The Assembly Line
In the 1950s, Second World War Spitfire hero Sir Douglas Bader gave an assembly talk to the girls of Benenden School about his part in the Battle of Britain. Not noted for his modesty, he hobbled to the blackboard on his artificial legs and chalked a series of small circles.
“It was a hell of a dogfight!” he exclaimed, pointing vaguely at the circles. “There were fockers to the left of me, fockers to the right and then I saw another focker coming straight at me.”
The scandalised headmistress interrupted him by saying, “Girls, I think I should clarify that a ‘Fokker’ is a type of fighter plane used by the Germans.”
“Yes, that’s true,” snapped Group Captain Bader. “But these fockers were Messerschmitts!”
Speeches by the great and the good to school assemblies aren’t usually so snappy and entertaining; instead, they are safe, boring, coddling, predictable, tedious and grandmotherly: “Work hard. Respect the teachers at this wonderful and noble school, and honour and love your parents.”
What a load of patronising bollocks!
A Few Home Truths
Here’s an excellent speech from a friend, Rodney Evans:
“The purpose of your education is to enjoy a social life… of sorts – albeit you are often surrounded by spoiled and spotty children with far too much money. Having said that, in the pecking order that pollutes the British public square, this school is said to be “smart”. Notwithstanding that there are a great number of rich thickos as pupils – I suppose their rich daddies had to send them somewhere – you have a chance to make contacts that might, just might, be useful in your future life. Second, your time here enables you to spend time in a nice, warm building; this last is the only reason your teachers bother to show up.
My advice is to be an inquisitive amateur, only study what interests you and just ignore everything else. If you come first in your exams, that will please your parents and teachers but will generate considerable dislike amongst your contemporaries. That’s a handy lesson – success brings risks.
Most of your classwork is useless. Maths, for example, is an exaggeration. There is only one number one. The rest is duplication and overstatement.
Ignore literature unless you enjoy it. It’s just escapism for intellectuals – Homer, Dante, Chekhov and so on are all in the same business as Netflix: distraction. Live your life. Don’t boggle at replicas offering fictional problems.
If you get a degree, as soon as you enter the real world, you’ll learn the harsh reality that paper qualifications are worthless and the ability to laugh at your bosses’ jokes that aren’t funny is worth 20 years of schooling.
When choosing a career, reject the occupations that are essential to human life: farming, mining, building and sanitation. These careers are poorly paid, dangerous, cold and often wet… and socially negative. No one invites a scaffolder to a film premiere. The autobiographies of sewage engineers have never been the subject of bidding wars by publishing firms. A turnip grower is unlikely to be granted a knighthood. No trawlerman has ever been invited to appear on Newsnight.
Instead, take up an idle, glitzy and parasitical career like banking, journalism, politics or acting. If you have just a little talent, you can earn loadsamoney and you’ll be treated as a semi-divinity.
Medicine is a useful career if you have enough patience to soothe the egos of work-shy attention-seekers who often aren’t as ill as they pretend to be.
I fear your emotional life will be painful and expensive. That’s just how it is. Keep your anguish to yourself and smile widely when the cameras are clicking. Your problems will start in your twenties and thirties when you fall in love. Don’t be alarmed. You can extricate yourself from disaster by getting married.
If you have children and they reach adulthood without disowning you in public, then you will have achieved as much as any parent can hope for.
Trust no one. Your gut instincts are usually correct. Stay on the attack.
And finally, don’t fear death. Your absence from this world will have as much effect as your presence in it – that is, very little. The reality is that you and your “legacy” will soon be forgotten.
Good luck!