Have I told you I’m arachnophobic? I’ve always been terrified, no petrified – I turn to stone – when I see a spider. Any size from the house spider up, writes columnist Alistair McNair.
Recently, I had a giant house spider peering out at me from under my bed. These things only happen when my wife is away. It’s as if, with their eight eyes and eight long black legs they know. I slept in the living room and had to get a friend to remove it the next day.
I got to thinking about phobias standing in the playground at Carden Primary School’s recent 75th anniversary celebration. It was an event where phobias might lurk in every corner. It was dark, there were fireworks, teachers, parents, 1990s pop music and even the occasional Conservative politician – the stuff of nightmares. I’m not generally afraid of things, although Labour’s propensity for meanness – think of their desire to charge Remembrance Sunday volunteers for lost parking income – might bring on my politicophobia. Give me snakes, the number 13 or even clowns and balloons any day.
Being in a school always brings back memories. Most of our lives are spent either exorcising school memories or embracing them as if they were the best days of our lives. Personally, I’m glad the days of lugging my textbooks in a Spiderman satchel are over. Dinner ladies were particularly scary. I only ever had one school dinner and was told off for not finishing it. I still don’t have hot lunches.
Teachers too loom larger than life. I remember Mr Windsor who taught me when I was 11.
He was so frightening one girl’s mother came into the school to explain to him that her daughter, Natasha, found him too scary. And yet, I liked him. He called pupils names like “duffers”. And he gave us books at the end of the year and wished us well. His manners were, let us say, old school, but I think of him very fondly.
As I stood in the late evening playing fields of Carden Primary, waiting for the firework display, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of love and pride and belonging. Here is a school where it would be hard to find any phobias. No didaskaleinophobia here. Of course, I’m biased. As chairman of governors, I do belong, in a very modest way. But going by the number of people who decided to stand in the cold clutching burgers caked in ketchup in one hand and their child caked in ketchup in the other, I know many hundreds feel they belong too.
Go to Carden any day and you will feel its friendliness straightaway. The cold evening could not cool the warmth of the welcome. Who could be more appropriate than the school’s business manager to check our tickets at the gate? I dare you to get by Mrs Buttress – her name is a perfect example of a charactonym. The council’s finances would cower under her stewardship. No one could manage as well in keeping Carden Primary’s financial head on its shoulders – most schools in Brighton have a deficit.
And then there was Ms Singleton who knows when you are late – it’s always happening to me – but her smile and cheerfulness makes it less bad than it is.
Mr Harrington, Father Christmas’s deputy – who has probably taught half the children in Hollingbury, including my boss’s son now at university – welcomed us all as he does the children at the school gates every morning, in French and in English.
And Mrs Sibley. No demon headmistress. I’m sure you would know she was telling you off, but you would come away thinking you were forgiven too.
Carden was the first post-Second World War primary school to be built, and retains that optimism in its high windows and colourful walls. Yes, it’s tucked away in a corner of Hollingbury many of you have never heard of, but there are acres of fields, views of the hills, more fresh air than the sea, a swimming pool, an orchard, a vegetable garden, a group of staff doing their best for your child and a community of parents who turn their hands to festivals or protests as required.
I could write about Carden’s values – Carden is a School of Sanctuary – and I could write about its speech and language centre, but I won’t. The school doesn’t shout about it, but it should.
Come to Carden’s Christmas fete on December 2. Share in the optimism we all felt watching those fireworks shoot for the sky.
Unless of course you suffer from christougenniatikophobia.
And when you’re buying mince pies in Tesco, drop a blue token in Carden’s box, unless it’s too much for your enochlophobia.
Alistair McNair is the leader of the Conservatives on Brighton and Hove City Council
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel