As a child, back in the days of old money and gramophone records, I read voraciously. Every other week or so I would walk down to our tiny village library, borrow the permitted five books and usually have read one of them while walking back home again.

Indeed on one memorable occasion, I was so engrossed in what I was reading, I walked straight into a fence, much to the amusement of my family.

I’m convinced it’s this “bookworm” tendency as a child, which has led to me being a very good speller. I saw the words on the page and somehow they just stuck in my head.

These days, of course, there are far more distractions for youngsters, and reading seems to many to be more of a chore than a pleasure, which I think is a great shame (and the county council ‘downsizing’ libraries to save a few bob isn’t helping either).

Anyway, spelling clearly doesn’t come easy to many – not even teachers. Back in 1976, the Watford Observer’s midweek edition (which came out on a Tuesday) ran on its front page a story headed “Illiterate teachers get a caning” (a headline I enjoyed so much I’ve nicked it almost exactly for this week’s column).

It reads as follows: “More than 50 letters, including one from Western Australia, and 20 telephone calls, have been received by Mr Stanley Bunnell, headmaster of Queens’ School, Bushey, who complained publicly last week about the standards of spelling and English contained in 22 applications for a teacher of English post at his school.

“With the exception of three, they backed him, praised him for raising the matter, and supported his protest. Mr Bunnell readvertised the post last Friday in The Times.

“Following his letter to The Times Educational Supplement about the first 22 applications, the subject has been twice raised by the Daily Telegraph and he has been interviewed on a BBC lunchtime radio programme and on the BBCtv news.

“Among the letters he received as a result of the Watford Observer story was one from a man in Letchmore Heath who enclosed a pamphlet from the Eastern Gas Board. It did not have spelling mistakes, but included a clumsy, ill-conceived sentence.

“An 82-year-old woman wrote to say she thought language standards were going down and she enclosed poems about parts of speech and how English is spoken.

“An air letter from Australia enclosed a cutting from a newspaper, The Western Australian, and the writer said they had their troubles too.

“Mr Bunnell said he had not expected the matter would travel so far.
“Someone connected with an examining board thought that even though the publicity was unfavourable to the profession, it was something that needed to be said. A headmaster, however, said: ‘One should discuss these things in private.’

“In defence of the applications, someone wrote to excuse them on possible grounds of overwork. A third made an attempt at humour, with an application which did not come off,  said Mr Bunnell.

“A headmaster from a school in Hertfordshire added exmples he had received of spelling mistakes – like batchelor of education, grammer, hurridly, assesment and proffesion, and an 85-year-old former school correspondent thought things had not changed. There were mis-spellings in applications for posts in his day, he said.”

Moving from “illiterate teachers” to their charges and something I was going to save for Christmas week but it seems appropriate to print it now. It’s a column headed Schoolboy “howlers”, which first appeared in the Watford Observer of December 22, 1928. This isn’t all of them, by any means, but here are a few of my favourites:

Richard II is said to have been murdered by some historians.

Shakespeare wrote tragedies, comedies and errors.

Henry met Becket on the altar steps and severely massacred him.

There are many eligible fish in the North Sea.

Julius Caesar was renowned for his strength. He threw a bridge across the Rhine.

To find the area of the walls of a room, you take the barometer and multiply by the height.

A centilitre is an insect with a hundred legs.

Latitude tells you how hot you are and longitude tells you how cold you are.

Anno Domini means after death.

 

Watford Observer: MORNING DRAMA: The scene when the middle of three coaches on an empty Euston train was derailed between Watford High Street and Bushey and Oxhey stations on Monday. No one was hurt but the train service was interrupted.     [From the Watford Observer of December 20, 1963]