They are all Foundation Tier candidates. Which means, barring a barnstorming performance in their Controlled Assessments (CATs), the maximum grade any of them can get is a C (and if their CATs were that good, they’d be entered for Higher Tier). So we’re looking at students at the bottom end of what is being termed “acceptable”.

I’ve crunched the numbers. And it isn’t good.

Mathematically, assuming that all students get 100% of the marks available in the exam, and 100% of the marks available in the remaining CATs, then they are all capable of getting a C. But that’s not very likely, especially since AQA have expressed how much they don’t want to see Band 5 results for Unit 2 (Speaking & Listening).

There are 205 marks available in total (125 from the CATs, and 80 from the exam). Without knowledge of where the grade boundaries will lie this year, predicted grades are difficult, but we can assume that 60% is the minimum for a C, or 123 marks. Assuming they get the minimum marks in the exam to get a C (48) then they need to get 75 marks out of their CATs to get a C.

I’ve extrapolated what marks they are likely to get based on what they already have.

Only one of my 19 will get above 75 marks from the CATs, if the extrapolations are accurate. So strictly speaking, only one of my 19 should be entered for the exam.

Another three with some pushing could get there, and I am prepared to stick my neck out and say that they can make it, and I will risk being held professionally accountable if they don’t.

The others? There are a few Fs and Gs who could perform better and get Es, maybe Ds. And one or two who will only get a U, none of whom surprise me, and who are students I was considering not entering for the exam in the first place. They are students better served gaining a Functional Skills qualification and going on to sit their GCSEs next year.

What kind of education is it to allow only 20% of my students to sit an exam, in return for 100% “success”, where success is defined statistically, without considering whether grade D-G is actually a success for some students?

I understand why we’re doing it. The department is on notice to improve results, as they are below the national average. But that statistic ignores why we get the students we get (deprived area, generally students re-sitting or because they couldn’t get in at a “better” place). We do not attract the academic top flight, but as with every other place of education in this nation we are supposed to be education factories, churning out a predictable year-on-year increase in A*-C results, since education is mechanical and students aren’t human but mere “empty vessels”. Since we are judged on a league table, not on what is best for our students, then their successes are unacceptable if they fall short of an idealised version of success. Fall short too often, and we’ll simply stop offering the GCSE. It solves the problem of lack of “success”, but reduces the educational opportunities available to our students, demoralises staff, and puts jobs at risk.

With that sort of pressure, we do what every place of education does. Skew the results. Want an increase in success? Only enter those guaranteed to succeed. Those not guaranteed? Well, if they never tried, they can never fail.

This isn’t education and this isn’t success. And it sure as hell isn’t fair. What it is, is 30 years of flawed education policy which ignores what education is for, and forces teachers to be statisticians and economists rather than educators.

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Ecclesiastes 9:11

I teach children who are marginalised and removed from mainstream schooling. They have been out of education for some time. Their behaviour, their attitude, their circumstances have meant that they are not in a position to get the magical five GCSEs at A*-C which is demanded of children.

And yes, for some of them it is their own fault. They have chosen to behave the way they did. There are factors and circumstances which brought them to that point, but that does not excuse them. It explains how they came to be where they are now, but they chose to take that final step which saw their behaviour and attitude change, and which prevented them from remaining in mainstream education. To that extent, it is their fault.

But nonetheless they have been given a second chance, and they have taken it. And with the best will in the world, they can never be as good as they might have been. Imagine you were training a group of ten teenage athletes. All ten show promise when they come to you at the age of 12, and you hope in four years time they will do great things at the Great Race. And they begin to train together.

Then two of the ten start slacking off. They start failing to show to practice. They smoke, and drink, and eat unhealthily, until they can no longer be considered part of your training team. With one year left, they are removed from your team.

Another trainer offers them a chance. Stop the unhealthy behaviour, train with me, and we’ll let you run in the race. Will these two be as good as their eight fellow teen athletes? No, the damage has been done. But with what they’ve got, let them try. Let them achieve what they can.

