A story of the Dux Medal, Liff Road School, Lochee, Dundee, 1957

Yes, I was a Dux medallist at Liff Road Primary School. My achievement may not have been as meritorious or as heroic as it sounds. I'll explain all about that a little later. It is true I had been a high flyer throughout my primary school years. In my last two years at Liff Road School my class was Primary 6a and finally Primary 7a. Our class teacher was Miss Cameron. I was good at mental arithmetic - always the first to put my hand up and click my fingers, stand up and edge down the aisle between the desks to draw Miss Cameron's attention to me  when she posed mental arithmetic problems for us. 

"What do 23 half crowns make in pounds, shillings and pence ?"

"Miss! Miss!  £2 - 17s - 6d ! Miss." 


 For anyone born after the decimalisation of our currency this was spoken as two pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence. I never found out why the symbol for a penny was "d",  but as you'll discover I was not at that time very good with codes or symbols.

"If  3 oranges cost one shilling and threepence how much would 7 oranges cost?" 

"Miss ! Miss me, Miss, me Miss ! two shillings and eleven pence, Miss."




 In numbers this was written as 2/11 and in common usage you'd say "two and eleven." 

I not only made Miss Cameron aware of my prowess in mental arithmetic. I always got full marks for spelling tests and I was excellent in my grammar lessons and particularly at sentence analysis. For instance, I would always spot a very useful truth like "this is a subordinate adverbial clause of time qualifying the verb 'travelled' " as well as other such exotic 'grammartalia'.

Keen as I was to impress Miss Cameron with all my work,  I was also a fidgeter and a whisperer and a sender out of love notes to girls. Custom, and I think shyness, had it that these notes were never sent directly to the object of  one's romantic affection but were circulated around the class so that others could inform  her or him that she or he was loved by the sender. My notes were like this....  

and later

and also I sent notes out to spin the idea that this love was mutual. 

I drew in the heart to show that this was a note that could only be written by a girl. 

All these extra-curricular activities of mine got on Miss Cameron's goat to the extent that she felt impelled to give me the belt about three times a week. I was quite good at looking tough when taking the belt and managed to stay expressionless except for the slight involuntary lifting of my left foot at the very painful moment of impact between the strap of leather and the palm of my hand. Another boy, IB, who got the belt about twice a day and who was reputed to be the second best fighter in the school always noticed my tiny sign of weakness and without exception he would shout out  that I was "a cowardy coof !" Given his fighting reputation I never argued the point with him.

Thinking back about the punishments we received, the teacher our class had before Miss Cameron,  Miss Gilchrist,  who taught us in Primary 4 and 5 had a different  disciplinary method. I always remember Miss Gilchrist as being very old. She was a stocky, quite powerfully built woman whose grey hair was always cut short and she wore a wrap around Paisley pattern overall which was the uniform of women of a certain age at that time when they came to do their domestic chores. Her method of controlling the pupils in her class was singular. She would put any of her pupils whom she thought recalcitrant  face down and fully horizontal over her knee  and skelp them five or six times on the bottom with her right hand. When she'd finished administering her particular kind of corporal punishment she'd say, (and she  spoke always in Scots with a Dundee accent), "Woe betide ye if ye dare tae dae that again for Eh'll gi'e ye a bare bummer !” Perhaps fortunately for the sake of all our dignities I can't recall it ever reached the stage of anyone getting a "bare bummer."  On one occasion IB had  his "doup skelpt" by Miss Gilchrist and he threatened to bring his father to school to sort her out.

She retorted, "Eh, an' Eh'll bring meh faither here tae sort yours oot!"  This stopped us in our tracks. Even IB, the second best fighter at the school, was gobsmacked. We were all, everyone of us in the class room that day, awestruck that someone as old and as fierce as Miss Gilchrist  could have a father. What kind of fearful monster would he be?

