Feeling Old

Eight more days of my forties to go. What a laugh.

My Dad used to say that the first sign of ageing was when the policemen looked young. That passed a long time ago. Then he changed his tune to 'When the vicars look young' when I was ordained. I have a new standard. I bought a Birmingham Post on Monday morning in order to savour and appreciate the great Escape (more on that when I have subsided emotionally). Reading the rest of that paper in bed this morning I noticed that John Claughton, Head Teacher of Solihull School, has been made Head Teacher of King Edwards, Birmingham. Thinking about it they will almost certainly still call him Chief Master - that place turns slower than a Sunday League centre-half.

Now King Edwards (not Camp Hill, Five Ways, Erdington or any of the other pretenders) Edgbaston - the King Edwards is my old school. (I was a clever 11 year old but it all went horribly wrong from then on.) And John Claughton was in the year below me.

So the third sign of ageing is when people younger than you take the place of the most feared person on the planet – your old Chief Master. We called him Cack; how kind of us. Meet the new Cack.