That’s essentially what I do. I take the ones who slacked off, goofed off, fucked up and got kicked out. And we work with what we’ve got. The race is not to the swift, nor battle to the strong. Our victory is not coming first, but simply taking the opportunity and trying as best as we can.

A*-C in GCSE English would be great for these kids. But realistically, it is doubtful. The real achievement will be getting a GCSE, regardless of the grade, because otherwise they would have no qualification.

So what happens when a few months before our Great Race, you are told it is not sufficient for your second-chance athletes to be able to finish the race. They must be able to finish it in a set time, or the can’t even try?

That’s what I’ve been told. Without guarantees of A*-C, then a student isn’t allowed to try. They are robbed of the chance to achieve. What is the point of a second chance, if it amounts to “you shouldn’t have wasted your first chance”.

It is their fault that they need a second chance. But now that we’ve given it to them, it is not their fault if we take that chance away from them.

And now this weekend I need to figure out which of my students to tell “I have no faith in you” next week…

But we achieve nothing in this life without goals, and so I need to have some goals over the course of this year. So what follows are my goals, the things I want to have achieved by the end of this year—or at least to have well in hand by the time 2013 rolls around.

I teach, and whenever teachers are lectured about setting targets, we’re always reminded to make sure our targets are SMART targets—that is, they must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed. In other words you have to articulate exactly what you intend to do, how you will measure success or failure, whether it is something within your power to achieve and whether it is possible to achieve it, and finally the timescale within which this must be achieved.

Without further ado, here are my personal goals for 2012 (and a little into 2013).

Complete a 5k, 10k, half marathon and full marathon within a continuous 12-month period
I love running, when I actually do it. I have signed up for the BUPA London 10,000 in May of this year, which takes care of the 10k. I have registered interest in the Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon in October this year (and failing which I’ll go for the Run to the Beat half marathon later that month). I intend to start the 12 month period from the date of the BUPA London 10,000, giving me until May 2013 to complete this challenge. Training for a 10k and half marathon will include multiple 5ks, and I intend to integrate parkrun into my training schedule, which takes care of the 5k aspect. So this only leaves a full-marathon. Incidentally, the period May 2012-May 2013 includes the date of the Virgin London Marathon 2013. Which is the final part of this challenge. And beyond that? I suppose I could learn to swim and try a triathlon?

Do the above (almost) barefoot
As much as I love running, I hate the knee injury I picked up in 2007 doing it, and which I’ve been trying my hardest to avoid aggravating again. Last year I read Born to Run and after looking into the science behind it, I’m quite convinced of the benefits of barefoot running. However, I’m not totally stupid, and I don’t trust the roads in London one little bit. So I’m not going to run barefoot. Instead, I’m going to take part in minimalist running and complete these races wearing my Vibrams which I got at Christmas.

Run 1000km in 2012
A solid training schedule for a marathon really ought to see this achieved and then some!

Complete one manuscript for publication in 2013
OK, so the concept of “completion” is a little nebulous here. When is art “finished”? But complete to me means that the manuscript is somewhere in the 80-100,000 word range, and has been beta-read and revised. Over on Write Anything I have challenged all the writers to have a project this year, and this will be my project. There will be more details in February about my project, but long-time readers of the blog will probably be able to guess which long-neglected and long-overdue project I’m going to work on…

Complete one short story anthology for publication in 2013
In addition to the above manuscript (and to give myself a break from it) I’ve got a side project I want to get finished this year. I have a collection of first draft stories and a few fragments that I want to get polished up and put out there for your edification.

