At noon upon the mountains purple height

A day or so ago I was listening to a podcast on astronomy and started pondering on why I had an interest in this and cosmology. My mind went back to when I was at school at Minehead Secondary Modern School aged about14. I had sucessfully managed to fail both11 and 13 plus examinations and this school held no horrors of homework. It is only after an interval of nearly 60 years that I have the hindsight to realise how lucky I and many of my friends were to have had such a dedicated team of teachers, both men and women. Men who had experienced war and war time production. Women who may well have been spinsters as a consequence of war. They used their life experience and teaching talents to give us an education different but in many way superior to that of any grammar school. We were accepted for who we were and they raised our ambitions to reach for our stars in many fields. One teacher Miss Olive Kent Smith took and unlikey group of 14 year old and exposed us to the poetry of the stars and encouraged us to learn some of the works. Not the language of Shakspear but the world of science and endevour. It is only now I am realising the debt I owe to that team of teachers and Headmaster Reville Johnson.