities and the Royal
Northern College of Music. He has acted as temporary Head of Music in St MacNissi's College, St
Michael's Lurgan and Shimna, where his maternity leave contract was extended to allow him to
complete his teaching of the A Level classes. As a student he was a member of both the Ulster Youth Orchestra and the national Youth Orchestra of Ireland; more recently, he has played in various ensembles throughout NI and in television broadcasts.
He is joined in the Music department by Claire Phillips, who, after graduating from the University of Cambridge, taught in Victoria College and Belfast High School and, last year taught in our sister
school, Glenlola Collegiate. Claire and Paul have a particularly difficult job as we look ahead not
only to all our signature events, but also to the vast amount of work involved in the move to a new
school building.
I wish all our new staff every possible happiness and fulfilment in their new
Monday 3 September 2012
Friday 31 August 2012
Welcome from the Headmaster!
I am delighted to welcome you to our new website which is launched as we prepare to move to the new school on Gransha Road. Its primary function is to post all the information about the School, which you may need as a pupil, parent, former pupil, friend, member of the wider community, geographical and educational, or interested bystander. I hope, however, that you will take some time to navigate your way around it to absorb some sense of the vitality, abundance and ‘variousness’ of our life and ethos. If you think that there is information which should be on the site and does not appear to be, please contact us and we shall endeavour to plug the gap.
My thanks goes to all who have worked hard over the last few terms to make this new site happen, especially our website administrator, Mrs Krystal Cunningham.
My thanks goes to all who have worked hard over the last few terms to make this new site happen, especially our website administrator, Mrs Krystal Cunningham.
Tuesday 21 August 2012
Friday 24 February 2012
Politics and Sports
It was the great journalist, Bernard Levin, who began his column in
the first Times newspaper after a year of closure caused by the
stand-off between Rupert Murdoch and the printing unions, back in the -
when was it? eighties?- with the words, "As I was saying..."
I feel rather the same way after a half-term of non-blogging. Not, I thought, that anyone had noticed. Not, that is, until I was inundated by a flood of concerned queries shortly after half-term. I say a flood; it could more accurately be described as two. One from a parent who sent in a sort of email headed more or less along the lines of "Wot, no Blogs?" - thank you, Micheal - and a colleague who mentioned the absence of the blog more as something to say than as a genuine and concerned inquiry. Well, if the statisticians can extrapolate from a sample, so can I and two, in my book, constitutes a flood. So, here I am, back again.
The six weeks between Christmas and half-term were extraordinarily intense. The weeks immediately following Christmas always are: A Level modules, mock exams, work experience, parental consultations, all combine in their own way to eat up time. The pressure was greater this year because of the financial environment and the detailed work on the budget to keep the number of impending redundancies to a minimum. Detailed work, I may add, led by the Bursar, whose coolness under pressure never falters. Throw into this mix the breaking of the news about Eddie Irvine buying the College Avenue site with the consequent media flurry - it was more of a flurry than a frenzy in the end - and the final decision about when we are actually going to move into the new school, and it all added up to what the media call a 'rollercoaster' of a term.
The decision to move in January has not been an entirely straightforward one, but in the end it is undoubtedly the best option with probably he least disruption to the School. We arrived at the date after an exhaustive review of all options and, curiously, selected the time that we had always thought was an impossibility. New year, new term, new school. A dignified farewell and an excited, breathless hello in 2013.
The reality, the belief, has crept up on me, incrementally day by day, until, suddenly, one morning, I woke up and the new school had ceased to be an aspiration or frustration or distant dream; quite quietly, the ground had shifted and I had never noticed ...
The highlights of the term so far. Let me single out two, both within a day or two of each other.
