The English abroad 

Our Japanese friends thought of Tim as the ultimate English gentleman. This was basically because he was very tall, went to Cambridge, spoke perfect Japanese, but most of all because he had worked at Harrods. He had in fact worked there for a short time as a summer job and used to sit in a  green Harrods van as it drove around Surrey delivering over priced  goodies to houses that had the James Bond theme tune on their doorbells. There is I’m afraid,  a very unsavoury aspect to this story so you may wish to close your eyes and skip the next two sentences. Each lunchtime the Harrods driver would stop the van and they would have their sandwiches. Afterwards, regular as clockwork he  would hop into the back of the van and have a poo in a paper bag while Tim sat there twiddling his thumbs. And this is absolutely true. Obviously not wishing to burst his celebrity bubble he didnt share this snippet while abroad

When we were living in Tokyo we did as everyone did, we taught English. With varying degrees of success. Many  of our private students became life long friends. Others were plain weird and a little sad. Once a week I would go to a very expensive hotel bar for an hour to meet a strange humourless gentleman who basically wanted to know how to make “English  small talk” and asked me questions like what does the Queen like to talk about..how the hell shoud I know? Anyway, the perk of this one was it was very well paid, plus I got to drink gin and tonic while discussing varieties of roses and how pretty Oxford street looked in the rain. There was also a dentist who was convinced my parents must have disowned me for disagreeing with his opinion that women were only put on this earth to sweep floors. We would forever be going to the station to meet prospective students who without fail would say things like ” Ok, I will be waiting for you . I am wearing  black shorts,a  black shirt, have black hair”.. easy to spot then. Our favourite was M’s telephone student. Every Wednesday at an appointed hour he would call for his phone lesson. A good plan, except that M always forgot and was often out, so it resulted in whichever one of us happened to pick up the phone taking the lesson and pretending we were her. This worked quite swimmingly for a while,  though I think he finally smelt a rat when Tim answered the phone, and despite getting through the lesson was questioned as to why his voice had become so deep. ” I have a cold ” he said and put  the phone down. 

My absolute favourites were my sewing machine factory boys. Every week I would get a train out to the suburbs and spend a jolly two hours with them. They were a delight, very funny, sweet and desperate to learn. We had work books that we used to do exercises etc but I soon decided that it was much more fun to make things up for them to do. The highlight was the map I drew for them of Camberwell. From then on each lesson became an exercise in being able to follow directions, to know what shops sold what and how to ask for things, where to buy stamps, where you can take the baby for a walk,go for a swim,  is there anywhere to get a cup of tea  near Denmark Hill ?, that sort of thing. They absolutely loved it. I do hope that if of any of them ever found their way to this neck of the woods they would still be able to navigate themselves to the Hermits Cave, stopping off on the way for a kebab and to feed the ducks in the park. Once a month or so we would go out for an evening of typical English entertainment. Yes, you guessed it, the pub. With the inevitable karaoke and a lot of shouting of the best English variety

My other lovely pupils were a gaggle of very naughty and cheeky six year olds who were such fun to teach,  even though I dont think many of them had the slightest idea  what I was talking about. We had to do nursery rhymes from the workbooks and I remember they particularly loved Twinkle twinkle little star,  but perhaps they particularly liked it because I used to let them stand on their chairs and wave their arms about,  as their teacher stood there blinking politely trying to hide her panicked expression. At the end of the last term I let slip that in fact I was in fact also a performer and we ended up having a riotous afternoon with the three of us doing our show in front of the school. They will all be adults now and I wonder if any of them remember their first foray into the English language

Happy days indeed. I don’t  think I have ever laughed as much as we did in our time in Tokyo. There is more,  but that’s for another day.

Say0!!