Having said all this I can't really remember anyone complaining to the authorities about Miss Gilchrist. I  don't think there was one of us in our class who had any thought that she was  unduly cruel.  I think we respected her. We would not have been able to put this in words but she had our respect because she, more than our other teachers, had experience of, and understood, the kind of life most of us were living in the Lochee community. Much of the time she spoke the Dundee Scots that we spoke out in the playground, on the streets and with most of our families.  We accepted her and the things she did, though even for those times these seemed a little bizarre. In punitive terms her "doup skelping" may have been less painful than being strapped though no doubt it was much more embarrassing.  I have to say that during the following years  I was belted regularly by Miss Cameron, but I had always managed to avoid Miss Gilchrist's punishment. This may have been because I was better behaved than I was eventually to become, and I have a suspicion that this was partly so because I could not bare (oops, Freudian slip)....... I mean I could not bear even the thought of the indignity of having my bottom whacked in public. 

On my journey from Primary 1a in 1950 toward Primary 5a in 1955 I had almost always been at the top of the class. Then in 1955, just about the time my youngest sister was born, BD joined  the school when her family moved from Fife to Dundee where her father had been appointed as the head gardener at a famous park and estate on the outskirts of Dundee. BD, you  may recall was to become the subject of most of my love notes, though I always retained a soft spot for HH. Like me BD was left-handed but unlike me her birthday was the 5th of May for I remember us writing the date 5.5.55 in our exercise books on her 10th birthday. BD was very bright and I found I had to share my place at the top of the class with her. 

The academic year 1956-57 was a big year for Primary 7a because it was the year that we sat for the "quallie", our qualifying examination, the results of which would decide whether we went to what was called a senior secondary school like the Harris Academy or the Morgan Academy or whether we went to a junior secondary school like Logie or Rockwell. The latter two schools were excellent in their own right and many of my fellows were attracted by them because they could leave school at the age of 15 and get into the world of work and wages sooner, whereas there was an expectation that those of us who went to the Harris or the Morgan would be staying on at school until we were 17 and some might even go on to university.  Being from an ambitious family I was pushed to go for the Harris Academy and I had been indoctrinated enough to think it was a good idea myself.  

The "Quallie" had three phases. First there was an Intelligence Test, second there was  an Arithmetic exam which was followed by an English exam. I didn't finish the intelligence test. It flummoxed me. One question was, 


"If  §@$  reads as 'cat' what does the following read as?   @§$ "




The answer I now realise was "act" but my mind responded by protesting "If we already have adequate letters to spell out "cat" why do we need to be introduced to these new ones?" This complicated things too much for me and so I had a failure of imagination. My grey matter would not allow me beyond the barrier newly installed in my mind.  I was blind to the code. As for the Arithmetic and English examinations I knew as soon as I had finished them that I had done very well.  

A few days later Miss Cameron was looking at me in  a strange and it seemed frustrated way. She spoke out what I believe she meant to keep as a thought. “ 69, 69 : how could you get a score of 69 in an intelligence test ?”  She didn’t say anything else and neither did she mention it again  but I knew that what she meant was that I had failed the Intelligence test. I am aware now that you cannot fail an intelligence test, it is meant to be a measure of a person’s intellectual insight. I guess  my IQ score of 69 tells you all you need to know about me.

In any case I waited with trepidation for the result of the “Quallie” and wondered who would be the recipient of the Dux medal. I  hoped against hope that by some miracle it could still be me. 

A day before the Dux medal was to be awarded to the successful pupil it was announced that this year there would be two Dux medallists, a girl and a boy. The winners were BD and me.

In August when I arrived at the Harris Academy dressed in my brand new maroon blazer with cord trim I found that  the first year pupils  were split into six classes from 1A, the brightest end of the spectrum through to 1F, its less scintillating extreme. BD was in placed in 1C and I was placed in 1E.  This did not necessarily mean that BD was only averagely clever because most of the pupils placed in 1A and 1B had been at the Harris Academy primary school  and may have had a certain advantage in preparing for the “quallie.”  That BD had been placed in a class that presumably was more able than the one I was in  left me to wonder if the boy’s Dux medal had been awarded  to provide me and my  parents with a consolation prize or whether it was genuinely a decision to reward both the best girl and the best boy. "Maybe," I thought, "I wasn't the true Dux medallist."


It doesn’t bother me now. I’ve got over it but it is interesting that I remember it as if it all happened yesterday.

Of course,  I couldn’t be anything other than pleased by BD’s triumph after all….

___________________________________

Jan Shelley, (nee McCurrach)  writes:

I have just read an article on a Dundee Memory site by Charles Sharpe. It transported me back to my primary days as I too was awarded the Dux Medal in my final year at Liff Road. 

