The End

 

‘You’ve been terminated.’

‘What?’

‘Terminated. Ended.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You were deleted from the computer on the 30^th June.’

‘Why?’

‘There was an error.’

‘What?’

‘So you need to bring in all your certificates, and you’ll need a new CRB check.’

I try to go along with what I’m hearing as calmly as I can.

‘My teaching certificate is lost.’

I try to explain about the attic which was emptied and how the certificate was lost.

‘Then you’ll have to write to the GTC and get a letter from them to confirm your certificate. You can’t do any teaching until this is sorted out. You’ve been terminated.’

The word has a dreadful finality. I realise I’m at the bottom of a very difficult mountain, and that obstacle after obstacle is already rolling into place to block any attempts to re-ascend.

It was Anita who’d alerted me to a possible problem, but I hadn’t expected all this. Anita had had half a day’s supply work for me; but then puzzled me by asking if I’d signed and returned the letter.

‘What letter?’

‘The letter that was sent out to all supply teachers. You can’t be employed or paid if you haven’t returned the form that came with the letter.’

‘I’ve not had a letter or a form.’

‘You won’t get paid for any work you’ve done if you haven’t filled in that form. ’

This was how Anita had alerted me concluding by saying she would not be able to employ me on Wednesday after all.

I worried about it all day as I taught spellings, the meanings of words, lines of symmetry, who certain characters were in the Bible, handwriting and listened to children telling me about the Titanic in show and tell.

Working it seemed for nothing.

However, I thought that the matter was something trivial, something that could be easily put right. A phone call here or there perhaps, and all would soon be sorted. All I had to do was to ask for this letter with its form, return it and all would be set right.

Simple!

I was so wrong.

So, very wrong!

More wrong than I’ve ever been before.

‘You’ve been terminated,’ I was told after my third attempt to get through. ‘There was an error. Your name was deleted from the computer. That’s the reason why you were not sent the letter. You’ve been ended.’

The words are bizarre, unreal. ‘Terminated?’ ‘Ended’

I felt like a scrapped computer. Something defunct and obsolete. A programme no longer required.

‘I’ve been terminated? Ended? What do you mean? Why’

I can hardly understand how the words can possible relate to me. Why am I being spoken to with such words? ‘Terminated’ ‘Ended’. They are fearful words. Does she use them with others? I’m shocked and appalled by the way she speaks.

She repeats them mechanically and then tells me I’ve been deleted from the computer. Apparently it happened on the 30^th June.

I have no idea what I was doing on that day as a living breathing person, whilst in their offices my professional dead self was being de-cluttered from their system.

I’m wondering which person did this thing. I’m wondering who had walked by this idle computer, and casually pressed delete upon seeing my name. Why would anyone do such a thing?

I’m wondering what insidious twists of the universe converged at that point to send my name into oblivion. How ever do they know it happened on that date? Have others been affected or was it just me? I’m bewildered.

Whatever happened I am now de-barred from teaching.

I can not be paid for the few days’ work I’ve already worked because I’ve fallen out of the system. I don’t exist.

And I’m now falling into chaos.

I know I’m about to walk into an absolute nightmare to get reinstated. There will be forms I will have to fill in. There are papers I have to find. There will be the problem of the missing teaching certificate. I have to prove who I am by finding my birth certificate. I have to find proof of my address. I have to show a bank statement. I have to attend a face to face meeting if the post delivers all these forms I now have to fill in on time.

I’ve been terminated.

It’s a very strange sensation.

My arms are tingling.

I’ve been ended.

Perhaps the universe is trying to tell me something!

 

.

Northamptonshire Destiny

 

‘Okay where do you want to go?’

We look at each other with blank faces.

‘Where shall we go?’

We have to be back at two, so we can’t go far.

The Teenager has cabin fever and needs a trip somewhere, anywhere.

Our usual haunts hold no appeal and the weather forecast is for heavy rain. I’m sitting on the carpet in the  weather forecast defying bright sunshine trying to think of where we could go.

I haven’t a clue

Somewhere in our conversation I catch two words that seem to be somewhat significant..

On a whim I suggest that The Teenager should type these two words into his computer and that we should take it from there.

He types: “Northamptonshire” and “Destiny”.