The first was the Politics Society's Questiontime with Steven Agnew, Jim Allister, Leslie Cree, Conor Maskey and Peter Weir answering a number of what I think were difficult questions. You'll notice that the names are in strict alphabetical order, if only to demonstate this headmaster's studious and careful neutrality. You will be pleased to know that school principals have no political opinions of any kind - well, not of the party political kind. Not, at least of the public kind. I had the pleasure of chairing the debate, sitting in the middle and observing, interested and engaged, but unable to indulge - a eunuch of the political kind. It taught me how supremely good a job David Dimbleby does, effortlessly managing the debate and mov ing seamlessly from subject to subject. It would, as they say, have done your heart good to see the politicians get to grips with each other tenaciously, courteously - well, for the most part - and maturely. There were five questions: three would not have been out of place anywhere; they were bead and butter political issues - prescription charges, recycling and the programme for giovernment - and the quality of the ideas flashing to and fro was high. Two hit the old constitutional nerve and yet, even here, the atmospherte was in an indefinable way, different. The question about how the panellists would celebrate the Diamond Jubilee didn't light anyone's blue touch paper as it might once have done. Perhaps it took a while to get fired up, but it wasn't until the last question which pushed the politicians to discuss the concept of political maturity and the potential for a movement away from the old fault lines of denomination and culture that the debate took off and even then, the change was apparent. It struck me that, for better or worse, and who am I to say, we were in a new world in which we were all, dare I say it?, intelligent people, passionate, angry and adult.
TUV, DUP, UUP, Green and Sinn Fein in Bangor Grammar School, around the same table, ten years ago? I don't think so.
The other highlight? Unquestionably the second half of a very fine Schools' Cup fourth round tie against Dalriada, when the boys played with a commitment, intensity and skill, I don't think I have seen before this year. They played as a team; it's such a trite cliche, but I have never before seen it exemplified so gloriously, the whole greater than any individual, the collective will absorbing and re-creating the single efforts to produce a force which was in the end too strong to be defied.
I had better stop. First because I am writing on the eve of the quarter-final; and secondly because the language I'm using seems all too resonant of something else, something much too inappropriately political...
I feel rather the same way after a half-term of non-blogging. Not, I thought, that anyone had noticed. Not, that is, until I was inundated by a flood of concerned queries shortly after half-term. I say a flood; it could more accurately be described as two. One from a parent who sent in a sort of email headed more or less along the lines of "Wot, no Blogs?" - thank you, Micheal - and a colleague who mentioned the absence of the blog more as something to say than as a genuine and concerned inquiry. Well, if the statisticians can extrapolate from a sample, so can I and two, in my book, constitutes a flood. So, here I am, back again.
The six weeks between Christmas and half-term were extraordinarily intense. The weeks immediately following Christmas always are: A Level modules, mock exams, work experience, parental consultations, all combine in their own way to eat up time. The pressure was greater this year because of the financial environment and the detailed work on the budget to keep the number of impending redundancies to a minimum. Detailed work, I may add, led by the Bursar, whose coolness under pressure never falters. Throw into this mix the breaking of the news about Eddie Irvine buying the College Avenue site with the consequent media flurry - it was more of a flurry than a frenzy in the end - and the final decision about when we are actually going to move into the new school, and it all added up to what the media call a 'rollercoaster' of a term.
The decision to move in January has not been an entirely straightforward one, but in the end it is undoubtedly the best option with probably he least disruption to the School. We arrived at the date after an exhaustive review of all options and, curiously, selected the time that we had always thought was an impossibility. New year, new term, new school. A dignified farewell and an excited, breathless hello in 2013.
The reality, the belief, has crept up on me, incrementally day by day, until, suddenly, one morning, I woke up and the new school had ceased to be an aspiration or frustration or distant dream; quite quietly, the ground had shifted and I had never noticed ...
The highlights of the term so far. Let me single out two, both within a day or two of each other.
The first was the Politics Society's Questiontime with Steven Agnew, Jim Allister, Leslie Cree, Conor Maskey and Peter Weir answering a number of what I think were difficult questions. You'll notice that the names are in strict alphabetical order, if only to demonstate this headmaster's studious and careful neutrality. You will be pleased to know that school principals have no political opinions of any kind - well, not of the party political kind. Not, at least of the public kind. I had the pleasure of chairing the debate, sitting in the middle and observing, interested and engaged, but unable to indulge - a eunuch of the political kind. It taught me how supremely good a job David Dimbleby does, effortlessly managing the debate and mov ing seamlessly from subject to subject. It would, as they say, have done your heart good to see the politicians get to grips with each other tenaciously, courteously - well, for the most part - and maturely. There were five questions: three would not have been out of place anywhere; they were bead and butter political issues - prescription charges, recycling and the programme for giovernment - and the quality of the ideas flashing to and fro was high. Two hit the old constitutional nerve and yet, even here, the atmospherte was in an indefinable way, different. The question about how the panellists would celebrate the Diamond Jubilee didn't light anyone's blue touch paper as it might once have done. Perhaps it took a while to get fired up, but it wasn't until the last question which pushed the politicians to discuss the concept of political maturity and the potential for a movement away from the old fault lines of denomination and culture that the debate took off and even then, the change was apparent. It struck me that, for better or worse, and who am I to say, we were in a new world in which we were all, dare I say it?, intelligent people, passionate, angry and adult.
