Elmlea Junior

Good King Hal continues his music theme from yesterday, by posing with the Nolan Sisters. From left to right: Bridget, Bernadette, GKH, Colleen, and Barry. This was to promote their new single "I'm in the Mood for Crackling".

Elmlea? That's a type of cream substitute, isn't it? I had been summoned to Elmlea Junior by the teacher Beth Lem, who sounds vaguely Biblical, as she had seen me doing my Henry stuff in years gone by when she used to work at the Hugh Sexey School in Wedmore. Elmlea School is in Westbury on Trym, the wonderfully named area of Bristol that sounds more like something out of a Dickens novel. Even when you get to this bizarre suburb it is difficult to know how to take it. Leafy lanes clash cheek by jowl with roads that would not look out of place in Dagenham. The school itself is quite big and I was doing a mixed group of years 3 & 4 today, six classes in total and about 150 children. They were a very lively noisy bunch, but great fun with it. The day began in strange style by a load of the parents coming in to watch the year 4 children do a pre-rehearsed Tudor dance - each of the three classes doing it one after the other. I was asked to make comments after each performance, and decided that rather than act as a kind of Simon Cowell, I would be much more of a cheerful Tudor Len Goodman type.

The morning itself went really well - we spent all the pre-lunch period in the dance studio (you will be glad to hear I wasn't wearing leg warmers and doing the splits). After a lovely roast dinner lunch we moved up to the big main hall for the stocks and jousting session. The head teacher must be cursing her luck as she just happened to wander into the main hall when I was looking for a teacher to put in the stocks. She took it all in good spirit and only stuck a screwdriver in two of my car's tyres. The jousting was a noisy rambunctious affair which nearly tore the roof off the main hall! In a pulsating final a great ladies team stormed to a brilliant win. This now brings our score to:

GENTLEMEN 6 - 4 LADIES

So the ladies are coming back into it. They will get their latest chance to pull closer to the chaps tomorrow when I make a pleasant return visit to St Paul's School in Shepton Mallet.