He googles and scans the pages. We discover amazing things: there is a pop group called Destiny. There are pages describing a match when Australia played Northamptonshire at cricket. We muse upon the unfairness of a small county like Northamptonshire taking on the might of such a mighty antipodean continent. It seems an unequal match.

Then The Teenager makes a find.

‘Oh,’ he says ‘there’s a suggestion that that Battle of Brunanburh took place in Northamptonshire.’

I’m instantly hooked.

The Battle of Brunanburh was when King Æthelstan the king of England together with his brother Edmund defeated the combined armies of Olaf III Guthfrithson, Norse-Gael King of Dublin, Constantine II, King of Scots, and Owen I, King of Strathclyde around the year AD 937 in a mighty battle.

The exact location of this battle has been lost. Various locations offer tenuous claims to be the site of the battle. Academics have spent lifetimes pouring over old manuscripts and looking at the etymology of place names in the search for it.

I am amazed that there is a suggested location in Northamptonshire. I have never heard of this before.

I’m buzzing with excitement, ‘Find out where and we’ll go.’

The Teenager locates the tiny village with the tenuous claim. This village is mentioned in a footnote in an ebook. On another site he finds a picture of the village church. We make it our goal to go there and to take a picture of the church.

Within seconds we are in the car and heading there, and I’m thinking of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which tells of the battle:

937:

Here, King Athelstan, leader of warriors,

ring-giver of men, and also his brother,

the aetheling Edmund, struck life-long glory

in strife around 'Brunanburh' ...

We travel miles, negotiate new roads and tiny lanes until we find ourselves in the tiny village. We spot the church, park ,and walk there.

The church is locked.

There is a man with a dog is in the graveyard. He tells us that the church is locked. I ask him if he knows of any battles taking place in the vicinity. He mentions Brunanburh and says he’s never heard of it being associated with his village. I’m amazed that he’s even heard of it, so few have.

We are about to leave when he reaches into his pocket and brings out a large church key opens a small side door and invites us inside the ancient church.

Our guide is a wonderful. His black dog comes into the church with us. Her name is Holly. She barks for the return of her small yellow ball and then runs up and down the aisle.

We are shown the church’s secrets and treasures.

There are the carved heads. One is a prototype of a green man without the leaves coming out of his mouth.

The more we marvel the more is shown to us. One carved head we are told has a monk’s tonsure which can only be seen if viewed from above.

We are shown rare medieval glass; just fragments, all that could be found after Cromwell’s men smashed the once beautiful windows. They are fragile golden yellow pieces depicting strange mythical creatures,

Our guide peels back the carpets and reveals wonderful strange grave stones. One depicts a puzzle. Could the woman who was buried really have given birth to a son at the age of 75?

We are thrilled and amazed in turn.

As we leave we thank our guide, amazed that we should find such a place and also someone who was happy to spare the time to show us around. Someone who just happened to be there when we turned up, and who just happened to have the key in his pocket.

The landscape in which the village lies holds two low  hills from which opposing armies could easily have ridden down and done battle. There is a small brook at the bottom of the hill which might have once witnessed the clash of the opposing armies.

This may not be the site but I can imagine a battle taking place there, eerily so for though we have had unexpected good fortune in the village there is something that repels and makes me feel uneasy there, in the same way that the Battle of Naseby site leaves me feeling chilled and uncomfortable.

So we leave with the certainty that this was indeed the place in Northamptonshire where some did indeed meet their destiny.
We certainly did.

The Dog

 

Right now I am exhausted!

I couldn’t find an alarm clock in my friends’ cottage where I am staying, and I was so frightened that I would oversleep, and not have time to walk their dog that I’m looking after, before driving the twenty miles to get to work on time, that I kept waking up throughout the night.

When I finally woke up, later than I’d planned, I did manage to walk the dog, before dashing off…but had no time for breakfast.

I got lost of course along the little lanes but managed to get there in time.

All the time there I was worried about the dog being on her own.

School was fine ( I was only there for the morning.)

I dashed back at lunchtime. Negotiated all the lanes the right way this time, and there was the dog sound asleep on her bed quite calm and unperturbed.

So I thought I’d take her for a quick walk as a treat before I had anything to eat or drink myself.

