Sigh....

George Best was part of the England World Cup Squad, as well as Man. United...and...he was part of one of the BEST England World Cup Squads, ever.

Sid James was part of the Carry On team, who were hugely popular in England, and Britain generally, to be honest, probably around the world. But the humour leans far more to English humour than Scots, Welsh or Irish, perhsaps.

There is *no* such thing as an 'English stereotype', nor has their ever been, in my book. English culture, to me, is not about that, it's not about being white and being born and raised in England for 100 generations or more. It's about being part of the country, part of the country's history, part of its culture, part of something which means a great deal to many people, part of something people from abroad may think of as being intrinsically 'English'....as we may think about something intrinsically 'Russian' or 'African'.

Heck, the people of the world are all going to fall in love with each other, eventually and marry or live with one another. Humans will one day start to become pretty much one colour, and will see each other as people, at long, long last. It's already happening in our lifetime, hugely accelerated forwards from when we were children...and that's a wonderful thing. But when all are the same colour, it will still be worth having a pool of culture that once went to make up where everyone came from.

I'd like the pool where I was born to include far more than football and Eastenders, because I happen to think the pool runs far deeper than that, and is filled with some of the most amazing history, from all walks of life.



With regard to 'The Great White Hope' programme which 'Ruth' recommended earlier on, I couldn't believe what I was hearing, to be honest.

Once again, for me, it was riddled with this peculiarly English 'class' obssession.

In my book ALL our children are suffering at school and not reaching their potential, not just those who are on free school dinners or lower income families. It has *nothing* to do with class. Children who are not loved by their families, no matter what their background, do not do well in life, let alone in school. Children who ARE loved by their families do better....of course they will, because their parents take notice of them and want to help them do well, rather than ignore them totally.

Most of the problems in schools are coming from the schools, not just parents. It's because English kids, in particular, are now the most tested and overworked, stressed out and pressured, in...the...world.
They are judged on their examination passes and nothing else. Schools are only interested in getting the 'pass' rates, rather than helping every child to become a wonderful human being, who judges no-one, who cares for everyone, who still has that natural instinct they were born with to learn and to enjoy learning, because this has been fed and nurtured by teachers who have the child's interests at heart, all the way through their schooldays.

Our current system stinks, in my opinion. It nearly killed my daughter, and it nearly got hold of my son as well. I took both of them out, my daughter not fast enough, and the damage that was done to her self-belief by cruel and thoughtless teachers will remain in her for many years to come, but it gets a little less as the years pass on. She was 15 when she could no longer take it. My son was 7. He had far less damage done to him, and he's had far longer to just 'be himself' to grow and learn in a non-stressful environment, where he learns what he loves to learn, his way, in a way he understands. My daughter's deep love of learning was turned into fear, fear that she was learning 'the wrong way', fear when she failed tests, because she'd been given an absolute horror of them by stressed out teachers who demand, demand, demand, all the time, and then publicly humiliate and belittle the child when the scores are low. It happens over and over and over.

My kids are both on the dyslexic circle, my family (on my side) is, in general. MANY kids are, regardless of background or income of their parents. It is hugely overlooked in schools, and the new way of thinking is that is doesn't even exist anymore. Pah!

You cannot teach a class of 30/40 kids with one teacher. As a mother, I couldn't possibly look after that many kids. Children need adults, many adults to teach them, where the ratio of teacher to child is the right balance, but they *only* need adults who love and respect them, not ones who will belittle them and take great delight in doing that, at times.

Natural teachers never belittle children, they simply love them, nurture them. They are like natural gardeners, who know who to make the seeds grow into beautiful flowers, and who take great pride in helping those flowers come to life.

