Dear Head,

Please excuse me coming at you like a Japanese fighter pilot out of the sun, but I was a room guide at Eyam Hall today when many of your pupils came round, which can be a bit of a nightmare, but today was an exception.  A very pleasant exception, indeed.  I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Matthews, Mr. Swinscoe and Mr. Harrower and I have to say that I was more than impressed with the rapport they all had with the children.  It was a delight to be a part of it all.  Added to that, I had the joy of taking four individual groups around the house and encountered lots of very bright, cheerful, well-disciplined, intelligent, disciplined children, all of them an absolute credit to your school.  I was asked seemingly hundreds of questions, since it easier to ask the kids what they want to know rather than some old fuddy-duddy chuntering on for ages, and the questions were searching and of a high quality.  I genuinely cannot remember a school visit that so was such fun but also so rewarding.  (I do have to confess I developed a soft spot for little blond-haired boy, who was with Mr. Harrower, but this was an environment that I grew up in and have many happy memories of so maybe I take a different perspective to most people.

Thanks once again.  It was the model trip, although I am now in need of a stiff drink and an early night!  How you do this, day in, day out, is beyond me!!

My regards to all the lovely people I met today

Yours ever

Hwyl Fawr                     

Dafydd Manton - Word-monger, Columnist and Cartoonist. 

AUTHOR OF THE BEST-SELLING BOOK "I WAS A COLD WAR PENGUIN" 

MY WORK HAS BEEN SPREAD OVER MANY FIELDS!