TUV, DUP, UUP, Green and Sinn Fein in Bangor Grammar School, around the same table, ten years ago? I don't think so.
The other highlight? Unquestionably the second half of a very fine Schools' Cup fourth round tie against Dalriada, when the boys played with a commitment, intensity and skill, I don't think I have seen before this year. They played as a team; it's such a trite cliche, but I have never before seen it exemplified so gloriously, the whole greater than any individual, the collective will absorbing and re-creating the single efforts to produce a force which was in the end too strong to be defied.
I had better stop. First because I am writing on the eve of the quarter-final; and secondly because the language I'm using seems all too resonant of something else, something much too inappropriately political...
Thursday 22 December 2011
Christmas Carol
Here we are at last - the end of term. For most teachers, it comes as
a surprise; a strange thing to say, but as I have remarked before, the
principal characteristic of ends of term is the imminence of the
deadline, the compulsive need to have the desks cleared, the books
marked, the marks entered, the reports written, the meetings held, the
emails sent. Much of this frenzy is, needless to say, unnecessary. This
is never more in evidence than now, at the approach to Christmas. By the
time we arrive at the end of this term, there is very little which
can't wait until the New Year.
Equally characteristic, at least for the teaching staff, of the end of term is a feeling of exhaustion. I certainly feel it, but I don't know if it is indeed really exhaustion or merely a kind of subconscious reflex, a state of mind occasioned by the imminent release of tension. In other words, I doubt whether I would feel exhausted now if we had another month to go before the holiday. Still, that sense of ease as I wake up on the first day of the holiday is all the sweeter, simply by way of contrast with what has preceded it.
The approach to Christmas in a School is signposted by events: reports, play, this year - and I think possibly for some years to come - the talent show, the CCF reception; there are two events which may appropriately be called major, however: the publication of The Gryphon and the carol services.
School magazines are, at one and the same time,both the best read and the least read of magazines. The best read in that anyone who has written an article or who is mentioned in one, will turn to that particular page and read it obsessively; the least read in that this may be all that is read. A pity, because there is much that is worth taking the time to read, among which I would recommend particularly Adam Barr's superb imaginative response to Animal Farm. It's also a journal of record, to which future historians will turn as their first resource, a statement of who we are at any particular time. Robert Stevenson's task as editor every year is herculean and he continues to perform it with unquenchable enthusiasm and eye for detail. For a number of years now, it has been supplemented by the BGS News, sent out to parents at the end of the Christmas and Summer terms. This was designed to replace the possibly unreadable, certainly much unread, Headmaster's letter and it provides a jazzy snapshot of the extraordinary richness of our life
The culmination of the term comes with our carol services. They take place in our sports hall and at those words, the heart of anyone who has never attended one of these glorious events will certainly sink. Never could there be a more drearily functional space than a sports hall, but by some mysterious alchemy, it is transformed into a, if not exactly cosy, certainly seasonal environment with carpet, swags and Christmas tress. If there were an event which, in terms of school life, we might call 'iconic' ( a word whose meaning I find hard to grasp), it is this, in that it points to something deeply representative of the kind of school we are. It is loud, joyous, exciting, emotional and uplifting; much of this derives from the nature of the season itself, but the rest is the purest BGS. The collective affection and sense of community lifts us out of the functionality of the place to somewhere else. Part performance, part spiritual experience, it brings together more elements of the School as an entity than any other: boys, staff, parents, governors, old boys, friends, they're all there and on Monday night last, the Hall was packed to the gunwales, everyone together making a joyful noise.
