Express & Star

Peter Rhodes on propaganda, Titanic remembered and teachers' words we never forget

THANKS for your memories of words spoken by teachers many years ago which have stuck in your memory. A reader who taught geography for 40 years describes asking one of his former pupils what, if anything, he remembered about his lessons. “I was hoping for some profound geographical memory,” he says. Instead, the pupil recalled: “I spilt some ink on the classroom carpet and you called me a berk”.

Published
The Titanic

AND before some of you of a certain age reach for the keyboard for a good harrumph, I am ahead of you. Carpet in the classroom? Luxury.

I WROTE a few days ago about how huge military events of 1917 overshadowed one heroic, but small, cavalry charge in Palestine. Big history tends to veil smaller history. I recall, that on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster in 2012, a marine expert told me in all seriousness that, if the First and Second World Wars had never happened, the sinking of Titanic in 1912 would still be a huge talking point.

I WROTE recently about the Co-op Bank no longer supplying addressed envelopes for customers to send their credit-card payments. A reader asks: “When did banks do anything to help their customers?” The common view of business, he says, is that their idea of ‘helping’ customers is to make it increasingly difficult to contact them by letter or phone. If you’re not on email, you’re stuffed.

EVEN the media, whose lifeblood is information and tip-offs from the public, can make it almost impossible for folk to get in touch. A few days ago I had a press release to send to a West Country newspaper. After wrestling for some time with its website, which appeared to have been designed to defeat all approaches, I rang an old mate who leafed through a dusty contacts book and came up trumps with the news editor’s phone number and address. I do hope my carrier pigeon has reached him by now.

UNDER the headline ‘CofE to allow boys to wear dresses’, the latest Private Eye magazine pokes fun at the Church of England which has suggested children should be able to ‘try out the many cloaks of identity’, with little boys being allowed to wear tutus and girls to wear tool belts if they wish. The Eye makes the point that CofE clergy are regularly seen in elaborate ‘non-gender’ vestments. This surely rings a bell with older Eye readers who recall a classic 1986 front cover during the furious debate on female ordination. It showed three smiling bishops in their magnificent flowing robes with the caption:”Who needs women priests when they’ve got us?”

NEW ways to take money from your bank account. The email begins: “Sir / Madam, My wife and I will want to book your property the date below.” It may look like a genuine B&B booking but it’s yet another scam doing the rounds. Bin it.

MY thanks to the reader who urged me to seek out ‘the real facts on the European Union’ – and then provided a link to the EU press office. Meanwhile, if you want to see all the good news about Britain under Tory rule, try www.conservatives.com where all is fine and dandy.