RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30943, 27 December 1965, Page 16

RANDOM REMINDER

RIPOSTE

Fathers usually go to school prize-givings under protest They occur at a busy period of the year, the weather is usually hot and fathers, being sceptical creatures by nature and training, very rarely attend in the belief they will see their off-spring win awards for merit in the classroom. Particularly is this so in those schools which keep their results to themselves until the day. So it was that three men with three common inter-

ests—their daughters, their war service, and their connexion with the farming economy—found themselves in company in those tiring minutes before the prize-giving ceremony began. They had hot seen each other for years, and they were glad of the reunion. They discovered that their daughters were in the third, fourth and fifth forms of the school, and they re-discovered some of their happier moments overseas. It was in the course of this part

of their animated conversation that the quality of their language deteriorated sharply. Perhaps it had something to do with their war talk, or their familiarity with the more provoking aspects of animal husbandry which produced such purple profanity. At all events, they were three very shamefaced fathers when, a few minutes later, they watched their daughters go forward to receive the third, fourth and fifth form prizes for scripture.