Off we went into the village and I allowed her to choose the direction she wanted to go.

Big mistake!

I had a terrible time.

I lost Witchy.

She was right by my side, not on the lead, and then when I next looked she'd walked back some of the way we'd just come. I called her and walked on a few more steps. Usually she would catch up with me, the trick had always worked before, but this time when I turned she'd gone.

Vanished!

I ran all the way back to where she had been but there was no sign of her.

I call but there is no sign of her.

The scruffy village fields did not have a border collie walking amongst their nettles. There was no sign of her behind or inside the nearby barn. She’s not wagging her tail as she investigates the farm yard machinery.

She is not to be seen.

I walked back to the cottage three times taking different routes that she might have taken and… no sign.

On my third trip back to the cottage I’d leave the gate open so that if she does find her way back she could at least sit on the patio.

I am by this time absolutely frantic. I’m stopping everyone in the village to ask if they'd seen a black and white Border Collie but no one has.

I even asked the chaps who were sitting in parked vans on the High Street munching their sandwiches if they'd seen her...no joy. I asked fellow dog walkers, builders, a woman carrying a guitar, an old man on a bicycle. I asked every single person I met and there was no luck at all.

Nobody had seen her.

I then heard a horn blare on the road, ran to check, so terrified and frightened you would not believe.

And there was still no sign of her.

By this time I’m imagining her getting knocked down by the drivers that speed through the village. I’m trying to imagine what my friends will say when they discover that their dog is missing, hurt or dead.

I’m imagining cars swerving to avoid a collision with her, crashing.  People getting hurt. Cars getting smashed. Huge insurance bills. Angry car owners. And a dog lying in a heap of white and black fur by the side of the road.

I’m beside myself with worry.

I’m absolutely terrified.

I’m shouting…shaking the village from its very foundations as I call out her name.

Panicking, I managed to reason with myself that I should go back to the cottage again, try to calm down, make a cup of tea, formulate a plan, and catch my breath before taking the car out this time to check the little side roads in the village. I’m thinking that perhaps I could cover more distance that way.

I’m a gibbering, blubbering wreck.

And on my fourth return to the cottage there she is.

Safe and sound, barking and wagging her tail.

Phew!

 

I'm going to kill her now!

Meet behind the Teazels

 

The dog leaves little post-it notes of wee in different places around the village.

It is while waiting for her to complete her reading of the smells around a telegraph post that I spot the sign.

As Witchy the Dog reads the different aromas emanating from the grass at the base of the post telling of the passing of Great Danes, the meanderings of mastiffs and the peccadilloes of poodles I am reading of a walk.

“Meet Ed behind the teazels,” the sign suggests

What ingenuity I think.

Wow teasels! What a place to meet.

Ed has probably had laminated posters advertising his availability tied to lamp posts throughout the village.

What an enterprising chap!

I imagine doing something similar in Northampton, “Meet the World’s Worse Mum behind the Nettles.”

I wonder if anyone would turn up.

I doubt it.

I resolve that I will indeed meet Ed behind the teazels in the nearby country park. What a wonderful place for a rendezvous. The teazels. Even if the poor chap can’t spell the word. I can already imagine the scene: the teasels swaying gently in the breeze, their silhouettes dark against the pale glistening blue of the lake. Wow! How could anyone resist such an invite?

I go.

I leave the dog in the cottage. The poster didn’t make it clear whether or not dogs were allowed to also meet with Ed behind the teazels too.

And I arrive.

I discover that ‘The Tea zels’ is the name of the wooden framed café.

Ah!

There are others, six in all, who have responded to Ed’s alluring siren call. Ed appears. He is tall and wears a special yellow vest that proclaims his status as a walk leader. There are formalities to go through. I have to fill in a form and declare myself to be healthy enough to attempt the walk, and I have to give the name of a next of kin to contact should I not make it. I’m beginning to wonder what I’ve let myself in for.

We are all introduced. Ed can’t remember any of the names of the people he’s introducing despite leading many such walks with them before.

Then we’re off.

The pastures are dry. We haven’t had much rain these last few months so the usually squelchy grass is dry and the going is flat and easy. There are soft-faced, creamy coloured cows who watch us with interest as they chew the cud.

