Posted by A n old boy on November 04, 2021 at 04:26:52:
In Reply to: From theHeadmaster ... posted by Rt Rev Mgr F J McGuiness on October 29, 2021 at 18:19:36:
Dear Father.
Well that was nice, but I felt in these times your language has become rather stilted and aged. What, (almost) correct punctuation, no acronyms or abbreviations, no portmanteau words ? It made me nostalgic for those days when I was just a young lad in the striped uniform. But now, I'm a dinosaur too, raging about spelling, grammar and maths errors in everything, and how standards have slipped everywhere.
Well, I made it and live to the other side of the planet, quite literally, and whilst it's a great place to live, it also suffers from many ailments. I'm glad that you made it to 'the good place' and I notice you don't mention any of your staff sharing you reward, but surely there must some of these esteemed members up there with you. They were good people. I think many of my fellow old boys would expect certain of those staff members to be in the rather warmer place below, probably deserved, although I was lucky never to be a victim of any mistreatment. A very few of your pupils are likely up there with you too, with more to come in the years hence.
Well, I was supposed to give you a personal view once a year, and I haven't done it for many, many years, but this letter prompted me to reply. How the world has changed in the half century since I entered the hallowed gates of our school. Those gates are long gone, as have many other things. Many aids have been replaced with sleek, shiny, all seeing plastic miniature computers which sit in your pocket and do many, many, mundane tasks which used to require bits of paper, diaries and brain power. Not only that but they track and log your every movement and action. I laugh when I think what your reaction would be, and whether you would ban them from the school grounds entirely, like non-standard uniforms and brightly coloured ink.
Sadly the art of conversation appears to be a terminal case amongst the young, they spend all their time glued to the tiny screens and cannot be without them, addicted would not be an out of place description. I find it amazing, and depressing when walking past a cafe and nobody is talking, they are sat around the tables watching their screen... I am sure you would find this a frequent topic in your morning eulogies, provided your lectern didn't collapse.... No, it wasn't me.
The world seems to have gone completely mad, with the 'woke' brigade campaigning for history to be rewritten to conveniently ignore all those 'embarrassing' celebrities of old, by removing their statues, censoring their works, and deciding there are more than two genders. There are new batches of zealots, of climate change, of Covid (must get vaccinated NOW!!), of "woke', of several acronyms which I am sure you would baulk at, and again it makes me laugh to think of your reaction to all this, and how you would speak of it (I always remember how you manged to ooze distaste in your pronunciation of words like "Skinhead" and suchlike).
Sadly though the basic nature of mankind has not changed, and there appears to be more suffering, inequality, lies, and exploitation than ever.
I have had the honour to be your humble pupil.
Me, a retired old fart.