Categories: uncategorized, and-another-thing
Date: 10 March 2009 08:48:08
OK so a couple of days ago someone mentioned the sad passing away of Lord Ron Dearing and I thought I'd mention a little about him here from my perspective.
My local secondary school was one that was maligned, dismissed, complained about and allowed to sink into false rumours and political backbiting. At turns it sent more students than any other in the local area to Oxford and Cambridge for three or four years running and won a number of regional competitions and, as it did so, the local newspaper - the Surrey Ad which I tend not to buy for that and other reasons - would dismiss it as a failing school. I'm not saying that the other schools in the area had more of a budget to take the reporters out for nice lunches but hey, there were fires at two schools: one made the front page and another was barely mentioned. Go figure.
Nowadays the Surrey Ad has another school to moan about in the local area so that's alright then isn't it*? They only need to focus on one nemesis it would seem so they've turned around and done an about face and are friends with the people they dismissed because it's easier to kick someone else.
((*It's not. I think they act reprehensibly.))
Anyway one of the champions of the school at its lowest was Lord Ron and I met him at a number of meetings, school open days and the like. I was supporting it from the side of my youth work - a number of the kids came from the school so I felt an affinity with it despite having never been taught there - and Lord Ron, despite being 70 years old or so, seemed a tireless advocate and enthuser. He was a lovely man, kind and generous, honest and witty and had a twinkle in his eye as he spoke that I hope I can emulate even at a fraction of his age. When I wrote my first book, Dr Sylver and the Library of Everything, he wrote me a long email commenting and congratulating (from which I could have picked all sorts of positive messages but two sentences fitted better on the clippings sheet) and I was very touched. It not only fitted nicely with the audience profile (at the time I had teens reading it, Jason Gardner at the LICC, Phil Groom and others championing it and to have a Lord of the realm saying positive things about what the book was aiming to achieve) but it was very encouraging at a time when I was still very hesitant - and terrified - about thinking about myself as a writer.
The saddest thing about Lord Ron's passing away is that the school has been rebuilt as a direct result of his actions in supporting it when others turned their backs and, much like the promised land, he passed away just before the kids moved on to the new buildings. It's sad to think that he didn't see the classes move to their new rooms and purpose built facilities but he managed it and he made it happen. Many kids now and in the future have much to thank him for, as do I. Occasionally I think back to another sad passing away which affected me equally at the time - that of Rob Lacey - and have a tingle down my spine not at their passing on but at the possibility that has now been opened to them. For Rob I always felt that when he moved from one realm to another his first action would likely be to perform a standing room only performance of his brilliant Word on the Street show to an angelic audience. For Lord Ron... I don't know. Typing this made me feel not sad but excited for what would come, not just for the school but for him in the place where he has gone, and I hope that he now truly knows what his actions gave birth to. With his human eyes he only saw the old school, as he sleeps I hope he dreams of the new one.