an ever rolling stream

Hey ho! the wind and the rain ..

 .. I say the words and once more I am back in Miss Carpenter’s class of St Mary’s (Church of England) Elementary School in the borough of St Marylebone where we lived.

The words are Shakespeare’s. In a book we read. A simplified version. Suitable for young schoolchildren. Nevertheless. Simplified or not. Young or not. The words remain with me. Were they (are they?) part of Feste’s Song? And had we come to the end of Twelfth Night? This morning I find myself not much concerned with the name of the play. I am back in my old school.

The colour is green. Over against the window wall, the pipes. Hot water heating for a winter’s day. (A Winter’s Tale?) Overhead the gas lights. Four tubular arms painted green. On a revolving metal bracket. To make access easier for turning on and shutting off. As the dusk drew in before the schoolday ended on winter afternoons. It might even have been foggy outside.

Did I experience a temporary sideslip into the reality of the past? Or was it the magical words of the playwright which made a connection for me? and did I then reconstruct the classroom? the feel of the wooden desks we sat at? This time it was a distant image. Pale. and wan.

It was a good school. The right kind of schooling at the right time of life. Easy to move on from, as I did when they took me away to Mercers’. and that was a different air to breath. and the warm comforting gentle glow of the gaslights was replaced by the harsh clarifying penetrating incision of electric lighting from the high bulbs in the ceiling. every corner was exposed. there were no shadows with their suggestions, their mysteries ..

francis cameron, oxford, 31 december 2011

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