Participate in all four Sketchcrawls in 2012
Art is a hobby that is more neglected than my writing. With art it’s a time thing. I can’t do it at work, for obvious reasons. Evenings are out because for half the year it is dark, and I don’t have studio/natural lighting available. Plus it takes time and I have other demands like lesson planning, cooking dinner, reading, procrastinating from writing, barely looking after eMergent Publishing and Write Anything etc etc…

You get the idea. More than writing, art takes preparation and time I don’t always have. Meanwhile, I keep asking for art equipment and books to help me improve a skill I don’t practice nearly enough. As with writing, easing myself into a routine and a habit will mean I stick at it, rather than declaring “I’m going to do more” then doing nothing. Participating in Sketchcrawl in 2012 will mean I draw more in 2012 than I did in 2011. I will improve my skills and my confidence will increase. A lack of confidence in my abilities stops me from going out there and drawing, because people inevitably watch you when you are drawing, and it makes me really nervous. As I improve, I’ll feel more confident about taking out paints, an easel etc. I’ll feel more inclined to take the time to draw and paint, developing the habit further.

Read smarter, not harder
I have an eReader. I have about 650 books on it at the moment. Most of them I’ve never read before. All of them are on my “to read” list.

Why? Because I feel I ought to. They are classics of Western literature, books by authors I like, and books that have aroused my curiosity. But reading because you feel obligated is no fun. I found Dante’s Divine Comedy a complete draft after Inferno. The juvenilia of Jane Austen was turgid and dull. Reading is meant to be fun, but at the rate I’m going through these books—particularly the slow-down when I find a book tedious—I won’t finish them for 20 years! And I’ll still be adding to them during that time.

So this year, and for the future, I’ve made myself a promise. A book gets four chapters to enthrall me. If after reading the first four chapters I don’t feel compelled to keep going, I’ll stop, and move to the next one. It’s a request Scott Sigler makes about his podcast novels—try the first four episodes before making your decision to carry on or stop listening. And I’m going to apply it to my reading list. Even if the book is “one of the greats”. Especially if the book is one of the greats!

Nothing horrendous in there I think. All very specific targets, all with measurable success/failure targets, all within my power to achieve, all very realistic things to aim for, and all with time targets (except perhaps the last one, which has an undefined time target of “however long it takes me to read the first four chapters”).

Making goals/resolutions/vague promises of self-improvement is easy. The trick is in keeping to them. Writing them down, and in a public forum, helps with that, particularly if you have friends and relations hardass enough to bitchslap you for your failings who care enough to encourage you to stick with your goals.

It only took about 15 minutes for one of the students to declare I was a shit teacher. And only a further 30 seconds for two others to join in.

*sigh*

They had an assessment today. We did the work for it before the break. We went over it in the tutorials before the break. I gave them handouts to look at over the break, and even wrote home to their parents–enclosing the handouts and asking the parents to get involved since the student needed to know the opinions of an adult–all to prepare them for an assessment today.

Six students turned up (two of them late). Three declared they didn’t want to do the test. One denied I had ever mentioned anything about it (despite my clear recollection of telling him about it on the last day before the break). And one declared he didn’t understand any of it (unsurprising, as he hadn’t attended for the previous four weeks).

So yeah, I’m the shit teacher. Getting it down in writing, it looks ridiculous. But at the time, despite trying to laugh it off, I took what they said to heart. I felt like a shit teacher.

So for much of this evening I’ve moped about feeling crap. But I’m past that now. I’ve got some fresh ideas for the next time the class sees me (and hopefully most of them will show up!). I’m reminded of the quote by Samuel Beckett, which I think I need to get tattooed onto me so I can remember it.

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Next week, when I see the class again, it may all go wrong. I may get called a shit teacher again. And I may fail. But I’ll fail better, week after week, and if I fail well enough, they’ll pass.

And that’s all I really want.

You’ll know him by his faded, slightly browny-red outfit, the stale smell of pish and tobacco, and his long beard, which was once white but is now yellowed and matted with lumps of vomit. On Christmas Eve, when children are tucked up in bed (or drinking on street corners), if you listen carefully you can hear Jakey Claus clattering about on the rooftops, cursing under his breath as he tries to find a chimney to climb down.