And what noise! I'll pick out two parts which moved me: the first was Jonathan Rea's arrangement of Joy to the World (Jonathan , although on career break, remained much in evidence through his arrangements) which lifts its listeners, and I mean exactly that; the power of the orchestration had me on tiptoe through the energy of the music and that energy was indeed the energy of joy. Then, in contrast, there was Adam Bradley's solo performance of Graham Kendrick's Candle Song, threading his way delicately through its strangely melancholy chiaroscuro. The contrast in these pieces alone might give you a sense of the occasion and explain why it means so much to so many of us; it explains why twenty or thirty old boys come back every year to sing in the choir or to play in the band. It is performance, yes, but through the perfomance, through the sense of 'together', at its very heart, is the quiet simplicity of the incarnation. It's a simulacrum of Christmas itself: frenzy around a core of stillness, the enormity and the noise of the universe around a stable and a baby. A loud expression of the ultimately inexpressible.
Claire Buchanan, our acting Director of Music, and Andrew Thompson, made it all happen. Thank you.
To all who, by accident or design, stumble upon this blog , I wish a blessed and peaceful Christmas. As for the New Year? Well, we'll just have to wait and see...
Equally characteristic, at least for the teaching staff, of the end of term is a feeling of exhaustion. I certainly feel it, but I don't know if it is indeed really exhaustion or merely a kind of subconscious reflex, a state of mind occasioned by the imminent release of tension. In other words, I doubt whether I would feel exhausted now if we had another month to go before the holiday. Still, that sense of ease as I wake up on the first day of the holiday is all the sweeter, simply by way of contrast with what has preceded it.
The approach to Christmas in a School is signposted by events: reports, play, this year - and I think possibly for some years to come - the talent show, the CCF reception; there are two events which may appropriately be called major, however: the publication of The Gryphon and the carol services.
School magazines are, at one and the same time,both the best read and the least read of magazines. The best read in that anyone who has written an article or who is mentioned in one, will turn to that particular page and read it obsessively; the least read in that this may be all that is read. A pity, because there is much that is worth taking the time to read, among which I would recommend particularly Adam Barr's superb imaginative response to Animal Farm. It's also a journal of record, to which future historians will turn as their first resource, a statement of who we are at any particular time. Robert Stevenson's task as editor every year is herculean and he continues to perform it with unquenchable enthusiasm and eye for detail. For a number of years now, it has been supplemented by the BGS News, sent out to parents at the end of the Christmas and Summer terms. This was designed to replace the possibly unreadable, certainly much unread, Headmaster's letter and it provides a jazzy snapshot of the extraordinary richness of our life
The culmination of the term comes with our carol services. They take place in our sports hall and at those words, the heart of anyone who has never attended one of these glorious events will certainly sink. Never could there be a more drearily functional space than a sports hall, but by some mysterious alchemy, it is transformed into a, if not exactly cosy, certainly seasonal environment with carpet, swags and Christmas tress. If there were an event which, in terms of school life, we might call 'iconic' ( a word whose meaning I find hard to grasp), it is this, in that it points to something deeply representative of the kind of school we are. It is loud, joyous, exciting, emotional and uplifting; much of this derives from the nature of the season itself, but the rest is the purest BGS. The collective affection and sense of community lifts us out of the functionality of the place to somewhere else. Part performance, part spiritual experience, it brings together more elements of the School as an entity than any other: boys, staff, parents, governors, old boys, friends, they're all there and on Monday night last, the Hall was packed to the gunwales, everyone together making a joyful noise.
And what noise! I'll pick out two parts which moved me: the first was Jonathan Rea's arrangement of Joy to the World (Jonathan , although on career break, remained much in evidence through his arrangements) which lifts its listeners, and I mean exactly that; the power of the orchestration had me on tiptoe through the energy of the music and that energy was indeed the energy of joy. Then, in contrast, there was Adam Bradley's solo performance of Graham Kendrick's Candle Song, threading his way delicately through its strangely melancholy chiaroscuro. The contrast in these pieces alone might give you a sense of the occasion and explain why it means so much to so many of us; it explains why twenty or thirty old boys come back every year to sing in the choir or to play in the band. It is performance, yes, but through the perfomance, through the sense of 'together', at its very heart, is the quiet simplicity of the incarnation. It's a simulacrum of Christmas itself: frenzy around a core of stillness, the enormity and the noise of the universe around a stable and a baby. A loud expression of the ultimately inexpressible.