Jane's Dux Medal..

...awarded for Session 1963-64

I could almost smell my old school as I was reading. Wonderful!  I also passed the "Quallie" and attended Harris Academy for six years.

I suspect Charles is one year older than my brother Kenneth McCurrach who also attended Liff Road school.

Thank you for the journey back in time.

October, 2017

__________________________

Charles Sharpe comments:

After further research I have found that there had been previous occasions when both a boy' and a girl's Dux Medal was awarded  but I still have doubts about mine.

January, 2015

__________________________

Jeremy Millar writes:

 I was 10 years later but the culture was very similar in Stoneywood primary. Our heidie had been a desert rat and when, I presume he was bored, he would dismiss the class teacher and tell tales of his wartime exploits. I too was belted for being 'clever'. The d in £sd stands for dinarii the Latin for penny. Thanks to google and not a classical education!

May, 2013

__________________________

 

Thanks for everything Rab, and time for further reparation by Dundee Football Club

In putting the record straight, I should mention that earlier this week I was critical of the way Dundee FC had handled the departure of Rab Douglas. I was delighted  while reading my text commentary from Dens Park  this afternoon to learn that those truly goalkeeping legends - Rab Douglas and Pat Liney - did a lap of honour around the park to give the big man and the fans a chance to say "cheerio" to each other.

I am grateful to Dundee FC for facilitating this and from 500 miles away I want to thank Rab for all the exciting times he has given me and no doubt every Dundee supporter over the years. He's a great goalkeeper and as far as I can judge he is a man with a passion and a heart for Dundee Football  Club.

No doubt  a similar opportunity will be provided to the man who has been treated most abysmally in this period of shabbiness at Dundee Football Club. Anyone with an ounce of decency and conscience will know who I mean. I am sure however he would, with good reason,  refuse it. Unlike the people who employed him his soul cannot be bought.

I'll be at Easter Road next Saturday.

Beware being called a legend at Dens Park

Don't be  tempted to become a legend at Dundee Football Club. Two people,  Barry Smith and Rab Douglas, both important in the history of the club were designated by senior officials of the club as "legends" only to be unceremoniously dismissed. It was to be hoped that this kind of treatment of employees was exercised for the last time when a previous directorial regime sacked Jocky Scott.

Great clubs treat their "legends" in a dignified way, while shabby clubs don't. From the first Saturday I attended a match* at Dens Park in the very early 1950s  -  when the gateman let my friend Gerry and me in for free at half time  -  I have believed that Dundee Football Club has great stature and by that I don't just mean winning leagues and cups.

I still think it is a great club whose senior management personnel need to stop behaving shabbily.


*The match was against Falkirk and we won 2-1.

May 2nd 1959 : at Silverstone for the 11th Annual Daily Express International Trophy Race

Saturday May 2nd 1959 dawned bright and sunny 

when my Dad and I left our house in Yewdale 

Crescent, Potters Green in Coventry. I was about 5 

months short of my 14th birthday. We were off to Silverstone in our 1953 Phase 2 beige coated Standard Vanguard to watch a non-championship Formula 1 motor race, The 11th Annual Daily Express International Trophy Race run over 50 laps of the full grand prix circuit at Silverstone  in Northamptonshire.

We got to the Silverstone at about 7 am and cars were already queueing to get in. In those days there were places where you could park your car beside the track. We parked near Club Corner. The circuit was very different from the one that you see today. There were no grandstands down at the Club Corner section of the circuit. 

My recollections? What first comes to mind is the overwhelming aroma of bacon frying in pans on the primus stoves of enthusiasts who had spent the previous night camping beside the track having watched the practice sessions on the previous day. Secondly I remember the smell of frankfurter sausages cooking as the hot dog stalls began to open. I hadn't  encountered a hot dog before. My Dad bought me one. I had some onions with it. It was delicious and I've never tasted one as good since. 

We walked around the circuit towards Woodcote Corner where the grandstands were and Dad decided we should buy a paddock pass. We crossed the bridge which was just by the starting line and Dad paid 7 pounds and 10 shillings to get us into the paddock area. He told me not to tell Mum about it because that was a lot of money in those days. 