The walk seems to be a race.

Two young women, with purpose built child carriers on their backs are setting the pace. Ed is in the middle and I am at the back with John who is elderly and is brandishing a walking stick to help him negotiated the tussocks of grass and Pam.

Pam is the woman who has drifted to the back to regal us with tales about various grandchildren and their ages.

At one point I walk with Ed who tells me a very unpleasant story about two huskies that worried a field of sheep. I’m unable to look with outward eyes at the lambent light that is flickering over the lake, or watch the birds as they take flight, as I’m looking with an inward eye at a worried sheep being pulled out of the River Ouse half drowned from the weight of its wool before it is taken to the vet’s for a very unhappy ending. Ed hasn't noticed how quiet I'm becoming as he continues his tale.

After half an hour the walk is done. We are back at the café. The young women arriving there a good five minutes before John completes the circuit.

I’m disappointed.

It’s a walk I’ve done many times before. I was hoping to learn about the wildlife, the names of trees and the lore of the place. I hazard a question.

‘Do you get any rare birds here?’

‘Yes, sometimes,’ Ed replies, in fact I saw a lapwing by the first lake today.’

Perhaps I have the name of the bird wrong, but I’m disappointed he didn’t point it out to the rest of us, and I’m disappointed by the ordinariness of the walk. Ed bids us all adieu and then we sit at the café.

I commit a cardinal sin.

It seems the tradition is to buy coffee after such a walk, and there I am sipping tea.

‘This coffee is nice,’ someone says stressing the word coffee and all eyes shift to me pouring out my tea.

‘Yes,’ this is delicious coffee,’ they concur looking at me askance.

There are five of us sat around the table. The two younger women have already gone, perhaps they are tea drinkers. However, we are blessed to be sitting there as Pam is a great teller of tales.

I learn of her mother-in-law who was the terror of three counties, and thankfully according to Pam no longer walks the earth. This woman apparently came from Yorkshire and was a besom. I’d never heard the word used in conversation before and I’m thrilled to hear it. I query it, and yes she did mean the woman was a brush. I am delighted. Thrilled.

She was, according to Pam, one of those women who could make you feel very small. She was a school teacher.

‘Oh,’ the others say understanding only too well what she means from their past experiences of horrible school teachers.

She also like John, who is sitting by my side, suffered from arthritis so much so that her toes were no longer in alignment. Pam does things with her fingers to show us how her toes folded in one upon the other.

‘She used to buy the biggest shoes she could find and then wear them on the wrong feet,’ Pam tells us.

And I feel delighted and blessed to hear such a wonderful description and already I can imagine this woman, and I feel sorry for her. Even the Terror of Three Counties should have been able to walk comfortably in the wrong shoes she wore.

‘So tell us about you. Where are you from? I’m asked. Eyes turn towards me.

I stall.

I decide it is probably better that I don’t admit to being a Yorkshire Lass after what’s just been told.

It’s probably not a good idea to admit to being a School Teacher too.

I opt for the easier, “I’m from Northampton. I’m just staying here a week while I look after my friends’ dog.”

Disaster averted.

Phew!

The conversation moves on and I’m left behind.

I arrive back, and Witchy the Dog greets me at the door. She sniffs me carefully to ensure that I am indeed the same the person that left the cottage earlier.

She seems to think I am, and lets me pass.

She did not notice I was wearing my shoes on the wrong feet!

The Diaspora

 

My heart is breaking.

There are messages. This is something new. One of the many things that never happened in my day when I was that age.

We are playing a word game and listening to music sitting on the soft carpet when with a swift movement of his thumb we start to get the messages,

“I can’t get the boiler to work,” says one.

We haven’t got the boiler on here. Perhaps it’s the heat from the laptop or heat coming from the television we’ve just been watching. It’s also been a warmish day. I’m surprised that anyone should want to switch a boiler on.

‘It’s the shock I guess. It’s making her feel cold that’s why she wants to get the boiler switched on. Shock makes you feel cold.’

The teenager, whose swift thumbs are busily changing the screens on his PDA to bring this news, knows that it could have been him in that small lonely unheated room. He nods grimly the dark curls of his hair enjoying the freedom of his movement.

There’s another message.

