Cannington College (3)

One of my favourite times of the year was the annual prize giving ceremony. The Principal used to give his review of the year and the lecturers sitting at the back of the hall used to keep count of how many times he mentioned the different departments that made up the college. In a typical year about 65% of what he said was about agriculture, about 34% about horticulture and about 1% about food technology. Indeed at least once he didn’t mention my department at all! Even when food technology became larger – in terms of full time students – than agriculture we still hardly got a mention.

Each Head of Department also used to write regular reports for the governors and for the academic board. This was another source of endless amusement because Norman Dickie used his reports to praise his friends and allies within food technology while the rest of us didn’t get a mention.  It was always those of us  “exiled” to the mobile classrooms and offices by the sports field that used to get ignored.

Norman always used to witter on and on about doing lesson observations for each member of the department. Three or four times a year he would mention this in the weekly meeting but it almost never happened. We would all sit there nodding wisely as he pontificated on the subject knowing full well that he would never get round to doing it. I wondered at the time exactly how Norman filled his day. All the more so once I moved onward and upward  because none of the duties that I took on in Daventry or at Guilsborough School ever seemed to be done by him.