Diary: August 2018

9 August, 2018, Hackney
For the third week in a row, Sari has remembered my name, stating it to me directly as a greeting, eg, “Hello, Billy, how are you?”

11 August 2018, London
At Tate Modern.

21 August 2017, London
The City of London Corporation is a systemic dictatorship. Discuss.

21 August 2018, London
On the train to Basingstoke.


It starts with a quote from HG Wells: “Who bears affection for this or that spadeful of mud in my garden? Who cares a throb of the heart for all the tons of chalk in Kent or all the lumps of limestone in Yorkshire? But men love England, which is made up of such things.”

22 August 2018, Moulsford, 03.45
RIP Margaret, 95.

23 August 2018, London
Great birthday message from cousin Jan in Florida, who called me an "old spinner of wicked tales". Put it on the headstone now.

30 August 2018, Hackney
Front and back.

31 August 2018, LondonAmong the story options for the Education Centre’s ‘Victorians’ primary workshop is one about an explosion in 1866 at the Oaks Colliery in Barnsley, Yorkshire. When I advise students how to write a good headline, I ask them to find an ACTIVE VERB that tells the reader what happened. This is not as simple as it sounds. The verb they choose will show emphasis and nuance. It will show the reader how they have interpreted the facts, the meaning they attach to what happened. ‘Yorkshire colliery EXPLODES’ is not wrong. 'Colliery explosion KILLS 361’ tells a deeper story.

But the word EXPLOSION is problematic. Nine characters, three syllables, it doesn't really pack much of a punch. I asked one Y6 pupil if she could think of a shorter word beginning with the letter B that could be used instead of EXPLOSION. I was hoping for BLAST. The girl put on her thinking cap, ran a few words through her head, then leaned slowly towards me, filled her lungs and shouted “BANG!” in my left ear.

I’m not even sure “Colliery blast kills 361” is the best headline for that story. The word BLAST has problems of its own. But the beauty of trying to find it with my shouty student was that I got to witness a young mind thinking on its feet in real time. And that goes to the heart of working in journalism. The headline might not have been quite as good as it could have been, but the experience was true. It was exciting and rewarding. It was also great fun.

Journalism is obviously an useful way to frame curriculum subjects in reality, and experience always trumps theory. The Education Centre’s workshops go to great lengths to show that. Deadlines are enforced strictly, bad spelling or grammar is laid bare for all to see. Trying to write the same headline six times is part of the job. Teachers squirm when I ask them cheekily, “Miss, how do you spell embarrassed?” The students love that one.

I get to see pupils from Y5 up. The younger ones are fabulously honest and wickedly funny. They call me Sir, which I like. The Secondary students are in search of identity, so attitudes and opinions bubble up. I spend more time helping them to find their own voice than on how nouns can be transformed into verbs.

But in all cases I am looking for talent and wondering how I can nurture it. Some students arrive with sound writing skills, some with a good knowledge of research and information gathering. The moments I cherish most are when I can tell a student (and sometimes their teachers) that they are secretly very good at one of the less glamorous but essential journalistic tasks. Spotting that a picture could be improved by some careful cropping, or that a standfirst or pullquote repeats a word already used in the headline; these are the tiny nuts and bolts of quality that matter much more than is ever acknowledged. One of my personal triumphs is when I helped an SEN pupil type their name at the top of the story. Something simple and basic to the many is a mountain to the few.

Bad moments are rare. I get frustrated in a small way when some pupils expect me to do the job for them. All teaching is a mix of show and tell, but the implied unspoken contract is that pupil and teacher are in partnership. I am there to HELP them, not to be their servant. I can be quite blunt in stating this, of planting a stern piece of advice then walking away to see what happens. To return later to find a wrong spelling corrected or a headline improved, is a delight. If my advice has been ignored, well hey ho, you can’t win ’em all.

I have been volunteering in the Education Centre for close to five years. I arrived in search of something useful to do with my life after suffering a stroke. Before that I was on the editorial team of the Guardian’s Weekend magazine for 20 years. The great moments I recall from my working life are matched equally nowadays with the joy of passing on my skills to younger generations. Sometimes I am staggered by the talent I get to work with. Not long ago, two Y9 pupils (students work in pairs) looked totally stumped by the empty space on their page waiting for a headline about France winning the World Cup. “France CLAIM World Cup victory” would have been good enough, but when I revisited their desk five minutes later, I saw “Football’s coming à la Maison”. Brilliant.

An edited version of this article appeared as a blog on the Guardian site.