‘Jake can’t get his boiler to work either.’

We can imagine them messaging each other with their worries and being prompted to test and check things out for themselves.

It’s a network of first impressions. And they’ve discovered that things don’t work.

We imagine them fiddling with switches and controls, opening dusty metal covers and peering into an unknown world of mechanical devices things that don’t power themselves up over the ether with the flick of a thumb, while their boxes and suitcase lie unpacked behind them.

‘Oh no!’

‘What is it?’

‘There’s a message from Matt.’

‘What’s he say?’

'"See you never know what you’ve got until you don’t have it anymore.”’

‘No!’ I exclaim. ‘Oh that’s so sad.’

It takes me back to the day when I left home for the first time when Joni Mitchell was singing about paradise and yellow taxis. From his words I know that Matt has never heard the song.

We sit in dismay imaging all that Matt can see: from a lonely room overlooking the railway station.

‘Where is he?’

‘Bournemouth.’

Within seconds there is a message posted from Matt’s sister from over a hundred miles away. ‘Are you all right, Matt?’ she asks. Her worry so tangible it’s taking form in our room with ours.

We look at each other. I’m biting my lip.

The teenager checks the other social networking sites.

‘Oh!’ he exclaims. He gives a name, but it slips me by, there are too many names now, too many situations, ‘he says there are people running around with axes!’

‘Oh my God, where is he?’

‘Birmingham.’

‘Who are those people?’

‘Probably his roommates.’

We imagine the noise, the terror, the impossibility of understanding what’s going on. Is it fun? Is it bravado? It’s an agony of worry and loneliness that families were spared in my time. A time when even a phone was rare or impossible, and we did not speak of our feelings. A time when we imagined we were the only ones feeling like this.

There’s another message from Matt,

‘He says he likes Northampton.’

‘Does he use an exclamation mark?’

‘No, that’s not his style.’

‘Hang on,’ the teenager gets up and walks off into his room and returns less than a minute later.

‘Did you send him a message?’

‘No, I just wanted to take a look at my room and make sure it was still there.’

I know what he’s seen. blue walls, books, piles of boxed games, his lap top, the Wii, the soft blue carpet, the patchwork curtains -that look like a stained glass window when the sun shines through them-, the king sized bed, the side light, the clock that lights up, the giant red claw on the floor, Nessie, the teddy bear…all that is familiar and which he holds dear.

He now sees these things as treasures.

He’s checking for messages again.

‘Harry’s packing.’

‘Oh, he doesn’t have too far to go does he? Where is he going? Loughborough?’

‘Yes.’

I’m imagining his mum worrying about him, checking that he has this and that. Fussing over the things he might need. The wires and computer being packed into its new bag.

‘Do you wish you were going to a university somewhere?’

‘No,’ the teenager replies. He is sounding mightily grateful that he has been saved from this ordeal for a year at least.

He checks again and finds the message that confirms his decision to take a gap year. The message is from Matt. There’s no exclamation mark… or even a full stop…it’s not his style. The teenager shows me the small screen and I read the agony of Matt’s words…

“Growing up sucks”

Make Way Make Way

 

Never, I’m guessing, has my lack of pushiness and invisibility been more apparent than yesterday in Hampton Court.

We glimpsed the character that was playing Henry VIII, that despicable, ugly, fat, king from about 500 years ago. He was encircled at a respectable distance by camera toting visitors. Later when he wished to move on his herald cleared the way for him in the traditional noisy way by shouting loudly… “Make way for the King of England”. And the crowds around him instantly cleared and lo and behold…there was a path for the king to walk through the crowd.

Wow!

I need a herald.

I realised I was one plank short of a herald yesterday.

I had been forewarned about the imminent trouble to come…but did not realise it at the time.

Hampton Court is filled with baby monitors that crackled into life from time to time with the voices of those monitoring the attendants and visitors.

‘Does anyone know where the deaf tour is?’ I heard a voice ask, as we walked past yet another portrait of a plum sucking aristocrat.

I didn’t hear the reply as we entered the next room.

Later when we were about to leave the palace and enter the gardens, we had to walk around a courtyard in order to do so.

 

 

There was a crowd of people in front of us who were being addressed by a woman who was using sign language to speak to the group. I could tell from the woolly sound of her laughter that she was also deaf.

