John Donne, he of metaphysical poetry fame and one time Dean of St
Paul’s cathedral, wrote those sombre words in one of his most famous sermons.
He was of course speaking of death but fear not those of you who have already
envisaged the Grim Reaper, this post is not about that somewhat depressing
subject.
I am rather referring to that bane of every teacher’s existence … the
school bell. And for any of you who are not teachers you can have no idea of
the impact those bells have on our lives. Bells dictate every moment of our
working lives: not only do they announce the beginning and end of lessons,
everything we do revolves around their ringing. When we can eat, when we can go
to the toilet, when we have to go to meetings ... absolutely everything
revolves around those bloody bells. Want to go to the bank? Hold on, is there
enough time before the bell rings for the next lesson? Need to go to the
doctor? Don’t be silly – the bell will ring long before you have time to get
there and back. Many the time I have been in the middle of an interesting
conversation and a much needed cup of coffee when the bell has rung and I have
had to rush to class. Why not ignore it? Or risk being a few minutes late? Ah,
therein lies the rub … I can’t! I insist that my students arrive on time – I cannot
adopt double standards to suit my needs so, when that bell rings, I get up and
I go.
With that persistent and ever present bell of course arises that
looming spectre of time passing – just as Donne stated. And no, this post is
still not about dying but I cannot help having a heightened sense of the
fleeting nature of time (please excuse the clichés – brain numb through lack of
sleep) every time a bell rings. Forget the joys of wedding bells, or the
intrusive sound of alarm bells, or even the sonorous tinkling of those gorgeous
harmony bells – bells loom large and ugly and ominous in my life. There are of
course a multitude of other instances when bells are rung but I am afraid I have
developed a bit of tunnel vision in this regard.
The reverse can be true of course and many an uncomfortable or tedious
lesson has led to gratitude for being saved by the bell: I suspect however that
it is the students who are most often grateful for that timely reprieve to end
the tedium of drowning in a sea of blah! The ringing of that bell at the end of
term is also a wondrous occasion – not only does it announce the start of that
long awaited and well-deserved holiday, it also means that I won’t have to hear
a bell for however long the holiday lasts!
Having taught for so long and with only two years remaining until my
official retirement the ringing of the bells has assumed a different
significance. Yes, for me school days will at last and once and for all be over
and how do I feel about that? I suspect my feelings are the same as that of most
people who face imminent retirement – relief that at last I will have the time
to do whatever I feel like doing (and for me this means without the spectre of
marking, reports and lesson prep) and a sense of anxiety regarding the
implications of what that retirement means in terms of the passing of time. I know
I won’t be bored when I retire – there is too much I still want to do before my
body eventually gives up the ghost and declares enough – but that is the core
of the matter isn’t it? When will my body decide that enough is enough?I think back on all the hundreds of bells I have heard over the years – not only school bells: from those large hand held brass bells in the playground, to the bells in bell towers on Sundays summoning us to church, to the grating sirens of the pre-set electronic bells, to the bells rung on the stock exchange trading floors and their sounds become immaterial. At the end of the day we are all governed by bells and what they signify … that we cannot control the passage of time and that it holds us ever in its thrall.
In the words of Dr Seuss -
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