January 2017 Newsletter

Happy New Year to Everybody.

The following posts have been put on the blog since 1 December:

1) An account by Howard Norton of Denis Moriarty's talk to the society on Edward Lear.

2) Another glowing review of Jonty Driver's latest book, Some Schools.

The 2017 speakers and dates of our Friday Meetings can be found in the panel on the right of the screen.

Book Group choices have not yet been finalised. The January meeting on Wednesday 18 January will discuss "Murder on the Strike of Five" introduced by the author, M P Peacock. The Rye Bookshop still has some copies and the book can be bought on-line from Amazon, or downloaded on to a Kindle. Maddy Coelho (aka M P Peacock/2) has some copies for sale price £8.00, and she can be contacted by e-mail at maddycoelho@hotmail.com

Please let me have items for February before the last week in January.

Denis Moriarty's talk on Edward Lear, 9 December

Thanks to Robbie Gooders for supplying the above picture by Edward Lear.

Many thanks  also to Howard Norton for the following write-up of our latest meeting:

Denis Moriarty’s  talk on Edward Lear at the December meeting on Literary Society introduced us to one of the most extraordinary literary figures of the nineteenth century.  Holbrook Jackson, in his introduction to the Complete Nonsense Rhymes, writes, ‘There was something preposterous about Edward Lear, amiably preposterous’.

Denis did ample justice to his subject’s amiable eccentricity: his talk was laced with humour throughout which made it a perfect appetiser for Christmas.  Like all good speakers, Denis didn’t hesitate to explore alluring cul-de-sacs.  For example, how many of us knew that snooker was invented at the hill station of Ootacamund (Ooty)?  Another characteristic of an effective presentation is that it encourages the listener to explore further.  Denis certainly did that:  he left so many fascinating questions unanswered.  (In this regard, can I recommend Vivien Noakes’ splendid book, ‘Edward Lear The Life of a Wanderer’) 

Would Lear have become a Royal Academician if he had been less prolific?  In reality, that wasn’t an option.  Lear’s past forced him to be a ‘pictorial merchant’.  As in the cases of Dickens and Trollope and so many other famous Victorians, his father had been in a debtor’s prison and, as he had sired twentyone children, perhaps one should not be surprised. 

Would Lear have been the brilliant humourist he was if he had not been a melancholic cursed with frequent bouts of depression to the extent that ‘he would walk around a room with his face streaming with tears of loneliness?.  One wonders, if he had lived in a more permissive era, whether he would  have attempted suicide.

Would Lear have been a happier, albeit less creative figure, if he had had a stable marriage?  His emotional homosexuality and fear of commitment prevented that and most of his relationships ended in frustration so that, at the end of his life, this most clubbable of men had to rely on his cat, ‘Old Foss’, for companionship.  In a similar way Tennyson postponed his marriage because he was fearful of passing on Lear’s demon, epilepsy, to future generations.

What exactly were Lear’s feelings for his estranged friend’s wife, Emily Tennyson?  They must have been fairly intense for him to have named his house in San Remo after her.

Finally, how did Lear interact with the young Queen Victoria as he taught her to draw?  He certainly had ambivalent feelings towards the monarchy.  One would like to have been a fly on the  wall.

As Denis continued, we were amazed by the range of Lear’s interests and his versatility: ornithologist, painter in watercolours and oils, scintillating diarist and letter-writer, teacher and accomplished tenor who once reduced an audience to tears as he rendered several of Tennyson’s poems which he had set to music himself.  But above all, he will be remembered as a comic rhymester of genius whose nonsense delighted his contemporaries.  Incidentally, how astonishing that an age of grim religiosity should have produced the two greatest masters on comic verse in the English language; Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. 

For all his tortured creativity, Lear remained a marginal figure who never quite became an eminent Victorian, whereas Lewis Carroll did.  Perhaps history has been a little unkind to Edward Lear.

For further information on Edward Lear CLICK HERE

Another review of Jonty Driver's latest book

‘Some Schools’some man!
Jonathan Watts reviews Jonty’s latest book

Jonty Driver recalls an occasion when, as Head of Island School in Hong Kong,he took his place at the back of thelunch queue – a reflection in itself of hisegalitarian instincts and the desire to get to know pupils better. ‘Two boys ahead of me, one of whom I had recently dealt with for misbehaviour of some trivial kind, hadn’t noticed me. “He’s a bastard”the first boy asserted. His friend agreed.
Then the first boy added reflectively, “But fair.” It is through such anecdotes – some self-effacing, some purely factual, some reflecting a justifiable pride in a job well done – that Jonty provides witty, perceptive and often humorous or poignant insights into the life of a teacher and Head from the 1960s until his retirement as Master of Wellington in 2000. As an accomplished poet and novelist, he is adept at depicting his own character and thoughts with utter candour and honesty, and this entertaining and enjoyable book is suffused with his strong personality and equally strong views. His writing is superbly crafted with great subtlety: within the narrative of his career in education – and
the simultaneous changes in educational thinking and practice - Jonty includes short reflections on all sorts of relevant topics such as bullying, drugs, homosexuality, the politics of education, curricular
change, leadership and the debate over the continued existence of independent schools.
What is perhaps most illuminating is the way in which he explains through examples from his own experience how schools work, and in particular the complex relationship between teachers, heads, governors, parents and pupils: it will give anyone a far greater grasp of how their own school functioned.
Jonty is typically generous towards those dedicated and inspiring teachers with whom he has worked, highlighting the careers of particular individuals and why they deserve praise; on the other hand, he is scathing of the inadequate, inept or incompetent – often by name. He can be equally critical of schools, and it is clear that, when he took over at Wellington, it was not a happyplace. Did lawyers, I wonder, have to go through the text to avoid legal action - not something which I suspect would worry an author who, early in his life, was detained in solitary confinement for his student activism against the apartheid system in his home-country of South Africa and suffered years of statelessness as a result.
A former Prime Minister said that never in his wildest dreams could he exercise the power wielded by his own headmaster – but any political theorist will tell you that there is a big difference between power and authority. Jonty has been unafraid to use his personal authority to solve problems and,
at 6 foot 4 with an athletic physique and a suitably expressive and terse vocabulary, he was well able to put the fear of God into miscreant pupils and colleagues.
But there is nothing self-congratulatory or smug about this book which is largely about the problems which face a Head and how they can be solved – and for Jonty, any solution must be for the good of the young people in his charge. There are all sorts of apparent contradictions in this self-portrait
– the advocate of comprehensive education who ends up running an elite school; the libertarian democrat who is happy to exercise authority which might be seen as arbitrary; the doubting, introspective poet who has firmly held views of right and wrong. Yet these complexities only serve to
show how human a head can be (did any of us ever think of our school heads as human beings?); everything Jonty has undertaken has been the result of his underlying concern for humanity and ensuring that young people are brought up with the values and vision to make them effective
members of society. His description of two former colleagues applies equally well to Jonty himself: ‘intelligent, compassionate, intellectually rigorous, energetic and goodhumoured’.
Perhaps we value in others the qualities we nurture in ourselves. And beside him on this journey has been his wise and supportive wife Ann – ‘behind every great man…..’; perhaps she will tell
her story one day. ‘Some Schools’; some man!

Some Schools by CJ (Jonty) Driver is
available in hardback and paperback from
Amazon, the Rye Bookshop or direct from the
publisher (John Catt Educational Ltd)

 First published in Ewhurst & Bodiam Parish News © Jonathan Watts / Ewhurst & Bodiam Parish News