Claire Buchanan, our acting Director of Music, and Andrew Thompson, made it all happen. Thank you.
To all who, by accident or design, stumble upon this blog , I wish a blessed and peaceful Christmas. As for the New Year? Well, we'll just have to wait and see...
Sunday 18 December 2011
Bangor Grammar's Got Talent
The theme of the week just past has to be 'talent'. It began last Monday in the Assembly Hall with Bangor Grammar's Got Talent,
the culmination of more or less a term's worth of preparation and
organisation, presenting eight remarkable acts. At the last minute, I
was asked to be a judge and I went into the competition not knowing what
was awaiting me or what I was expected to do. In the event -literally -
it couldn't have been more enjoyable and that was because of the
quality and variety of the acts. They had been selected through
audition, so I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was.
Specially surprising was not so much the quality of the senior acts, any
one of whom could have won, as the courage of the junior boys, each one
taking the stage by himself, none with the luxury of performing with a
group. Their self-possession and ability to work an audience was
astounding, their assurance almost uncanny.
As for the judges, what can I say: wise, humane, pithy and impeccable in their judgements. Did I hear someone say that they stole the evening? Alas, no...
At the end of the week, last Friday, the CCF had brought back to life what had at one time been a most civilised feature of the end of term - their Christmas reception and prize presentation. Here there was on display a rather different set of talents, but no less remarkable for all that. Their talents had been honed over many months of CCF training and opportunity, their achievements not so public, but worthy of applause and admiration.
This was the week in which many schools had the melancholy task of
announcing how they were going to cope with the massive cuts in their
budgets over the next three years. It would be forgivable if their
feeling was one of anger, however and at whomever directed. We live in a
blame culture and it would be easy to blame the Department of Education
or central government or the banks, but I'm not sure whether it is
really anyone's fault. I know nothing about economics, but those whose
opinions I value and respect tell me that the economy moves at its own
sweet will, through troughs and peaks, at the mercy of dark forces
beyond the ability of any government to control. That's not a
consolation, by the way; it would be easier if we were able to blame
someone, a human being, a group, a government, just to prove to
ourselves that ultimately we can control these forces. I just don't
think that it's the case. What I do know is that recession equals waste:
waste of opportunity, above all waste of talent, the talents of
teachers, especially young teachers, brim-full of ability and
commitment, anxious, desperate to work and unable to find a permanent
post, or having found one,now facing the risk of losing it.So in our talent shows and receptions, let's take the opportunity to praise the talents we have and which, for the moment, are not being squandered.
Saturday 10 December 2011
School Play: The Holy Grail
This year's school play has just finished its 'run'. At first sight, The Holy Grail
must seem a somewhat bizarre choice, but by now we have got used to the
risks which Daire Cunningham runs. It was a re-make, or perhaps re-furb
might be the better term, of the film, Monty Python's Holy Grail, and it turned out, how could we ever have doubted, brilliantly.
Monty Python's Flying Circus was first televised when I was either in or entering the sixth form and it somehow touched the nerve of the times; it became at the same time wildly popular and a cult. Its sketches and catch phrases and performers infused the culture of the time and it was part of that mildly and very English anarchy of the sixties and early seventies, outrageous and yet somehow courteous. That was over forty years ago and the world of comedy has moved on. What I watch now on the TV offers an ambivalent pleasure: coarse, cruel, edgy, uncomfortable and, at times, occasionally, very, very funny. But not kind. How could Monty Python speak to this generation, a generation that doesn't even have the films, of whch in my opinion The Holy Grail is the peerless example, within its frame of reference.
I
was wrong. The cast got it. Their timing, pace, relish, engagement
showed that they understood what was going on at a deep and unconscious
level and it was clear, my goodness how clear, that they loved it.
