“Gandalf, yer tea’s oot”

According to todays Times, 6 children born in the UK last year were called Gandalf. There were 6 Jay-Z’s and ridiculously 27 Tupac’s. 4 baby girls were given the fabulous chav handle of Catherine Zeta. There was even an instance of a child being called Superman!

And so to me. I’m looking forward to the weekend. We have the pleasure tomorrow night of attending a lesbian wedding. It’s taking place in a barn down in East Lothian and whilst it’s not the first same sex wedding we’ve been to since the new civil partnership laws came in, it will be the first where they roast a pig over an open fire. How cool is that?

I think I’m basically a caveman at heart. I remember being fascinated with a pig on a spit in the main square in Krakow last Christmas as well. Theres something primitive in me where meat cooked on an open fire outdoors just makes me drool. I think all guys have this thing about cooking on an open flame hence the fascination with barbecues that most of us have.

Although it stemmed from a dream (see yesterdays entry), I did take the time yesterday to investigate changing career to become a teacher. There is a website specifically focusing on how to become a teacher in Scotland and it provides lots of useful information. Seems though that I would need to have a degree in the subject I want to teach. I fancied teaching history but don’t have a degree in the subject (I don’t have a degree in anything. I went straight into employment from school). This leaves me having to sit a degree in the subject (4 years) and a teacher training qualification (1 year). 5 years is certainly longer than I anticipated although I could look at doing an Open University degree in my spare time. It’s not an impossible task though and if I was going to go down that route then I could certainly draw inspiration from one of my history teachers in high school.

Joe McKeesick was the history teacher who sparked my interest in all things historical. He had come into teaching late, probably around his 40’s, having previously been a fireman in the coalmines. I should explain that a fireman in the mine is more Guy Montag than Barney McGrew in the sense that he starts fires to burn off pockets of dangerous gas as opposed to extinguishing fires.

Anyway, the man impressed me because unlike a lot of my other teachers he was not an academic per se. He was a hard man who had quite clearly did a hard job. There were no airs and graces from him and he’d worked hard to train to be a teacher - I’d imagine to a degree of ridicule from his colleagues in the pit. This man though planted a seed of interest in history in my mind which germinated and grew over the years.

I’d like to think if I did ever make the change into teaching that I could spark that interest in a subject which he sparked in me.

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