Anne Dickens | The Day After Yesterday

There is a lot in the news these days about potential employers complaining that 16 year old school leavers can hardly write their name, and are barely toilet trained. Can you imagine dealing with that in the office?

As a result, for years a metaphorical trench warfare has been waged between teachers and parents, each claiming that it is the other's responsibility to nuture the child into a well educated and rounded individual.

Having read both sides of the argument, I have concluded that their are two main reasons why most children leave school virtually illerate:

1. Without wanting to sound too much like a communist (i.e. I supported the teachers on this one), - there too are many parents out there today who are lazy nobs, and they expect the school to take on the role of parent as well as educator.  It's easy to spot the lazy nob parents because they generally wear pyjamas on the school run, and have badly dyed hair (so they look a bit like a badger), and they are always late. And they sometimes feed their children Smartie sandwiches for lunch.


2. But the main reason why children are illerate these days is because they are always on bloody holiday. I remember the olden days - I would eat pebbles for breakfast because we were so poor, and then I would walk 5 miles to school in the driving snow wearing only a motheaten sackcloth. These days, kids don't know they are born. They get driven to school in their parents' 4x4 (SUV), nibble on their feta and olive paninis during lunchbreak, quaff organic cranberry juice when thirsty, and have at least one friend called Tarquin.

So, as you have probably already guessed - last week there was yet another bloody holiday at Izzy's school - this time it was a half term holiday. I am not sure how many terms there are in the school year, but given the amount of time they are on holiday, I would estimate that there are about 15.

In fact they are on holiday so often, that I frequently forget the route back to school once it starts again.

Anyway ....... back to the holiday. Generally Steve (Izzy's Dad) and I share the holiday care. But this time, it wasn't possible because Steve had gone and got himself a shift-job making driveshafts for motor racing teams. So it was all down to me.

It's a good job that I had arranged to visit my chum Sarah in Leeds then. As you know, Sarah is a teacher and a bloody maestro when it comes to dealing with children .... and Izzy absolutely hero worships her. So, on Tuesday morning, we jumped into my big, bad bling machine and set off on the three hour journey from Oxford to Leeds.


The journey took three and a half hours, and Izzy primarily entertained herself by putting one of her (extremely) wobbly teeth into comedy positions, pulling funny faces and photographing the result. Kids are weird.

Eventually, we arrived at Sarah's house in Leeds at late afternoon, and the first thing I noticed was that a bloody huge funfair had pitched itself on the large field at the end of her road.

"There's a huge bloody funfair at the end of your street," I said to Sarah when she opened the front door.

"I had kind of noticed," Sarah said, pointing out the obvious and making me look like a div. "Anyway," she continued, "we are going there once you have unpacked your stuff."

Huzzar! To the funfair we go ............. and because I am kinder than Mother Theresa (except without the warts), I have got some funfair pictures for you.