Back to School

All across the capital, school children are stocking up on stationery, parents are planning healthy packed lunches and teachers are hoping not to be lumbered with the class of disruptive kids. Yes folks, it’s September.

Having lived my entire childhood life in the confines of a little Yorkshire village, it never ceases to surprise me to see so many schools in the centre of London. They sort of just spring into view during term time in between office blocks and next door to shopping centres. It may seem a bizarre observation to some, but to one whose commute to primary school consisted of a two-minute skip across a cow field, seeing boater-clad infants on my bus to work is a real novelty.

Nowadays, however, being a fully-fledged urbanite, I don’t just work next to a school. I can go one better: my office has become one. Sort of. For a full school year now, the reception class of a prestigious West End primary has occupied the ground floor of the publishing group where I while away my working week. And pretty soon they will be back again to commence autumn term, shouting and screeching and pressing the intercom button to the top floors…just for fun…

The tiny troop return every day to their actual school, located three metres away, for their lunch break. This has to be executed in a safe and orderly fashion, and usually involves the children skipping out two-by-two in a painstakingly unhurried crocodile formation. Despite my best efforts, it also tends to coincide with my own lunch hour and results in a good ten minutes of said hour stood impatiently watching the crocodile slink its way in and out of my building.

I want to barge past them, as I would slow pavement walkers on Oxford Street, but they are so miniature and cute that this proves impossible. I would also end up being lynched by the semi-famous parents who assemble at 3:30 pm every afternoon to gather up their offspring.

That’s another thing – hearing them all clatter down the stairs to freedom at 3:30 pm is so painful! And not because they make loads of noise when I’m on deadline and in need of quiet. More because I simply wish I was skipping down the stairs with them, home to a sumptuous meal that probably involves avocado and crayfish, and out to play in the gated garden with Barny and Poppy.

I may moan and chide their presence in our office, but in reality, I think it’s safe to say that I’m simply jealous that they get to sing and draw pictures all day in the same building that I have to relentlessly sit and bash out words. In fact, seeing these tiny people around the office is actually quite refreshing. It kinda helps put that 4 pm deadline panic into perspective when you see an eager little face stretching her hand out to the child that’s lagging behind at the end of the crocodile, telling him to ‘hurry up, Charlie, we’re going to be late for PE!’ Perhaps I should start practicing my patient face before autumn term officially begins.