Most years you can hear the feral reindeer that pull his sleigh–Fannybaws, Cuntybaws, Bawbag, Bampot, Glaikit, Eejit, Hingy and Thingy–along with Rudolph (red-nosed due to excessive alcoholism), but this year Santa already has 152 points on his license for driving over the limit, and his sleigh was clamped by the polis.

Jakey Claus, when he eventually comes into your house, brings presents. If you have been a good boy or girl then Jakey Claus will leave a half-empty bottle of Buckfast in your tree. If you have been bad, then he’ll leave a puddle of vomit at the base of the tree. To be honest, he might just do that anyway. Either way, Jakey Claus will rifle through your stockings and take a few items for himself.

Many people leave treats out for Jakey Claus. Traditionally this includes a bottle of the cheapest whisky you can find, some fritters, a can of Irn-Bru, or a Munchy Box. However, you can leave out a glass of warm milk if you prefer. Just make sure to top it up with methylated spirits..

So best to behave yourself, since you don’t want to get on Jakey Claus’ bad side. “He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake…” That’s not a jolly song, that’s a threat.

So have a very Merry Christmas pal…

I work in FE, but I teach children who are still in compulsory schooling (I teach as part of a course for students who have been excluded or are otherwise outside of mainstream education). So my charges are at times perhaps a little mouthier and a little cheekier than your mainstream class might otherwise be. Swearing, grudges, arguments and disobedience may be familiar to most teachers, but I hope there are very few classes where burning test papers, threatening to stab each other, actually getting stabbed and turning up to class drunk/stoned are regular occurrences…

At any rate, they are entertaining and frustrating in equal measures. Amongst the highlights this term have been:

• Student A burning his test paper. When asked not to burn it, his response was to set fire to Student D’s…
• “Sir, you look like a gay farmer”–an oddly specific fashion critique delivered by Student A
• “Is this going to be another boring lesson where we have to learn stuff?”–Student C doesn’t quite grasp why we’re having lessons…
• “I speak English much well betterer than you sir innit.”–Student A demonstrates my point about why he ought to pay more attention when I’m teaching him about Standard English.
• “Can we watch a film today sir?”–the cry of every class, at the start of every lesson. Since the start of term. Jesus wept.
• “Sir, where’d you get your shoes from?”–not as common as “can we watch a film”, but Group B have an odd fascination with my footwear…
• “Dave!”–my name, according to Group B…
• “Paulie babes”–my name, according to Group A…
• “Dave!” “It’s not Dave, it’s Paulie babes.” “Nah, it’s Dave. Dave, tell them your name is Dave.”–an argument outside the staffroom while I was trying to have my coffee break…
• “I’m going to put you in Room 101 sir!”–threat from Student S when I insisted she deliver her presentation (the topic was Room 101). When I told her she could put me in if she wanted and realised I wasn’t kidding, she actually delivered a good presentation!
• “This is a waste of time when we could be doing stuff to help us pass our GCSE.”–Student G’s reason for putting Room 101 into Room 101 for his presentation. The presentation which was being assessed and would count towards passing his GCSE…
• “Uurgh, that’s disgusting. If I ever go to Wales they’d better not make me eat that.”–Student L on being told what’s in a haggis. I’m only responsible for English, not geography…

I have had Group A for the last time this term, and my last session with Group B will be on Tuesday. And we will be watching a film (yes, I have seen Bad Teacher, why do you ask?)–but it is an adaptation of the book they will be reading next term, so it’s educational, honest!

Anyway, I noticed that I got visits the past few days from both the New York office of Nature Publishing Group, and the London Office of Macmillan Publishers, who own Nature Publishing Group.

Now, one of these visits may have been from Henry Gee, the Nature editor with responsibility for Nature’s Futures section, and who therefore is responsible for the recent kerfuffle over the story “Womanspace”. But Henry can’t have been in both London and New York, so someone else in NPG read my letter.

