Well the South Farnham visit left  me with  a heap of mail at school from former colleagues and also complete strangers praising the viewpoint I had upheld about the inequalities that exist in education. It even put me in touch with  former pupils from my very early teaching days in Lozells and sent me searching through old Lozells photographs to find them !

Then the following summer the Government decided to publish a new staffing  structure for every school to implement .I read it and decided I could not  do that to my  staff, I could not make them compete for posts of responsibility and reduce the number of posts in the school. My staff  had mortgages to pay and children to feed. I bit the bullet ,  I contacted the Pension Agency and asked for a prediction of income if I left the following year,  they told me I would  lose 15%  of my pension if I took early retirement.

I then asked my financial adviser if I could survive on what I would get as I wanted to continue travelling and have the freedom of not having to do the daily grind. ( I was only 55) I had done 34 years at that point ! So that September I gave the Governors a year’s notice that I would be leaving the following summer, they could not believe I was going but I had been there for 9 years at that point in time. I resisted all of their attempts to keep me , it wasn’t  the school or the staff or the governors, I was really happy there it was all about the Government  doing things that were  really  bad for children and staff. I could not  continue to  do their bidding and the unions had no teeth any more.

Once my resignation letter was accepted  I started to make my plans for my first adventure after retirement……..that was more incredible than I had ever imagined.

 

 

well I researched working in India and decided to go with Teaching and Projects Abroad as I needed the security of going with an organisation. It was expensive but it had some good reviews. I didn’t want to teach,I wanted to do something different so I chose the social / caring role which placed me in an orphanage to work with children . I bought myself a rucksack and a large hold-all. I started to gather the kit I needed and made appointments for all of the vaccinations that were necessary for Rural India. Rabies was an essential as the guidebook talked about the large amount of stray dogs in the villages.

I collected toilet tissue and a medical kit and the anti malarial tablets to last for 4 months …..that was the intended length of my stay! Preparation was essential as well as my books. I knew I was going to a small village in Tamil Nadu that was an hours bus ride from the nearest town with an Internet cafe so my communications with home would not be very frequent. I had my diary and I was determined I would record as much as I could and send newsletters to all my friends on a weekly basis. I had promised the children at school that I would return and tell them all about it….that was never to happen but that is another story!

Well the trip to South Farnham was uneventful , meeting the two T.V crew in a pub was interesting . The hotel  was basic and I had checked the journey to the school.

The school building was just a double for my old Grammar  School, King Edwards for girls In Handsworth . They must have had the same architect. I discovered it had been a secondary school so had the advantage of a dance studio, pottery kilns in the art department, a fully equipped huge gym, domestic science rooms and things that no ordinary primary school had access to, notwithstanding  a massive playing field with cricket pavilion, football , netball and tennis courts. I was in awe of the green space the school possessed.

The pupils were  very privileged and most had professional parents who  were  extremely well off. The children had ponies and went to  every club you can imagine and also had 2 or 3 foreign holidays a year . A very far cry  from Kingstanding in Birmingham where a large majority of parents were on benefits and children did not have holidays at all.  The week was full of meetings and no teaching at all, very different  to my normal week of quite a bit of teaching to give staff time to plan and to keep me up to date  with what was happening in every  class. My counterpart  had a very rude  awakening when he had to take my timetable as teaching  was not his best attribute!He  was a business man more than  a teacher and felt the most important part of the job was to get money.

The film went out as one of the series Trading Places, where league tables had been set by the government so it featured the prison service , refuse collection , hospitals as well as  schools. I am not  sure it ever really  achieved what I wanted it to but it did show the stark  contrast  between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. For me it proved that school league tables would never be a reflection of children and their achievements or how hard our teachers work to improve the lives of our children. Quite an experience.

 

The holidays continued to exciting destinations Cruising Alaska from Vancouver, cruising the Hawaiian Islands walking on the Great Wall of China and visiting Xian and all of the other wonders that exist.Some with my friend and some alone.