In the paddock we went to lunch in the canteen and sat beside a group of Scuderia Ferrari mechanics who were eating  lunch in what I thought was a very messy and impolite way. They did not always use their knives, forks and spoons and sometimes just picked up the food with their hands while speaking loudly in a language  I couldn't understand. For me these were very strange and exotic creatures.  It is  difficult even now to imagine the evolutionary chain which links them to the smart, clinical, athletic and co-ordinated teams of mechanics you see maintaining the cars today. 

When I'd finished lunch I had to go to the lavatory and as I opened the door to enter the Gents' a man was coming out. He looked at me and smiled. I looked at him and just as he had passed me by I realised that I had been standing next to the Australian driver, Jack Brabham.

In the paddock I also saw at close range Stirling Moss, (who was my hero, then) Bruce McClaren, Phil Hill, and Roy Salvadori, Two drivers in the race who were not as famous but were heroes dear to me were Ron Flockhart and Ivor Bueb who a few years earlier while driving for the Scottish team Ecurie Ecosse had  piloted  a D Type Jaguar to victory in the 24 hours sports car endurance race at Le Mans. Later in 1959 Ivor Bueb died of his injuries following an accident he had in a Formula 2 race near Clermont-Ferrand.  

Also in the race driving a privately owned Maserati 250f was a female Italian driver, Maria Theresa di Filipis. Her participation in the race had caused quite a stir and in the week leading up to the race she was widely commented upon in the newspapers.  Considering she was in a car that was about  2 years old, Maria drove well and during the race she was positioned somewhere between the middle and the rear of the field until she retired with engine problems.

This race marked Aston Martin's entrance into Formula 1 and two single-seater Aston Martins raced that day. They were painted in a metallic light green. The English driver Roy Salvadori drove one into second place  and the American Carroll Shelby drove the other into 6th place. Although it seemed a promising debut this was not the beginning of a glorious Formula 1 era for Aston Martin. Unfortunately the car, into which a great deal of money had been invested, was a front-engined model and over the season became increasingly uncompetitive. The marque made its exit from Formula 1 later in the year.  1959 was the year when rear-engined cars began to be predominant and Jack Brabham who won the Daily Express International Trophy Race on this day, went on to be the 1959 world champion in his rear-engined Cooper Climax. 

May 2nd, 1959 is anchored determinably in my mind but when I ask myself why this is so I can never single out anything that would make it so special. To be sure the smell of bacon and hot dogs and the whiff of hot engine oil which hung in the air when the racing was on remain evocative for me, the screaming siren noise of the 2.5 litre formula 1 engine still resonates and, seeing sporting legends close up was exciting at the time, but I don't think the race that day was spectacularly exciting.  Jack Brabham won rather easily and - as the nerdish anorak section of my mind is compelling me to convey   - my great all-time hero to be, Jim Clark had not arrived in Formula 1 yet,  although I did see him on a number of occasions during 1959 driving a Lister Jaguar for another Scottish racing team the Border Reivers when Dad took me to less grand race meetings at Mallory Park, the racing circuit near our home. Looking back from a perspective of over 50 years I find it uncanny that a day which should have been an enthralling memory, is not,  and yet I long for it and have not let it pass forgotten into the mists of time.

After 1960 going to motor races ended for me. I got a Saturday job. I still followed motor racing closely by reading newspaper reports and Dad and I would watch the televised continental races at Monte Carlo or Spa Francorchamps because they were always run on a Sunday.   Dad continued to go on his own. He went to the Le Mans 24 hours race on more than one occasion.   I don't think Dad and I were ever as intimate again. Mind you, we didn't talk much at the circuit. I would ask him the odd question about the cars and he would answer but it seemed for the most part we were quietly comfortable with each other. 

I never miss a Grand Prix if it is on television even when it is taking place in the middle of the night British time. Nowadays, I have to admit I almost invariably find the racing dull. I suppose I watch it because I am doing it for, or with Dad, just to keep our secret.

A new role for schools : getting ready for OFSTED

Now that I'm ancient and to an extent befuddled, the only real recreation I have is enjoying conversations with people. In the days, months and years  before I became a shirker living on my gold plated public service pension I was a teacher and a social worker. I have kept in touch with many teachers. A number are still prepared to hold conversations with me.