So here’s my pitch. I’m not a scientist. I can’t comment on Henry’s talents as an editor of scientific articles and journals. But I can tell you that he has shown very poor judgement when it comes to fiction, and doesn’t appear to understand that the role of an editor for literature is much different from that of an editor for science journals.

So rather than keep tearing Henry and Ed to pieces, how about I offer a constructive alternative? Let someone with experience of writing or editing fiction take over editing the Futures section. That way Henry can stick to editing science articles, Ed can return to writing up his research, and someone a bit more clued up about fiction can deal with the authors.

Sound good?

Basically, what I’m saying is I’ll do it for you.

Because let’s be honest, it would be hard to do worse than the Womanspace fiasco. About the only way I could create a worse PR nightmare for Nature would be if I actually published the three stories I suggested in jest in my last post on this subject.

And I think I have slightly better taste than to do that…

The fact that the editor allegedly responsible for the piece appears to be goading outraged comments, whilst perhaps speaking volumes about his suitability to remain an editor with what is meant to be a prestigious scientific journal is, though interesting, also not the point.

The point is this story serves to highlight the continuing problem of sexism in both science and science fiction. It really needs to stop and people need to grow up. Below is my comment to the editor of Nature, Henry Gee, added as a comment to the “story”. I have posted it here in case Nature decline to publish my comment (as is their right). The story itself, and my comment if published, can be found here.

Dear Mr Gee

I had to create an account on this site in order to comment. As part of that process, I had to accept your terms and conditions. These include:

1.You must not submit any material to the Site which… is inappropriate. Material will be considered in appropriate if that material is…defamatory, abusive, malicious, threatening, false, misleading, offensive, discriminatory, harassing, blasphemous, racist or sexist

So, had this “story” been a comment to the site, it would have violated your own terms and conditions and wouldn’t be allowed. So why publish it?

As a writer myself, I can tell you that this isn’t a good story. It reads like a poor, 20-second stand up routine padded out with the tropes of fiction. As an editor, I wouldn’t have even bothered to edit it, I would have passed on it. As a publisher, this would never have seen the light of day, either on a printing press or on a website, and I would be wary of anything the writer submitted in future.

Clearly this was published in order to be controversial. As a cynical attempt to drive traffic to your site, I hope this backfires spectacularly. Perhaps your advertisers may wish to consider if they want to continue being associated with this type of sexism? Perhaps your readers will wish to consider being customers of advertisers happy to be associated with sexism? Perhaps you won’t have many readers after this.

Finally Mr Gee, since Nature seems not to be discriminating about what fiction it publishes, I have three stories of my own you might wish to consider publishing in future issues of Nature:

• Gayspace (a hilarious tale of how gay people access parallel dimensions to look fabulous)
• Blackspace (a hilarious tale of how black people access parallel dimensions to be to be fast sprinters)
• Jewspace (a hilarious tale of how Jewish people access parallel dimensions to save money)

Or maybe you’d have the sense not to publish these. Because they are offensive, and based on stereotypes. And you’d be right.

It is a pity that you and the other editors of Nature seem incapable of demonstrating that same level of decency towards half the global population.

Something a little different for you today. May I introduce Emma Newman, a hugely talented author I had the privilege of editing for both Chinese Whisperings anthologies, and whose own anthology of short stories, From Dark Places, was published in May of this year by eMergent Publishing. Em’s doing something a little unique between now and November 2012. Over to you Em…

This is the second in a year and a day of weekly short stories set in The Split Worlds. If you would prefer to listen to an audio version, you can find the link (and all the other stories as they are released) here.

The Visit

Charles thought he was prepared for how his old friend would look. From the doorway of the hospital room he could see it had been inadequate.

Just the walk through the hospital corridors had been an effort. The bizarre smells, the strip lighting that hurt his eyes, the prevalence of those cursed computer machines, all had given him the most horrendous headache. That was forgotten now he was at the room itself, a box of vanilla fudge tied with string in one hand, hat held in the other.

