Signs of the times

If you want to see evidence of oral tradition, then just go to any primary school. If you have - or have had - children of that age, then you don't need me to tell you that: all those games and rhymes that are so familiar from your own school days. And I think that, by and large, they are passed down class to class, year by year, with virtually no - if any intervention - from adults. (Although it appears that there was some adult enforced re-writing of "eeny-meeny" at some point.)

Today was Dan's last day at St Mary's and he came home with his shirt looking like this, which took me straight back to 1977 when I finished at the Peak School in Hong Kong. My shirt was similarly signed by most of my friends, even though I would see them a few weeks later at Island School. (Similarly, all Dan's classmates bar one are going to the same secondary school.)

Mind you, I don't remember any teachers signing my shirt. That boy's a charmer, all right.