Mrs. Roberts (English)

 

Mrs. Roberts taught English at Tulketh and was tall lady with steely grey hair and dressed very formally like you would expect of a middle-aged person to do back in the 1970’s.

In my first term at Tulketh, she was one of the two teachers who took form 1N, for English Language, the other being, Mr. Kevil. The difference in teaching style was staggering, Mrs. Roberts, had a compassionate and caring style, whilst Mr. Kevil, was strict, almost militaristic style of teaching probably because of his Army background maybe?

On my first English lesson with Mrs. Roberts, we were tasked in writing a short essay on our favourite book, comic, or magazine for our homework.  I remember at the time my best friend Paul Sapsford writing about the Famous Five novels by celebrated author Enid Blyton, which he had collected everyone one of, and I remember fellow pupil Paul Walsh, writing about the Sci Fi series, Star trek.   I decided to write about the Shoot football magazine which I had been collecting along with Scorcher comic for about three years and would look forward to collecting once a week usually a Thursday, from Morton’s, newsagents’ shop on Eldon Street.  This chore was one I used to look forward to as my mum would give me the money to pay for the weekly newspaper delivery bill. I would read the Shoot Magazine eagerly as I walked back home from the newsagents.  I remember it took me a while to write the essay and I thought after reading it back it seemed ok.

The next time we had English we all handed in our work. We spent the double lesson reading, Anne Frank the Diary of a Young Girl, while Mrs. Roberts marked our work. At the time the Diary of Anne Frank was lost on me, however many years later I read it and was moved by her account of living under the German occupation of Holland and later her in imprisonment at Auschwitz during the Second World War.

At the end of the lesson our workbooks were handed back to us. Mrs. Roberts commented as she handed my workbook back even though the content was good, she did not like my overuse of the word, like, and how generally it is used to often. Bearing in mind this was 1975 and there was no internet or social media sites like, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were the word Like, is used all the time. I wonder what Mrs. Roberts, would have made of the social media sites of 21st century?  I remember some years later actress-comedienne Miriam Margoles, commenting on the overuse of the word, Like, on the Graham Norton chat show on BBC One.

In the 2nd year Mrs. Roberts along with Miss Smalley took the class 2o which I had dropped down to for English which worked well, however some of the time Mrs. Roberts was off sick and a relief teacher called Mrs. Hill took our class.

After the 2nd year Mrs. Roberts, never taught me again for English and I believe after I left in 1980, sadly she died. 

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