UNICEF have said that British children are the unhappiest...in the world. That's a terrible, and shocking, thought for us, as a nation. I'd say that English children are even more unhappy than the Scots, Irish and Welsh, because they have been denied their identity and their culture for so long, and we still have the ludicrous SATS tests which do so much damage, so early on, and start the pressure ball rolling from such a young age. Scotland, Ireland and Wales have now chucked them in, because the teachers there have had enough and know the terrible damage that was caused.

The NUT themselves have now recognised, this year, at their conference in Torquay that something terrible is happening to many of our children, stating that many of them had 'mental problems' and were very unhappy. But will they SEE why??????

Last night, I watched a programme on Christmas shows from the 70s onwards...and there it all was..The happiness and fun of Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies, the wonderful Christmas specials that we all used to love so much, Top of the Pops too....and I watched as the programmes became more 'modern'. The interesting part was when they started talking about the soaps...and how they vie with each other for ratings these days, becoming more and more sensational. It started with Eastenders...because the producer of it, way back, decided that he'd introduce darkness into the Christmas show, because he wanted to have a go at 'ruining everyone's Christmas' for them ??????? (Irresponsible b*stard!)....and so the Cult of Misery came into being. And the younger generation started to be raised on murder, infidelity, wife-beating, alcoholism, treachery, depression, unhappiness. You name it, it's in there, and to me at least, the damage that has been wrought on two generations, because of how that programme has been copied by others and that sort of outlook is now so rife on our TVs and in our lives, has been one of the most terrible things to happen in a long time.

So, take on board that schools have a great deal to answer for, politicians too who constantly interfere in Education and who've made it a Corporate Education system, one which fuels the anxiety about examinations. Look at the entire 'industry' which has so cleverly been built around that anxiety, and you start to get a deeper picture of what is happening to our children.

It has nothing to do with 'class', imo,...and everything to do with children not being allowed to be children any longer. Children who feel that life is about exams and little else. Children who are turning off in droves, or judging each other on their exam passes or University degrees, because hey, *everyone* **has** to go to Uni, regardless of whether they may actually want to or not, or have the ability or not...It has everything to do with this insane desire to make all children 'the same', all people 'the same', when each of us is so very different from the other in so many ways, yet alike in others. You cannot make the poet into a mathematician. You cannot turn the scientist into an artist. You cannot make the writer become an engineer.

If you want to find the way to get children to learn, then remove the exams. Let them learn what they love to learn, teach them the basics, yes, of course...but give them a LOVE of reading, of wanting to know. Feed and nurture that natural learning instinct we are nearly all born with, and watch those children grow inside..

"Educating the mind, without educating the heart, is no education at all" - Aristotle.

Many have forgotten that children have hearts. Many are intent upon breaking those hearts. Break a child's heart and you also break a child's mind. You want to know why schools aren't working? Because they do not have love for the inidivual child inside them. Our way of educating is a damaging relic left over from Victorian times, when 'mass' education kicked in. It needs to be changed, drastically, and the way to do that is not stick the poor kids into yet more school, from Breakfast Clubs to Tea Time Clubs and Extra Homework Clubs, it's to ask what kind of society we now have that doesn't even WANT to feed it's children first thing in the morning, because life has become so stressful that many parents haven't got time to feed their kids any longer, or...they don't even want to.

So don't talk to me of class, because class is a label that is stuck on a child's head in this country, and there are those who ensure that never, ever, is that child allowed to remove that label and that they will always be judged by it, first and foremost, being 'a chld from 'a working class background' rather than just a child.

ALL are suffering. There is far more to be being a success than being able to count your GCSEs on two hands. Our kids are spilling out their souls on our city streets, at a younger and younger age, in a way that has *never* happened before. Drunkeness is putting the Ambulance Service in dire straits, as they can no longer cope...

Our children also, can no longer cope...but so many are refusing to see it.


And yes, this is just my opinion. I recognise that others will not be able to understand what I'm saying here, or will disagree with it hugely, but hey, that's what makes us individuals and some of us are still individuals..although that number gets less with each passing year as Orwellian England becomes ever stronger.