Dec

27

State Schools, Boxing Day and my Granny Brown

December 27, 2006 |

Phil Hope, skills minister for the DfES, is keen to point out that most of those who have been seen to struggle with such baffling riddles as “25 per cent off” are in their forties, and that the current government is therefore not to blame. But the reason those in early middle age are so statistically conspicuous here is not only that they command most of the spending power, but also that they were the first victims of the very comprehensive system that is now failing their children: the over-fifties exhibit no such difficulties. the telegraph

In a gentler age my granny came home from school at about 14 and told her father that she would like to leave school as they were now delving into these “percentages” and why would she possibly need to learn such useless things. Her father agreed so she stayed at home becoming one of the best read people I have ever had the honour to know. Great rafts of Keats and Byron and Dickens by heart.

She would not, however, have had a clue what 40% off could possibly mean. Boxing Day would have been wasted on the woman.


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