Whilst he knew Thomas would be an elderly gentleman, he still reeled from the fact his dark brown hair was mostly gone, and what was left was wiry and white. The strong brow the nurses had smoothed with cool hands in the field hospital was wrinkled beyond recognition, and had the appearance of a gentle landslide over his eyes, the brows resting on top of his eyelids.

Charles didn’t want to disturb his rest. He would leave the fudge on the bedside cabinet with a red silk poppy and a note.

“Captain Papaver?” The patient woke as he scrawled a message on the back of his calling card. “Good grief, is that you?”

Charles forced himself to turn and smile at him. His friend’s brown eyes, once large and bright were now red rimmed and partially obscured by the sagging brow. “Good morning Thomas. Thought I’d drop by when I heard you were unwell.” His own voice sounded so loud in comparison.

“Saints above, it is you!” Those rheumy eyes didn’t leave his face as he struggled to sit up straighter in the bed. With slow, jerking movements, the old man saluted him and Charles returned it smartly with a swell of pride in his breast. “You don’t look a day over thirty sir. You’re really there aren’t you?”

“Yes. The years have been kind to me. I brought you some fudge.”

“You still remember,” Thomas was openly weeping now. “Sorry I can’t get out of bed sir.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Charles said, pulling a nearby chair to the bedside. “Besides, we’re out of uniform now, the both of us.”

“I got your letters sir,” Thomas reached unsteadily towards him and they shook hands. Charles wanted to recoil at the feel of the papery skin and lumpy bones. It wasn’t the hand he remembered. “All tied up in string they are, at the home. I insisted on taking them with me.”

“Do they treat you well?”

“Oh yes sir, and here too. They said you…” Now he was breaking down.

“Least I could do,” Charles said. “My man told me about these other homes, I couldn’t have you ending up there.”

“And this hospital too, they told me you saw to that.” Charles gave a nod, not wanting a fuss. “Still looking after me sir, after all these years.”

“I take my responsibilities very seriously,” Charles replied, smoothing down his moustache to cover the flicker of emotion in his voice. “I understand your children can’t visit.”

“They’re out in Australia now. They’ve got grandchildren, they’re too old to fly back. They write. They’re good girls. You have grandchildren sir?”

“Not yet,” he said, unthinking. “I have a son and two girls. He’s a fine lad, tall and strong. Bright as a button.”

“Takes after you sir.”

“But I named him after you,” Charles smiled.

The door opened and a nurse entered with a bag of clear fluid. “Got a visitor Tommy? That’s nice.” She smiled at Charles as she replaced the near empty IV bag.

“This is Captain Charles Papaver, he was my commanding officer in the First World War!”

“Is that right?”

“Finest man I know. He carries me out of no-man’s land on the worst day of the Somme, both of my legs blown off, shells landing all around us, takes me back to the trench and then,” he pointed a crooked finger at him. “Then this man goes back up the ladder and saves three others. Got the Victoria Cross he did.”

“Did he?” the nurse was obviously humouring him.

“And not only that,” he croaked. “He wrote to every one of us regularly and sent a gift on Remembrance Sunday. Every year for over ninety years! You should shake him by the hand, meet a real man.”

“Could I have a word with you?” The nurse asked and Charles excused himself.

They stepped outside. “You’re the one paying for his treatment?”

“I’m the Captain’s grandson,” he lied, having prepared for such an eventuality. “I’m seeing that my grandfather’s will is carried out to the letter.”

“Seems he was every bit a gentleman as Tommy says. I’m glad you came, all his family are overseas. I’ll give you an extra half an hour over the normal visiting hours, but he will drift off and sleep a lot, just to warn you. It’s the medication.”

“Is he in pain?”

“It’s managed, but he doesn’t have much longer.”

“Thank you.”

