My Shout
AND then there was one.
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As of December 16 this correspondent will be the only remaining family member still gainfully employed. For the youngest of our elderly sisters will be put out to pasture when fulltime is blown on the school year on the aforementioned December 16. She’s a school teacher, you must understand. As is the eldest of our elderly sisters, who moved into retirement mode years ago.
There was a function held last night at Club Old Bar to commemorate the youngest of our elderly sister’s (TYOOES) 42 year career, which will conclude on December 16, a fact we think we’ve already mentioned.
Despite the fact that both our elderly sisters went into the teaching profession and our father was also a teacher for a time, it’s an occupation we never considered as a genuine career option. We would trace this back to our early school years when we struggled under the iron rule of the sadistic Sisters of St Joseph. They were to early childhood education what Tony Abbott was to sensible government. By the time our incarceration at the various schools we attended wound to a conclusion we had no desire to ever return.
Anyway, we didn’t get a good enough pass in the HSC to even give teaching a passing thought.
However, we are confident the youngest of our elderly sisters (TYOOES) is well prepared for her twilight years.
For that would be one of the advantages of school teaching. You’d be readying for retirement from day one. We base this on the fact that teachers only work about three hours a day and every six weeks or so they're on holidays for a month or more. That doesn’t count getting every public holiday off and the occasional pupil-free day. So they're completely prepared to take the step into retirement land when their time comes. It’s good when a plan works.
However, the disturbing fact is that this correspondent is now an only child when it comes to employment in our family. To be fair the eldest of our elderly sisters still does a couple of days work at sundry schools around the area, as teachers are wont to do. But that doesn’t really count. We’re talking about full employment here.
We expect to be tapping out this column and a few other things for a few years yet. For as of today we’re sitting in spacious, modern premises across the road from the memorial clock in Victoria Street. We mentioned the big move a few weeks back, the regular reader of this space would recall.
Colleague Laura Polson will soon enough speak to the youngest of our elderly sisters about her life in the classroom. TYOOES taught Laura so we trust she’ll be kind.
We’d have relished the opportunity to write about one of those nuns retiring, for revenge is a dish best served cold. We really have no idea what that means.
Post script: Mrs Fatherley contacted this column soon after reading this piece. “I will be only too happy to teach you the meaning of revenge is a dish best served cold. Watch this space,’’ she wrote.
There are worrying days ahead.