She’d told the group something interesting and possibly even hilarious, for the group then fractured into smaller units that seemed keen to discuss the information further both by signing and perhaps lip reading.

Heraldless I tried to edge through.

Impasse.

I was blocked, and could see no way through.

They did not move or seem aware that there were people trying to edge past them. I looked for gaps but it was like trying to get through closing pack ice. So focussed were they on whatever they were silently talking about they were oblivious of my intent…and that of the others who were trapped in the cul de sac behind me.

The others though were more cunning than I. I was thwarted but they had a secret weapon. They sent in their kids! And as everyone knows kids can get through just about anything. They snaked a zigzagged path through the group that barely parted to let them through and we grimly followed them and made it through.

The Teenager was not impressed, ‘You couldn’t even get through a crowd of deaf people,’ he said. ‘That was pathetic!’

It was true. And that was when I realised what was missing in my life: I need a herald!

If even King Henry’s huge girth had not been enough to enable him to plough a successful passage through his courtiers so that he had to resort to using a trumpeting herald to announce his desire to perambulate… then so do I.

I now understood better the purpose of the Henry’s trumpeters too!

So let’s make a start on the Christmas wish list…

Dear Santa,

I’ve been a good girl this year and I’d really like….

Item 1: One Herald (trumpet essential)

.

Trying to be Greener

 

I hadn’t realised that buses had not evolved.

I got on one for the first time the other day. The driver seemed disinterested in having me join his practically empty bus. There were only two other people on board who as I glanced to look at them looked as though they had given the driver no trouble at all: two thin sad faced men who sat silently apart from each other looking out of the windows and seeing nothing.

The driver though was already annoyed.

‘Single to Wellingborough please,’ I sang out, hoping I was using the correct terminology.

I knew from folk lore that drivers of buses hate handling notes and I had a handful of coins merrily jingling in my hand at the ready.

‘What,’ the driver asked with exasperation through what looked like missile defence toughened glass.

‘Single to Wellingborough please,’ I replied, already feeling my confidence ebbing away to a level that matched the defeated expressions of the other two passengers.

The driver seemed to not know the place even though it was the final destination of the bus.

‘Wellingborough,’ I said enunciated loudly again, wondering if I’d got on the right bus after all.

‘£3.30,’ the bus driver announced flatly.

I was stunned. As much as that?

I handed over my coins.

‘Do I get a ticket?’ I asked.

I was thinking back to the wonderful coloured tickets on the Rotherham buses when conductors used to walk up and down the bus handing out colour coded tickets after punching holes through them.

The bus driver pointed with irritation to a machine near the very front of the bus where a ticket was appearing.

I laughed, ‘You can see I’m not used to doing this,’ I say by way of apology, as I reached for it.

The bus driver isn’t interested, he’s already swinging out into traffic propelling me with the sudden momentum down the entire length of the bus.

I find a seat at the back of the bus, and sit down to watch the world slip by.

Travelling by bus is a nightmare.

A nightmare.

I’d forgotten how much of a nightmare.

The bus is noisy. It travels along country lanes where cars are precariously parked and where it has to edge slowly by them. At other times it is racing through the countryside. At such speeds every bump is transferred directly into the passenger’s skeleton. These constant jolts turn you into a soup of disjointed bones and shake anything that was human in you each time you are thrown up from your seat. It’s like being in a roller-coaster car. I find that my tonsils are shaken from their moorings and are in turns to be found either at the pit of my stomach or at the very top of my throat. you can’t read. You can’t write. You can’t think. It is utter misery.

I’m rattled by the time I arrive in Wellingborough. I’d imagined being able to relax on a bus… but it wasn’t to be… anything but.

The journey back was a similar nightmare. What is also so frustration is the length of time it takes: an hour, when by car you can be there in about twenty minutes. The sense of frustration is compounded each time the bus ignores the sign that points the direct to Northampton, and when the bus turns towards yet another small village where there are no passengers to be picked up.

I wanted to go ‘green’ but this was such an expensive and uncomfortable way to travel.

I felt ill when I got back home. I felt so tired and exhausted I had to go to bed vowing never again to travel anywhere by bus ever again.