“Thought I’d imagined you sir,” Thomas said as Charles went back in and sat back down. “Listen, I wanted to thank you again, for what you’ve done for me and the others.”

“It was nothing.”

“It was everything to us. I’ve been blessed to know you sir.”

Charles patted his hand. “Really, it was nothing.”

“I’m not going to die here,” he remembered Thomas saying all those years ago as he shook violently in the field hospital, both of them covered in his blood. “I’m going to die an old man with dozens of grandchildren, in my sleep sir. Not here.”

Charles decided he would make that wish come true, and he’d waited almost a century to see it done. He watched Thomas fall asleep. He looked peaceful. It was time. “Goodbye old chap,” he said softly and brushed the old man’s lips with his fingertip, whispering the charm he’d bought at the Emporium and adapted with his family’s gift. Thomas would not wake again. He would sleep peacefully until his time came.

Duty discharged, Charles stood, saluted his old friend and left him to his gentle dreams.

Thanks for hosting Paul! I hope you enjoyed the story. If you would like to find out more about the Split Worlds project, it’s all here: www.splitworlds.com. If you would like to host a story over the coming year, either let me know in the comments or contact me through the Split Worlds site. Em x

For those who don’t know, the concept behind Literary Mix Tapes is a playlist of songs which then inspire a selection of stories. For Eighty Nine, songs from the year 1989 were selected. I was assigned “Summerland” by King’s X.

So how did I get from a power ballad to a crappy little waxworks in a rundown seaside town?

Summerland suggests to me loss and regret, about someone past their prime who is looking back on their life. Now hold that thought…

In May of 2010 I had a weekend break with my wife in Great Yarmouth, a seaside resort I hadn’t visited since I was a child. Very little had actually changed, even down to the acts appearing in the theatre on the main pier. Whatever else Great Yarmouth is known for (and for my family, a running joke is the open-top bus tour we took which showed us the “Findus frozen food factory–now closed down”) it is known for Louis Tussaud’s House of Wax, reputed to be the worst waxworks in the world.

Shortly after this break, the idea of a town where nothing much changed, where the acts of twenty years ago were still appearing, where the waxworks is quite sinister in its awfulness, played about in my mind. And a story started to form.

A story about a washed up comedian, playing to small audiences in seaside towns across Britain. A “Northern club comic” type, specialising in blue, slightly racist, slightly sexist material that has fallen out of favour and meant he doesn’t get much of an audience any more. And about his visit to a seaside town with a waxworks. One where the very people modelled in wax also still appear on stage, at the very time their exhibit cases mysteriously empty…

I had the story, but never the push to write it. Until I was offered a slot in Eighty Nine and given “Summerland” as my prompt. The comedian, Barry Doyle, regrets the path his career took. In a longer story I would have explored his decision to go down the “blue” comedy route, and the fact that he is an intelligent and calculating man, trapped portraying an ignorant and offensive buffoon because that’s what the people who pay to see him want. We would have met his manager, a young Asian man who is often the brunt of his off-colour jokes, yet who he increasingly relies upon.

And Mr Mould and Mr Clay would be far more obsequious, far more loquacious, and far more sinister…

The sense of the song Summerland fitted Doyle as a character, and gave me the impetus to write it down. I named the theatre after the song, and the initial setting of the story is in 1989.

1989 is the year I first visited Great Yarmouth, and the son mentioned by Doyle is based on me.

As for Great Scarpool itself, it is an amalgam of all the seaside resorts my family holidayed at when I grew up. The name derives from three of them: Great (Yarmouth) Scar(borough) (Black)pool. I enjoyed my holidays as a child, but returning to these places years later as an adult, and time has not been kind. With the advent of cheaper foreign holidays, a downturn in the economic fortunes of the country and the change in the tastes of the public have left many of these towns struggling, at times retreating into the kitsch of the past.

All the elements combined together to create a disturbing little tale of wax and regret…