Performance after performance showed the same confidence and possession
of the stage; they related to each other and, above all, related to the
audience without any apparent ambarrassment - and believe me, at times
there might have been cause - or diffidence. In one sense, they had no
help: there was no set and all the action took place on our black
stage, which is, by the way, looking increasingly shabby. So the world
they created was entirely in the imagination, which is the only place
in which it ever could exist. It was a triumph of theatre, a joyous
collective experience. And it was silly, childishly, irredeemably silly.
Monty Python is one example of a long particularly English tradition
of silliness which spans back to Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear in the
nineteenth century. It passed through a golden age from the fifties to
the early nineties largely thanks to the strange inspiration of Spike
Milligan, the onlie begetter of The Goons, and a crop of radio shows which I loved: Round the Horne, together with Beyond our Ken, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, two shows on TV, Michael Bentine's It's a Square World and Twice a Fortnight, both now almost completely forgotten, more recently perhaps, Not the Nine O'Clock News. The only survivor of that time is, I suppose, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
There was, of course, a more cerebral silliness in the absurdism of
Eugene Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, NF Simpson and early Tom Stoppard, but
that emerged from an understanding that the world was at bottom
meaningless and all our lives and efforts merely ways of passing time
betwen the womb and the grave. The humour of Monty Python didn't need,
possibly didn't want, such high seriousness. Its silliness, a rather
male sort of silliness, had no reason to exist, it just was. Their
humour, Milligan and Bentine's humour, Monty Python's, was crazy,
utterly without logical narrative or character or situation, depending
on surreal jokes in a world removed entirely from gray reality.
I woke up on Friday morning last to the first business segment of Radio 4's frenetic news programme, Today.
One of that seemingly endless line of formidably articulate business
people or financial consultants and advisers was being interviewed, the
director of a property company. What's the economic environment like? he
was asked. He compared it to an endless English winter, gray, drab,
drizzly, unexciting, miserable... His comments chimed with this week's
weather, which I don't need to tell you has been rawly cold, windy, wet
and dark. All an appropriate metaphorical environment for schools, who,
in the last fortnight have been living in a nightmare, faced with
deficts on a previously unimaginable scale, betraying their deepest,
dearest values to produce balanced budgets and preparing for a world of
unemployed teachers, larger classes, reduced choices, diminished
opportunities.
So The Holy Grail was like water in the desert; in the purity and innocence of its nonsense, it shone like a good deed in a naughty world.
Monty Python's Flying Circus was first televised when I was either in or entering the sixth form and it somehow touched the nerve of the times; it became at the same time wildly popular and a cult. Its sketches and catch phrases and performers infused the culture of the time and it was part of that mildly and very English anarchy of the sixties and early seventies, outrageous and yet somehow courteous. That was over forty years ago and the world of comedy has moved on. What I watch now on the TV offers an ambivalent pleasure: coarse, cruel, edgy, uncomfortable and, at times, occasionally, very, very funny. But not kind. How could Monty Python speak to this generation, a generation that doesn't even have the films, of whch in my opinion The Holy Grail is the peerless example, within its frame of reference.
Monty Python is one example of a long particularly English tradition
of silliness which spans back to Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear in the
nineteenth century. It passed through a golden age from the fifties to
the early nineties largely thanks to the strange inspiration of Spike
Milligan, the onlie begetter of The Goons, and a crop of radio shows which I loved: Round the Horne, together with Beyond our Ken, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, two shows on TV, Michael Bentine's It's a Square World and Twice a Fortnight, both now almost completely forgotten, more recently perhaps, Not the Nine O'Clock News. The only survivor of that time is, I suppose, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
There was, of course, a more cerebral silliness in the absurdism of
Eugene Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, NF Simpson and early Tom Stoppard, but
that emerged from an understanding that the world was at bottom
meaningless and all our lives and efforts merely ways of passing time
betwen the womb and the grave. The humour of Monty Python didn't need,
possibly didn't want, such high seriousness. Its silliness, a rather
male sort of silliness, had no reason to exist, it just was. Their
humour, Milligan and Bentine's humour, Monty Python's, was crazy,
utterly without logical narrative or character or situation, depending
on surreal jokes in a world removed entirely from gray reality.
So The Holy Grail was like water in the desert; in the purity and innocence of its nonsense, it shone like a good deed in a naughty world.
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