Just something that's kept me wondering for very many years ...
Shortly after I first started teaching in the late seventies, I began to spend time working in a church-run youth club in a particularly rough part of Birmingham.
After an evening spent chatting to the kids, playing table-tennis, painting a mural, I walked back towards the bus station in the Bull Ring to get my bus home.
I can remember exactly what I was wearing that night: blue sweat shirt, purple cotton trousers, red cavas shoes, a synthetic fur coat I'd bought from a second hand shop (it had a label inside to say that it was "Demob Issue" and I suppose it dated from 1946 or so), and a long pair of crystal earrings. My hair was dyed burgundy and spiked up, punk style.
I felt a little bit peckish, and there was this guy selling hot-dogs from a roadside stall. The smell of frying onions made me stop to buy one. I held out the money to him. He in turn looked me up and down and said:-
"You're a teacher, aren't you?"
When I asked him, fairly gobsmacked, how it was he knew, he just laughed and but wouldn't answer.
And I wondered and still wonder and still haven't answered ... is my teacherliness tattooed on my forehead for the whole world to read?
7 comments:
Sharon
How on earth did the hotdog seller deduced you were a teacher despite your punky look? Usually one could tell teachers by their studious look and conservative attire. At one time in my life, people asked if I was a teacher though I had never been one (a Sunday School teacher, yes but not a school teacher). People's perceptions aren't always right.
Cheers,
Lydia
That I shall never know, Lydia. It really freaked me out!
Sharon,
I was able to tell from your prose.
Teachers are picked out quite easily from others in the way they speak and write - most times, it's proper! But this is just a fact - an observation perhaps...nothing bad at all!
When I was a journalist at Female magazine,even readers could tell when teachers submitted articles for publication. Because again everything on paper appeared 'proper', somehow and that also translates verbally. Perhaps, the way you spoke silently reminded the hotdog seller of one of his teachers. I don't think fashion came into it, in this case. cheers!
Felt I should explain myself better:
By "proper", I mean fastidiously prim or correct with everything and anything in its place, that goes in the way we talk or write.
You've got a point Susan. That reminds me of two teacher friends I have. They always speak proper English.
Rgds
Lydia
Hmmm ... perhaps, but I think all I said was "One hotdog, please." perhaps I added "With onions and ketchup."
maybe it was the please ?
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