During this time work became more stressful and the goal posts kept changing.Demands on children and staff became intolerable and pressures were building up . I campaigned with the Union to abolish SAT’s and league tables. They were demoralising for everyone !

This led to me going to London and sitting on the early morning sofa with Phillip and Fearne urging teachers to boycott SAT’s . That year there were pages missing from the Maths test and I lost my cool , tore up papers and swore my school would never do them again ! That got my face on the front page of the local newspaper and a reputation !

It also led to an invitation to swap places with the Headteacher of a school at the top of the league we were being a good foundation near the bottom to hold everyone else up!! The CEO of the time gave me his blessing to do the exchange and make the programme to highlight the inequalities that exist in educational settings. The programme was the flagship start of a series called Trading Places. What happened there will follow shortly.

Well after several more adventures on my own a colleague who had become a friend suggested we could try a holiday together. We were not sure we would survive being in close proximity without killing each other, but it would mean not having to pay single supplements.

We had both decided we wanted to do a Safari in Africa so we chose Kenya. We also chose a reputable travel company since neither of us could speak Swahili and we wanted to be safe. We arrived and while travelling to our first hotel we had to go through a market area and onto a ferry. We had the window open and whilst sitting in traffic a hand shot in through the window and snatched my friend’s necklace from her neck scratching her and drawing blood.  The assailant ran off through the crowds and my poor friend was more worried about AIDS than losing the gold chain. We went to the Police Station ( a tin hut in the middle of the market) I was locked inside the mini bus with the luggage and the driver while the tour guide took my friend in to make a statement.

While they were inside,a huge crowd gathered around the mini bus and pressed their faces at the window. I now knew how it felt to be a minority person and I did feel quite anxious. It occurred to me that if they tried to break into  the bus I could do nothing. The guide reappeared with my friend and he chased the onlookers away.

The holiday was incredible after that, we stayed at Outspan and had a night at Treetops we saw every animal that you would expect to see and made some new friends.

We laughed and enjoyed each other’s company so much that it  was the start of many more adventures together.

Number 3 blog. Well faraway places it was I took the plunge , threw myself into my work during term time but every holiday I had something planned. I saw the orangutans in Borneo, that was the furthest place I ever went it took 23 hours to get there and then I lost a whole day sleeping ! I had a beach cottage and swam in the South China Sea, idyllic, I people watched and explored the island in local taxi’s all on my own , no-one else to please. I thought I could get used to this luxury.
Then came Sri Lanka, I wanted to see where my dad was stationed during the war in Ceylon as he called it. I almost met my demise here twice,on the day I arrived I wanted to get out onto the beach and swim in the Indian Ocean, I followed the directions in the hotel and found myself alone on the beach, great I thought all mine ,I left my things in a heap and plunged into the sea after a few minutes swimming I was convinced something was wrapping round my leg and I imagined an octopus I then realised I was way further out than I should be, I kicked my leg around to free it ( I think it was possibly seaweed ) and in doing so I felt my knee wrench. Swimming was getting increasingly difficult and I could see the beach getting further away .I swam as though my life depended on it and it took what seemed like forever to get back into my own depth and feel the bottom . I walked out of the ocean exhausted from the effort, still no-one to be seen anywhere. I walked back to the door of the hotel and there in front of me , on the back of the door was a notice saying swimming from this beach was not recommended due to rip tides and extremely deep shelves. Why this notice was not on the other side of the door to be read before you open the door I do not know! Lesson learned ask about swimming before you go and only ever swim parallel in your own depth !!
Then after a lovely 10 days it was Tamil New Year and on the way back to the airport the mini- bus was involved in a crash with a drunken tuc -tuc driver, smashing the windscreen. The driver had to flag down a coach and transfer all of the passengers as he was embroiled in a shouting match with the locals and the Police arrived to sort it out .
I arrived at the airport with broken glass in my hair and blood trickling down my face. The next week Colombo Airport was bombed by the Tamil Tigers, at least I avoided that disaster.

