Chance to Shine

It was back to London yesterday to take part in the awards ceremony for the cricket charity , Chance to Shine. The charity was founded ten years ago by Mark Nicholas, the Channel 5 cricket presenter and Mervyn King, the then governor of the Bank of England. It's aim is to reintroduce cricket into state schools and local neighbourhood's through the Quik Cricket format and street cricket initiative's.

We were going because number two son, Kieran, was nominated for the Volunteer of the Year award.

He was not given the news until a few days ago, so there was a hectic rush for train tickets and you can imagine the situation there....£100 plus for a single even with our old gits rail cards, so some lateral thinking had to be applied.

Using Martin Lewis and his split ticket web site we managed to get three returns for just under £120 although it did mean driving to Crewe. That bit was fun as there was an early accident on the M56 so the sat nav took us all over the show. The long term car park at Crewe was full so we eventually got on the platform with four minutes to spare. The return journey was no less stressed as I had a blonde/senior moment and threw away the return tickets rather than the outbound bits. Luckily no tickets were inspected on the homeward bound section so all was sorted.

As for the event itself, Nomura International, hosted it in their Upper Thames Street offices and it was an excellent bash, made all the better when Kieran was announced as winner of his category. He was really pleased as were we as proud parents, although he seemed more interested in chatting to the fit England Ladies cricketers who were there, than with us!!

He won the award for his efforts introducing girl's cricket into Prenton High School, and for coaching the ladies section at Oxton Cricket Club. The fact he was not a PE teacher as many award winners were also counted in his favour.

His new school in Neston do not have a team so that will be his next task once he has sorted out the History department. That should keep him busy!!

School for Scandal

There was an interesting article in The Times yesterday, based on the subjects we did and did not learn at school, and whether there was anything which one regretted not learning.

I had a think about this and am consistent in my views of twenty years or more, that I wish I had been able to learn a language. The school was run by the Christian Brothers, so Latin was on the curriculum from year 1. I struggled with it and so dropped it in year 2 for Spanish. French was also a problem so that went by the wayside pretty quickly too.

I managed to struggle on with Spanish and sat my 'O'level, but did not pass, so all I speak now is the basic stuff....it got us around Peru, but it would be jolly useful now to be able to speak all three of those languages.


With a new daughter-in-law who speaks Portugese, and the likelihood that any grand children from that direction will also be multi-lingual, that is the language of choice for me now.....I will need to check the evening class schedule.


I suspect most of the problem was the dull and repetitive way the languages were taught in the early '60s. I might fair better with the modern language lab approach, who knows.


If I am allowed more than one choice, I would have liked to leave school being able to play a musical instrument. We did have orchestra lessons, which allowed me to learn to read music, and play the violin, but that seemed to go the same way as the language classes after a while. I plug away on the piano these days but in a crowded room I suspect I am the only one who knows what I am playing!!


It was an all boys schools, so learning a bit more about girls might have been handy as well, mind.



So what was I really pleased I learned at school? My best subject was maths, and that certainly set me up for my career in IBM so that has to be up there. I did Art through to 'A' level and that has certainly stayed with me throughout the years, although I have never been much of a painter, more a creative genius!


Rugby has opened up a world of friendships, travel opportunities and competition, the like I would have struggled to emulate at a football based school, so that was the best of the extra-curricular activities.


And there you have it....in The Times article history and geography featured with a lot of people. I was forced to make the choice for the 'O' level course between physics, chemistry, and biology or geography, history and sociology and went down the science route, but in those days you got a good grounding in all the subjects up to the age of 15 so I never felt I had missed out there.


So what were you're regrets and successes,it would be good to know?

Schools out for ever

Our youngest , Kieran, has just sat his final, finals, so as his mother says, today is the last day of school, ever. I think he has other ideas, however, as he sees a Masters beckoning. That will, of course, depend on his final degree grading, and the Faculty's willingness to take him, but with a following wind, and a good mark for his dissertation, he should make it. He is reading History at Liverpool Uni His bro and two sisters all spend an extra year in full time education so I guess it is only fair he does too.

Fairness is something we think increasingly about with the four of them, as one wants money for a house deposit, another wants money for this or that and so on. You can't give one without giving all, certainly where hard cash is concerned.

As a result Kieran is feeling pretty cheesed off at the moment as he has just been offered a ticket to the Champions League final in Athens, by his Grandad. His Uncle turned it down, and sadly he had to too, as the whole package would have been about £800. Still he is young enough to enjoy another Liverpool glory night in the future. he also has two holidays booked in the coming few weeks, so something had to give!

Still he is 21 in a few days, hopefully he can celebrate a Liverpool win at the barbecue we are putting on. These events are some of the rare times all the kids are in one place so we treasure the moments for what they are.

I play the mad chef and everybody else gets trollied!!