The 'good old days' NOT....

This letter appeared in todays Mail on Sunday, I have retyped it as it was quite difficult to photo the original.

Is this guy 'for real' I remember that winter, I was actually at secondary school and I had a 3 mile journey to make, it was a mile walk to the bus stop, then a 15 minute bus ride into the village, then a mile walk to school, it WAS difficult and we did it, and YES the staff made it to school, but only because they all lived locally. Unlike today, when the majority of the staff in school live some distance away,as do children.

In the 'good old days' we didn't have the 'elf and safety' issues that we have today. Could you imagine the uproar, if a head opened his school in these wintery conditions to find that the majority of his staff could not get in to teach, or that those kids who have to be bussed to school, because they live more than 3 miles away from the school had been waiting at bus stops and the busses didn't turn up because the 'b' roads where impassable, so kids were left standing in the freezing cold, they then turned round to walk home to find mum/dad not there and the house locked and they are then left out in the cold all day!!

Today, a head has to make an informed decision, based on several factors, of which 2 are safety of his staff and the children, because after all, he is acting 'in loco parentis' to these kids during the school day, and god forbid if anything happened to them whilst they were in his charge, he would be hauled in front of the Governors and the Eduction Authority and at best severely reprimanded and at worst he could lose his job.

I think people remember the 'good old days' through rose tinted galsses.

I remember, it being so cold the ice formed on the insides of the windows, we had newspaper spread out on the window sills to mop up the water when it thawed, we had ONE coal fire and a parafin heater, NO duvets, NO central heating, NO electric blankets, NO double glazing.

So AJ of Bolton, before you make sweeping statements please find out a little more about school policy on closure in bad weather conditions.