We're back home from Flamborough now. Clint took two hours and fifteen minutes to bring us back to our door. It was a lovely break from normality and had been fantastic to reacquaint myself with Flamborough Head after many years of absence. The local people talk just like me so the experience felt rather like going home.
Yesterday evening we were about to walk out to "The North Star" for our three course evening meal when I heard a man calling my name, "Neil! Neil!"
The barn had been converted into six accommodation units which are all named after birds. We were in "Nightingale" but the voice was calling from the door of "Lapwing". It belonged to a stocky man with bright blue eyes, silver hair and a silver beard. I simply did not recognise him and I told him so with an apology attached.
Turns out his name was Grant and he had been the "senior learning mentor" in the secondary school I retired from fourteen years ago now. I had not thought of him in all that time but I remember him as a good man who did his best to support troubled schoolchildren and the learning process in general.
He wasn't a teacher. He had arrived at my old school via youth work and was part of a nationwide movement to fill gaps in education with mentoring support. It was a kind of job creation scheme. I suppose it was also a fashion because before mentoring arrived on the scene, schools were just about subject teachers and their charges - the pupils.
As I say, Shirley and I were going for dinner but Grant seemed genuinely happy to see me. He crammed the next few minutes with talk that was all about my old school and the people who had worked there. It was not a subject I was enthused about.
I would have preferred to talk to him about Flamborough, football and the three little dogs that he had brought with him on holiday. The work life he was referring to is way behind me and I am just not interested in it any more. Tittle tattle and making mountains out of molehills. It has taken me a long time to bury those bones.
This morning we packed up early and left North Moor Farm without bumping into Grant again. I guess that some people love to meet up with old work colleagues and reflect on old times but this is not in my nature. I am not saying that I am right but my instinctive desire for distance is just a facet of who I am and I can't help it.
When my dad sold all his farm equipment at auction, the place was packed with old acquaintances from three decades ago. I had to issue lots of apologies for not recognizing those beckoning me over.
ReplyDeleteI like visiting with the old boys and catching up on the news. However, I don't make a pest of myself on the issue.
ReplyDeleteI made an abrupt cut when I retired. I have no wish to return to socialise or reminisce. That was then, this is now.
ReplyDeleteI had a similar problem with the "ladies lunches" I used to go to once a year with girls/women I used to work with. Half of us had retired but half were still working at the same place and most of the conversation was about the work and people still there and I just began to feel left out too much so I haven't attended the last two get togethers. We have nothing in common now.
ReplyDeleteGrant was extremely friendly and talked about the past, you on the other hand wanted to turn the conversation to the present - two minds ill met. But because as humans we are polite we let others dominate, but there again you would have wanted to dominate. My first philosophical thought of the day. What type of dogs did he have?
ReplyDeletePoor Grant. He only wanted a friendly chat.
ReplyDeleteI agree though that my last experience of working life is not one that I would wish to reminisce about.
I think there's an old saying either "Never look back" or "Never go back". For years after I retired I kept in touch with a couple of long-time work colleagues who were also friends. Sadly, although younger than me, they have both died. Since retiring I have been back to my old office once, and although I received a very warm welcome, have no desire to go back again. I felt then, and still feel, that it's time to move on, time to look forward to a different lifestyle. I could never understand the retirees who haunted the office.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of a scene in Ground Hog Day where a guy calls out to the Bill Murray character and is so delighted to see him. The Bill Murray character not so much delighted to see the guy.
ReplyDeleteThe North Star looks like a great place for a meal.
ReplyDelete