Summer Holidays.

It's August 1987 and I have been teaching from April till now non stop. I teach through the June July holidays - very young children. Mrs V is back and is hardly an 'Appa' (Big Sister) to me. She is a hard taskmaster!

Mrs V "Appa"

The children are well behaved, rather sullen in fact. One pair of girls are daughters of a local fishing manager who lives behind the school. I am usually chaperoned - or maybe it's for the kids - with an older lady looking on to see how things are going with the class.

I have also started some tuitions - one being along the school lane. Two girls, in their late teens, wanting English conversation. When I turn up there in the afternoon, no one is there and a servant (a young boy) takes me to what looks like a prayer room. It's empty but for a red carpet and a few "kabab" cushions. They're called roll cushions in the UK I believe. The boy then wheels in an elaborate TV on a high stand, and switches it on. After some time a film begins: "The Exorcist" complete and uncut. Regan is just doing her inverted spider thing down the stairs when the two girls appear.

I decide, after all the work, to do a bit of travelling up north. I sort of have got the permission, grudgingly, from Appa. She's not happy, but I don't want to suffer 'burn out' when there are still twenty weeks of term left. (No half terms or autumn holidays.) Taking a small break of two weeks at the beginning of term, I figure, will at least minimize any damage.

I leave the Class in the capable hands of Mrs V and off I go.