Blog number4. (I think ) Well after Sri Lanka there was a series of holidays on my own ,one of which was to India with a company called ‘Distant Dreams,’ where I fell in love with India. .The sights and smells and the colour just bombarded my senses and left me in love with the place, despite it being August and over 40 degrees.
I did the tourist ‘Golden Triangle’ in a small group of 5 people but after those 5 days I had booked an extension trip to Rajastan. I was alone for that trip and the guide was not sure what would happen in the end I had a private car and driver and my own tour guide travelling with me and everywhere I went they thought I was Royalty.
I stayed in converted Maharaja’s Palaces and in most of them I was the only guest ( no-one in their right mind goes to Rajastan in August)
At one of the Palaces the grandson of the Maharaja was actually overseeing the work to convert the Palace into a luxury hotel , he had been educated in England and had a better English accent than me ! The Palace was gated and uniformed men saluted me as we drove in through the gates.
After showing me to my room I asked one of them when dinner would be served and was greeted with ” What time would madam like dinner to be served?”
I had a suite of rooms with a dressing room bigger than my lounge at home, The experience was amazing, after dinner that evening the grandson was telling me about the Fort that was behind the Palace and how he felt there was scope to use it to make more accommodation and he invited me to go and look around it.
I agreed to go if the guide could come too , he agreed ( I am not that stupid to go alone !!) He led the way up a very steep path and flight of steep steps behind the Palace that led to an imposing Fort The views from the top of the Fort were incredible as the sun was setting
He pushed away cobwebs and opened doors with rusted hinges that had not been opened in years . There were howdahs, sedan chairs and other furniture that had been there in storage and had not seen the light of day
I felt very privileged to have had this opportunity to see something that no-one else had looked at for years., yes I did get Delhi Belly and I fainted once through dehydration and heat but that was the seeds being sown of my love for India.

Blog number 2 , After that first trip to Egypt I decided to take the plunge on my own. ( after all it is expensive when you have to pay for your daughter as well.!!).
I decided to stay safe and joined an organised tour of the Greek Mainland, I loved it,( despite leaving behind my fantastic coverup wrap for my swimsuit on the back of a hotel door.)
On this trip I learned that paying a single supplement gave you a single room at the back of the hotel with no view to speak about I questioned the guide about this as I thought paying a single supplement got you the double room. The tour guide suggested that if I travelled with them again to not pay the single supplement but to offer to share. According to him they rarely had anyone to match you with so you end up in a double not paying extra. Well that backfired when I booked t up o tour Italy the following year. On my arrival at the hotel I was advised I was sharing with someone but they would not be arriving until later that night
I had settled myself in when a young Australian girl appeared, she was a teacher who had been teaching in England and was travelling around Europe before returning home. She was great fun and I really enjoyed sharing with her.
She even made me go on the chair lift on the Isle of Capri I would never of attempted that on my own as I dislike heights, another fear almost overcome !
I didn’t go with that company again as I decided I now had the confidence to really do my own thing and travel to far away places……which I did..

Barbara asked me to join this group and blog about my experiences but I have never blogged before.” Perhaps I should take it in bite sized chunks” I thought to myself when I wandered what I had agreed to do. Maybe I should start at the beginning when I was widowed in 1998, my world fell apart, I had two amazing daughters who were too young to lose their dad and I was only just 50 .
I threw myself into my work ( I was a Headteacher at the time) and became totally consumed and buried myself in work. Friends were amazing and my daughters were a great support but then it came to holidays…how could I go away without him? Helen was very positive, “look mum now is your chance to go to all the places dad refused to visit” So she offered to come with me on the first trip away ( possibly because I would pay for both of us as her ulterior motive) So Egypt it was , a cruise down the Nile and a visit to Cairo….lots of fantastic history and I really had a great time .There began a taste for travel that still goes on to this day ……that is possibly enough for number 1 blog …..more to follow.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton