The Sunday school has been closed for five years; its demise followed a long period of decline and dwindling of interest. The vicar, the Reverend Andrew Dixon, does have plans to get one going again; there seems no reason why this parish should not have one, given that most of Gatshire’s others do. In the last few years quite a few young couples have moved into the area and I’m sure some would like their children to receive religious education in this way; I seem to recall someone –I forget who– saying not so long ago there ought to be one here, and some of those who remember when there was one have asked when it will be back.

As for the main school, the intake varies, but usually it has about twenty-five to thirty-five pupils. They come not only from this village, but from others in the area too. Two teachers try to control them; they have a class each. Mrs Raddle, wife of would-be idiot ‘Silly’ Billy, oversees the younger pupils; her class is currently the larger. The elder set are kept on their toes by Mrs Ormskirk, who is married to one of my former English masters.

Mr Ormskirk was without question the most quibbling precisionist I have ever known. For instance, he once brought a magazine in for us to look at. It turned out that the issue termed itself a ‘collector’s edition’ and it was to this fact that he wished to draw our attention. The whole point about collecting, he said, was that it was an activity that involved the accumulation of all possible examples of one’s theme. Collectors did not collect only collector’s editions, unless collector’s editions were specifically what they collected (which was unlikely). This issue of the magazine, Mr Ormskirk went on, was no more a collector’s edition than any other.

On another occasion I went up to him after a lesson and asked him why he felt so strongly about such matters. Was it that important to know when to use ‘that’ and ‘which’, or how to spell the words he gave us in our dictations? Where on earth were we going to encounter all those connoisseurs of Czech cuisine indicted for harassment and obscenity as a consequence of embarrassing and unnecessary faux pas committed in the restaurant? Were the rules of the English language set in stone? Wasn’t it evolving?