Naturally I want to know how things are going on for them as teachers.  I don't know about you, perhaps you've asked a teacher about this too recently, but every time I ask a teacher how things are going on at school they don't talk about the kids they are teaching or about a great lesson they had the other day when the children discovered exciting things about  the link between energy on earth and the sun's rays. No, each one invariably answers, "It's a bit stressful just now, I'm getting ready for  OFSTED".

Forgive my naivety but I always thought that a school was a place where children could discover and learn things but now I find it is a venue for teachers who constantly have a need to prepare for  OFSTED.

Please accept my apologies. Things move so quickly these days. I just can't keep up with these new fangled ideas. I hope the kids approve of it all. 

The BIFF BAM POWer monster is very much alive

One of the problems for us ordinary folks is that we can gain so little access to where the power is.  If we did have access then we might very carefully begin to dismantle piece by piece the state which the excesses of the political and power systems of every ilk have brought many of us to, that is : our tolerance and acceptance of the abject poverty suffered by most of our fellows.  It always seems that things are reduced to there being a few winners and a lot of losers.

Looking towards the horizon, change does not seem to be approaching and things will stay as they are if we continue to allow ourselves to be governed on the basis of there being, first: a small group of very powerful, very wealthy winners; second: a greater number – I am ashamed to admit I would place myself in this group  - of those who though they lose most of the time are nevertheless silenced by being allowed the occasional win and so have just sufficient reward to live tolerably while they are  hoodwinked  by an education system which invariably serves the status quo, and,  third : by far the largest group in number, whose members are never allowed to win, can never flourish and who are denied the opportunity of any effective form of expression.

It is evident the powerful few have a hold of both the political system and the media and they use them very effectively as their form of expression. Well, there are the occasional spats, which are sometimes investigated and usually followed by a few show trials of dispensable people. These happen in order to kid us that we really are free but pretty soon things fall back into their old place.   We merely cultivate frustration and despair if we allow ourselves to be duped by the notion that we enjoy freedom of speech or freedom of the press. This has been rather comically demonstrated by the BBC’s censoring Judy Garland’s song, “Ding, dong the wicked witch is dead” following the death of Margaret Thatcher.  This public broadcasting organization, the British Broadcasting Corporation which is supposed to represent the expression of everyone in the UK is so fearful of losing its place close to the vicinity of power, so running scared of being diminished or closed down by a political body which finds the BBC’s notional independence a nuisance, that it kowtows in a subtle but nonetheless cowardly manner to the political and financial power bases. The “Biff, bam, power monster is very much alive.”

This “ding dong” is one of the sideshows which has arisen in the fairground that has been constructed in the aftermath of Margaret Thatcher’s death.  The irony of “the iron lady” is that she is revered mainly by a certain kind of man because she  represented not the “wicked witch” but the Biff Bam Power monster they would have so liked themselves to be.  In this sense Margaret Thatcher was an anachronism. She was a woman who exercised her power in the way all the infamous power mongers  - who were and are overwhelmingly of the male sex - exercised power.  It is a way which says that, “It‘s OK to look after number one at all times and to knock out anyone who tries to get in the way.” It is a philosophy – if it can be called that  - which allows us to understand how the financial crisis of the last decade came about. It shines a light on why powerful and wealthy people invariably look in askance and can’t comprehend when someone suggests that their inordinate affluence and influence could possibly be the cause of the vast amount of poverty so many of their fellow beings are suffering.

People who protest about these matters are frequently described by politicians, and by their buddies in the "free" press as moaning and envious lefties who, when they are not demonstrating or rioting, talk ad infinitum about inequality and poverty, without ever offering up any remedies.  The plight of the protester is not so much what seems the sheer impossibility of persuading the rich and powerful that poor people are fellow members of our human community and we should all help them and support them in getting themselves out of their unhappy and intolerable situation.  It is not so much persuading the powerful to yield up, no, to share their power, to give up much of their wealth and to distribute it fairly.  Of course all this must be done but the real plight for the protester is persuading those of us who  just about get enough out of the financial and political system to keep us silent about the need to start dealing with the issue of  undue inequality in the distribution of the world’s resources.

