Secondary, Modern

On last night's Silk, Maxine Peake's character contrasted herself with a colleague and rival, who had been to Harrow and Cambridge, by claiming to have been educated at "a Secondary Modern, and various nightclubs in Manchester". Ha, Ha, Ha. But not for the reason that you might be thinking. Maxine Peake was born in July 1974. How many Secondary Moderns were there in and around Manchester in September 1985?

Speaking of education matters, today's particularly heavy reliance on other people's material is because what used to be known as the Easter Vacation, even aside from the fact that some bright spark has arranged for Term to recommence on Easter Monday this year, is now known to some of us as the reference season, when our lives are not our own.

And I don't just mean proper jobs. Internships, stewarding at festivals: it is amazing how essential they are now seen as being, how competitive access to them now is, and how exacting are the demands for institutional headed paper (yes, just to referee certain summer jobs) and what have you.

I remember when tutoring was easy, often done by people (all now retired, dead, just plain gone, or in some cases sacked en masse) who really did do very little indeed, while the rest of us came in periodically to dine, drink, and check up on people, and that was about it. Apart from much lighter reference-writing, often not until after the exams had finished. But then, I remember when student life was easy, and the holidays were the holidays. Ah, when I were a lad...

Still, be the position ever so great or ever so small, I have a one hundred per cent success rate as a referee, and I have no intention of losing it. So, back to the grindstone.