The Seventies revisited and other matters

Hard to know where to go tonight. The news is full of the IMF coming in to prop up failing economies, Lib-Lab pacts, swingeing public spending cuts, and Blair Peach. I guess that takes us here…

And, yes, I was there. It’s coming back…

Then I read about David Cameron being attacked for wanting to fund ‘special schools’.  I used to think that ‘inclusion’ was the only way forward, but that was before we did work at arvon with The Exeter Royal Academy for Deaf Education. We met kids there whose parents, from the best of possible motives, had managed to get their profoundly deaf children into mainstream schools, with tragic, if unintended consequences. We met one 13 year old boy who had no language, because he hadn’t been allowed to sign until starting at the Royal Academy a few months before he came to Totleigh. I think we can cut Cameron some slack here; he really does understand disability, and from my experience at arvon, special schools really do have a place in the mix. Sometimes, inclusion can be excluding.

Excitingly, though, the thing I really wanted to blog about was the Brecon and Radnorshire constituency making the BBC news website. There’s even a mention of Presteigne. OK, it’s not much of a story, but at least we got on there. The main news in town today was that the Fire Brigade were out with their ladders, putting up new bunting in the High Street. It really can be like Trumpton here sometimes, and very glad of it I am too. I bet they don’t have bunting in Ystradgynlais. I was reminded of the headline in the Powys County Times on the day the election was called: ‘The Race to represent Radnorshire in Westminster begins!’