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Learning
latin may not seem much fun to today's generations of first-formers,
but to a South-east London backstreet kid it was a romantic affair,
reminding me of those Billy Bunter stories I used to lap up after a
hard day's clambering over the bombsites at the bottom of the road.
(This was 1955!!) I never met Hurree Jamset Ram Singh, but Brian Middlebrook played the part of Welch. I never heard him use the word 'construe', but he did his best to teach us latin in an old Nissen hut near the tuckshop. He was a kind and patient man that all of us respected, but none of us feared (which is as it should be). At the time, we weren't 100% convinced of the use of latin, but in retrospect it was worth every second of effort in teaching us about the origins and structure of our own language. Thank you Brian. |