We should all move towards acknowledging that each one of us owns every single square inch of our planet.  No doubt cynics as well as many of those who consider themselves realists will think these ideas an escape to Planet Krypton but nothing ever gets changed for the better if we don't start trying to achieve it.

We should access and unite our individual power and our different and unique talents to move towards a fairer human community. Let’s change the nature of the Biff Bam power monster. 

Dennis, the healing tree maker.

     Every year at about this time, in late February to early March, if you were to walk along the short lane that leads to our house in Totnes you will  see a tree with the most beautiful pink-white blossoms in the back garden of a house.  The man responsible for bringing this tree into life was Dennis who lived in the house with his wife Dorothy until about 20 years ago when they both moved to a nearby residential home for the elderly.

     Dennis and Dorothy have long since passed away but as each year passes I cannot help but compliment the members of the family who now live in the house on the inspiration the blossoming tree in their garden gives me. I know others have said this too. I say Dennis "made” the tree for it was given life because he grafted a cutting from a cherry tree on to the root stock of a plum tree. The newborn tree flourished and now as a mature tree its fruits look at one and the same time like large cherries and small plums and they're delicious to eat. I call it the "Chum Tree."

     As well has having green fingers, Dennis also had healing hands.  

     When he first told me about his healing hands I expressed my scepticism. At the time we were having a beer together in our local, the Bull Inn, and aware of my dismissive attitude to his claim Dennis asked me to let him hold my wrist and as soon as his hands came within six inches of mine I could feel a warm aura from them. He stroked my wrist a few times and although there was nothing wrong with my wrist I found his aura and touch a soothing experience.  

     People from all over the country would visit him at his house to have their aching joints touched by him and as far as I ever heard his patients always left feeling better. Dennis provided this service out of his love for his fellow beings and never asked a penny for it.

     "Any road," (as he, being a Yorkshireman, would say) I hope Dennis would be happy that he is still exercising his gifts through the healing "Chum Tree." 

Rest in peace Hugo Chavez : ha tenido coraje

I didn't always agree with your politics Hugo, but I admired the way you used Venezuelan oil wealth to help the poor of your country and the poor of other countries and I also admired how you refused to listen to the overwhelmingly selfish, divisive propaganda that is the mantra of capitalism.


I have no truck with those who might believe I'm simplistic, misled and naive in carrying a torch for you. Here in the United Kingdom I live under (and under is the word) a coalition government  which claims to condemn the wealth of financial tricksters at the same time as saying the very same money cheats should not be stopped from earning even more than they did when their greed was first exposed.

 ¡Viva la revolución

Chris Grayling, beacon of human tenderness and human rights

     Speaking on BBC Radio 5 yesterday morning (3rd March, 2013) the Right Honourable Chris Grayling MP, the UK government's secretary of state for justice stood out as a beacon of human tenderness when he championed the idea of human rights. He did not think that other Europeans were interpreting human rights in the correct way. He suggested that Europeans didn't realise that human rights were something to be cherished and were therefore too precious an entity to waste on those who have got themselves into unfortunate situations,  like prisoners and no doubt those who receive welfare benefits and those filthy poor people who are being moved from the  districts they have lived in for generations because only clean living rich people should be living there. Grasping grandmas have had to be dealt with too. You know, the ones living in council houses who are now, quite sensibly, being evicted from their two bedroomed flats because they have a spare room and have the temerity to think they can occasionally allow their adult children, their grandchildren and friends to stay with them overnight.

     Thankfully, as I write, government legislation has led a number of these latter day upstarts (who at every turn and at any time threaten our rights) to be shifted north to places like Peterborough, Leicester and Bradford where I am relieved to presume lots of poor people live and where these alien and non-alien immigrants who have had the temerity to live in their own community will not stand out as a blot on the Kensington and Chelsea urban landscape.

Dire and shameful days at Dens Park : my personal apology to Barry Smith

Barry Smith is a good football manager. Without complaining he took on the impossible task of keeping Dundee Football Club in the Scottish Premier League this season. From the start anyone connected to the club  knew  he would struggle against the odds because he was given no time and insufficient resources to prepare a team that would be ready for the task ahead, but then Barry was the man who led our team to a record unbeaten run which (while the club was in administration and with 25 league points deducted) not only kept Dundee FC in the First Division, but also, arguably, kept it in existence. He didn't shrink from what for others would have seemed impossible. He deserved the backing of us all for his courage and at that time he got it. So why not now ?

