A Fairly Decent Capitalism Working At School?
Now the photograph above may very well look as though it shows the usual quadrangle of a boys' school. Somewhere in the Anglo-Saxon world. Not so long ago.
And it does ... as far as it goes.
But an arrow ...
... and some explanation is needed to make full sense of the image.
So here we go.
At the tip of the arrow are lockers for boys to keep their textbooks in. Nothing strange bout that of course.
But - and this is the confession you'll have probably have been anticipating in the last few seconds - something less than usual and seemingly anarchic used to take place in my particular locker - located in the bay indicated by the red circle ...
That something was exposed to a seriously disapproving world ... by a very disloyal and non-collaborative geometry book.
The truth of the matter was that I used to breed white mice there - dear little rodents who had understood the cosy bedding qualities of my textbook ... when all chewed up.
The discovery of my enterprise caused an uproar with the authorities ... which truly surprised me at the time.
Cos - at twenty cents a mouselet - it seemed like a pretty solid if perhaps somewhat unconventional beginning for any budding captain of industry!
Don't you think?
Or am I wrong here?
Nick,
ReplyDeleteThat's a very funny story! I would have thought that any such school would have rewarded you for showing (what we in the US, perhaps chauvinistically, call) "Yankee initiative." Isn't that that such schools are all about, making sure the boys growing into captains of industry and the like?
hi paul
ReplyDeleteyep, i think it was very odd of the school, given there prime directive!
and they certainly didn't have a sense about it - that life could be a bit mad or off-beat - deadly serious was the order of the day, then, not sure what they're like now - probably the same, actually!
and given this was not the first such episode of mine, i suspect they thought 'oh god, there's more!'
nice to look back though - now - and know i wasn't totally part of the 'kiss arse chorus'