Nightmares

Bernard Kerr, a colleague of mine at The Plume, drew this portrait of me shortly before I left. I love it. It shows one of the trade marks of which I was very proud, the brightly-patterned ties I wore, many bought from Oxfam in Maldon high street. Then Bernard has used the worry frowns across my forehead as contours to reflect my geography teaching.

Those creases reflect the years of stress that teaching brought. Just today, Scottish teachers are being balloted on strike action while an English cabinet minister is saying that something has to be done about the stress and workload placed on classroom teachers.

I taught for 27 years but last taught over 22 years ago yet the only nightmares I have feature schools. One of the common ones is to be in a strange school knowing that somewhere - but no-one, including the staff in the front office, can tell me where - there is a classroom full of rioting children who await my arrival.

I had one of those nightmares last night. This horror took place in the exam room where I and several colleagues were invigilating. Two boys came into the hushed gymnasium and began causing problems. In the confrontation that ensued, I kicked out at one of them.

The trouble is that my body mimicked that kick. I woke suddenly fearing I had kicked Gill, something which has happened before. My violent convulsions had woken her but I had not hit her.

Teaching, for all the 'long holidays', is a dreadfully stressful job, and the consequences of those years of stress, even though they ended two decades ago, will obviously never leave me. However, I wouldn't trade my time in schools for something else. I just feel that I did the right thing in quitting while I was still ahead.