Down memory lane....

I was at a Referees' Clinic at Maidstone RFC tonight. Maidstone was where I played all my adult rugby but I don't get much opportunity to go down to the club nowadays.

Like most clubs the walls are festooned with photographs of teams from the past and this one, from 1979-80 features me as a young man. Hard to think 34 years has passed since that shot was taken and 37 years since I first turned out for the club.

Earlier in the year the club held an Old Boys' weekend, where past players met for lunch before a cup game, had a glass of lemonade or two and watched Maidstone trounce the opposition.

Susan was working again today so I was left to my own devices. However, it wasn't a day I could choose what to do as I spend the morning doing a monitoring visit at the school where I'm a governor.

What a job it is being a governor nowadays. For someone not in the education game it must be very difficult to understand what is going on and to commit to the amount of time that is required. Not to mention the responsibility AND accountability that is heaped on the shoulders of a "volunteer".

I can't be the only person to think that the whole ethos of education has been going seriously wrong in the last decade or so. The relentless pusuit of data at the expense of nurturing the individual is the dominant drive. Surely the time for a "readjustment" is coming.