My Latin teacher was Miss Cooper. The year before I went to Hove Park it was a girls' grammar school. With my year it became a mixed comprehensive, which was a challenge to many of the teachers there. I was conned into doing Latin. Half our year were offered German or Latin, and the other half were offered Spanish or Latin. I would have preferred to have learnt German, but I was in the other half. The careers teacher told us Latin would help us with our English and in learning other languages. So, I opted for Latin, and have never been so bored in my life. Friday mid-morning was the worst. We would have double Latin. I was surrounded by girls who would chat non-stop about a dozen subjects a minute (I am not blaming them BTW). I had fallen off the back off the cart after the first or second term, because you just cannot wing Latin like other subjects. I looked at the clock fourteen times a lesson: 70 minutes divided by 5 minutes = 14. Still, I have to say I liked Miss Cooper. She was a spinster. She had a sense of humour. There was a girl in the class called Joy, who was one of the chattiest girls in the class, at a desk next to me. She used to say, 'Joy, not a joy to me.' Miss Cooper did not have a day off sick in thirty years, so the legend went. When Britain replaced the pound notes with coins, I asked her what 'decus et tutamen' meant, which was what was written on the side of the new coin. I did not realise, but that was quite a test. She said it meant a decoration and a protection. The last time I saw her was before my O level, when I told her I had memorized the translation to the Aeneid, which she told me was a good plan in my case. What I did not know, and what she never let on, was that she had cancer and died the same year. A few years later I was at a pub close to Brighton Technical College, where I was studying. I talked to a girl who also had Miss Cooper for a teacher. She was a bit of a coarse girl, but we both agreed that Miss Cooper was alright.