Not everyone agrees with me and a number of fans on the club's fans' forum regretfully acquiesce with the board's decision, commenting in a tone of,  "You are a legend Barry, but it is time for you to go,"  while an official eulogy Barry - his time in charge  (sanctioned I imagine by the  board) has appeared on the the club website also damning Barry Smith with faint praise. These double-edged remarks and the club's 'obituary' like statement  may act in some superficial way to salve the consciences of those who have made this decision, and those who agree with it,  but in my view it does nothing to put right a wrong action. There was no watertight footballing or moral reason for Barry Smith not to remain as the manager of Dundee Football Club. The decision was precipitate and reeks of panic button pressing when there was nothing to panic about. After all it would be a miracle (a wonderful one)  if the club were to be in the SPL next season. So, now was surely a time to take stock and plan carefully for the future - a future I believe in which Barry Smith should have had a substantive role.

The board of directors of Dundee Football Club have sacked a man of integrity who got performances out of players which often seemed beyond their capabilities. Barry never publicly complained about his lot and he always spoke out in support of his players not as individuals but as a team. In return I believe each member of the team played his heart out for him. I think all the players in his charge have always played for the club in a hard working professional manner.

The current Dundee FC regime was to show a new way of running a football club. A club owned by its fans. A community in which everyone was in it together. Integrity and sincerity would be the order of the day  and all would take responsibility for success and failure.  Now that wonderful ideal is shattered. In the long run the club will suffer for this decision. The spell is broken. It is after all just the same as all the other clubs. We begin to wonder if power is widely shared at this football club or whether it remains in the hands of a few people who whisper together in darkened corners. It appears to have become again an institution which is  happy to defecate on the people who give all of themselves to the cause.  Now we know that  the innocence has been lost, scapegoating and cynicism is back, and the door is left slightly ajar so that one day, at some time, when a seemingly saviour-like person comes along with an amount of money offering to buy us off saying she or he will bring success, we'll go along with it, and so the broken circle continues. If none of these thoughts have any basis then we can begin to imagine that the board of the club would have the courage to rescind its decision about dismissing its manager.

I have been impressed by the CEO Scot Gardiner, (even if he has been a little anal in the way he seems to need to control all the information coming out of the club), almost as much as I have been impressed with Barry Smith. It appeared that he, Gardiner, wanted to run a tidy ship and he gave the impression of being a fan. Just the other week I saw him having a half pint in the Artisan Bar in Abbeyhill in Edinburgh  talking happily with fans after our impressive performance in a 0-0 draw against Hibs. I felt, "Wow, Dundee Football Club really is going to show the football world something different. It has become an open community." That notion is now in tatters.

Barry, I've never met you and I think you are the kind of man who would be embarrassed to be praised,  but, as a Dundee fan for over 60 years please accept my apology that I could do nothing to prevent your dismissal. If you had to go, then in all honour so should every member of the board including the CEO.

Smack your kids : it's official

Somehow we are not surprised to learn that the United Kingdom government's Minister for Justice, (?!) the Right Honourable Chris Grayling MP,  renowned as the Conservative Party's 'attack dog',* lets us know that smacking children is to be encouraged. After all he was smacked as a child and in turn has apparently smacked his own kids. The implication seems to be that smacking kids does them no harm and indeed is very good for them.

 Supporting Mr Grayling's views on this, Edwina Currie, who in another incarnation was allegedly a government minister for bad eggs, says that everyone knows that a 'light tap' (?!) on the legs has beneficial consequences particularly for toddlers. When asked by a BBC Radio 5 Live presenter if she had ever been physically assaulted by her parents when she was a child, Ms Currie intimated that her parents had never laid a violent hand upon her because she had been a good child.

 This now leaves all parents out there with a problem. How will you decide if the child you are rearing is a good child or a bad child ? If yours is a good'un your tapping hand can stay at rest, but if you've got a bad'un get down to the gym and start working on building up your leg tapping muscles.

