‘Be wonderful’... I’ll never forget the words of my great headteacher

Lucy Tobin
Matt Writtle
Lucy Tobin25 February 2019
WEST END FINAL

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I was about eight when an embarrassing conversation at a sleepover corrected my awkwardly long-held belief that teachers, too, wore uniform.

Every Miss and Mrs at the front of the classes so far had sported the same basic M&S skirt, top and wedge ensemble. It was an easy mistake to make.

Not so at secondary school. At assembly on my first day at North London Collegiate School, the headmistress, Bernice McCabe, strode onto the stage in a fire-engine red Armani suit, spiked heels, swishy auburn hair, immaculate make-up.

Her daily audiences were us bratty, spotty teens, but even at the Oscars, McCabe might have been the most glamorous woman in the room.

Her smartness wasn’t just in appearance: in assembly speeches, at the table-clothed lunches where she’d invite a handful of students to her flower-filled office, and in the English lessons she taught year sevens, McCabe would sprinkle her life’s learnings; the kind of things the National Curriculum never touches on — that maybe you wouldn’t use until decades later.

She was upfront to us career-hungry teens that life involves choices. Years before we’d be thinking about families, she’d tell us: “You can have it all, but not necessarily at the same time.”

How often I’ve realised that’s true: you can have a stratospheric career and kids, if you outsource them; but you can’t be a school-gate parent and hit every professional milestone you’ve ever aimed for. You have to pick your priorities. Those who pretend otherwise are lying.

“Be wonderful,” McCabe told departing students; do something amazing. The head’s softly-spoken wisdom has stayed in my head more than any bit of algebra.

It’s a shock to think of this vibrant woman in the past tense; she died last week — too young, at 66, from brain cancer. A passionate teacher impacts pupils more than they will ever know.

Watery warning falls flat at pool

A notice on the wall at my local swimming pool makes me wonder if sign-makers, like journalists, are now being paid per word. “Please,” it reads, “be aware the changing room floors might have excess moisture on them.” I pondered whether its creator had to think for a very long time before finding umpteen words to replace the warning “Wet floor!”

George Orwell’s rules for effective writing came to mind: “Never use a long word where a short one will do.” Especially when the extra time required to read the verbose text means you’re far more likely to end up falling flat on your face.

iFail... time to file me under ‘tech oldie’

Camila Mendes stars in Riverdale
Getty Images

After years of being my family’s go-to IT helpdesk, I had my first “tech fail, I am old” moment at the weekend.

My niece was showing me the show Riverdale, starring Camila Mendes and KJ Apa on her Mac. I was already feeling out of touch but it took me a while to work out why she was doubled over, laughing at me. Too used to my tablet and iPhone, it turned out I’d been ineffectually jabbing at the Mac’s (non-touch) screen in a fruitless attempt to fill the screen.

There’s nothing like tech to make you feel ancient: memories of floppy disks, overhead projectors, dial-up internet, and Snake on the Nokia 3210 mean even us millennials are out(tech)dated.

NHS managers deserve credit

How easy it is to moan about the NHS wasting money from a dinner-party distance away.

“Too many managers, not enough doctors” is the usual cry — from the chatterati as well as politicians.

But during a short, grim spell in hospital last week where long waits for drugs meant I had to take up a much-in-demand bed for far longer than necessary, all the rhetoric about “pointless” managers seemed misplaced. Sometimes you need a clipboard-wielding organiser who can’t do catheters but can run wards — leaving a department of doctors and nurses free to do their jobs.

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