Taking shelter with Dawn
Among school children again. Spent much of the day being Robin to Dawn's Batman at Downs school. I arrived at 9:30 for a day working with 'gifted and talented' children, who were sat around little tables in the school hall. Gifted and talented means they are the more able ones in their class, not necessarily that they were Mozartian prodigies. The children today were from several schools in the area and were between 10-12. Because they didn't know one another there was a certain amount of self-consciousness in the morning. My function was to talk about writing and the imagination. An interesting day spent outside my comfort zone. One poor girl was colourfully sick on the floor at one point, and was taken away as a casualty. Beyond this it all went fairly smoothly. Although I am never sure in these encounters with children just how much use they get from my contribution -- but they all seemed to listen. Dawn had arranged for us to go down into the extensive air raid...