To be sure, we are human. We all make mistakes. Sarcasm and pontification are very easy. Many parents smack their children but most of these on reflection would acknowledge that the violence they used was related more to their own frustrations and limitations and was less about the child to whom the smacking was administered. If we can take something from this insight - even if we feel unable to take a moral position on it -  perhaps it is that we can convey the exercise of adults' violence to children towards the state of obsolescence.


*The Daily Telegraph, January 19th, 2009

The Pledge of a Pleasant Person by an ex-Chief Whip

I'd prescribe you a pathologist, patriot, painter, parson, parasite, pauper or more perfidiously a pal; perhaps even peasant, person, pedlar, pirate,  pipsqueak, piper, and patently a pig.

 I'd propose you are a philanderer, philatelist, philosopher, philistine, plasterer, plumber,  plagiarist and plonker too. I'd paint you as a pneumatologist, policeman, politician, postman, and, poodle would do .

I'd present you as prelate, prostitute, and pertinently a prig. I'd portray you a pseudo, psephologist, psycho and/or a psychoanalyst. They'd all do too.

I'd pronounce you publican, puritan, puppet, pygmy and sincerely, though pre-eminently, pyromaniac prorogates my paromoeon web,

For never ever, no never, never ever would I proclaim "You are a Pleb."



Comments

Pierre Pauvre  asks, "Does this mean that hooligan hoodies can now curse and oath willy-nilly at les flics without fear of arrest but if they call them "plebs" they will be sent to Devil's Island ? Sacre Bleu !"

Penny Pincher writes, "Yeah, I was on the Totnes to Paddington train last week and when the guard asked me to show him my ticket, I told him  to  'Pleb off  !!'   I was thrown out of the train at Pewsey."

Paul Pedant, PhD.  states : " It is more aesthetically pleasing to be called a referendum than it is to be called  a plebiscite. Hence the latter is a pejorative term."

Paddy Parboyle rejoins "Even I know the 'p' word is short for "Plebian and I didn't even get an O level."

Petula Partickler points out "Patrick, if that is your full first name, you missed out an 'e' . The word is spelt 'Plebeian."

Noah Pologhi declares "No problems with the 'p' word though it's preposterous that a senior politician who should present as a paragon of parliamentary purity uses profanities towards a policeman without fear of prosecution."

Isa Poplectic concludes, "You can say that again. Last year, at the tender age of 16 and a half years, our Ima was banged up for  28 days in a penitentiary for young persons because he called a policeman "A tall skinny..." and then, " very serious swear word." Where's the justice in that?  but then again, what would have happened if he'd called him by the 'p' word ?  See how the mind can get well and truly boggled ? Any road I think I've finally been able to make some sense of this whole palaver and it looks as how a line can be drawn under it."

I'm gonna tell you something you've known all along

     I've always found the line "I'm gonna tell you something you've known all along," from the Blondie song You keep me hangin' on the telephone, uncanny.

     When I'm in a brittle and vituperative mood the irony of the lyrics puts me in mind of a number of academics, though certainly not all, who, after carrying out very important research, tell me all I ought to know about the life I've been leading for 67 years. In this way I interpret the line as "I think you're going to tell me something I've known all along so maybe you shouldn't bother."  This is cruel and mean of me.

     The best way and - I believe -  from the lyricist's point of view,  a faithful way of hearing these words is through the tumult of the idealising,  lustful, and painful love of youth. This meaning urges , 'I hope, no, I'm desperate for you to hear something I'm not sure you knew all along but I desire and demand that you   -  and furthermore I'll die if you don't  -  echo my longing  because I can't bear for a moment longer to pluck rose petals and wonder, "She loves me, she loves me not," '  This is the happiest, silliest, yet most agonising and ecstatic sense of the line. Oh ! for that visceral excitement again.  Well, maybe I'm kidding myself, I'm not sure I could bear it now but the thought and the fancy bring a smile to my face.

     In an ugly and scandalous sense - which I am sure Deborah Harry does not mean to communicate -  the line insists I am fully aware that in the current world set up, and in the current United Kingdom set up, the poor will get poorer, and more miserable, and more hungry, and less healthy, and more marginalised, and more despised, and more misrepresented and less represented and there is nothing I am doing to stop it.

     Shame on me. I need someone to tell me something I've not known all along, who'll let me know how I can help to change the suffering of the majority of my fellow human beings.  Don't keep me hanging on the telephone.