Change your old school tie

It's not often you get a letter that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up but a few months ago I did and today ( 5th July ) was the result. I gave out the prizes and made a speech at my old school, Trinity in Croydon.  I hadn't been back for over thirty years and it was interesting to see what had changed and what was exactly the same. I even met two of my old teachers and involuntarily tucked my shirt in. I have to say that the highlight was at the beginning of my speech when I told all the pupils that they could take their ties off as I wasn't wearing one. It was something  I have wanted to announce from the stage of my school for 35 years. RESULT.

I used as the theme for my speech 'change'. To start with I illustrated it with three different things that have changed radically in my life time and largely in the lifetime of the pupils. They were:

1. Phones. When I left school a mobile phone consisted of a bag of ten Ps. Now every one has sleek, thin mobiles that double as computers and cameras. It is the fastest spreading technology ever, beating fire and the wheel, and there are now more mobile phones (6bn) than working toilets (4.5bn)  in the world.

2. Music. As a teenager I was limited to a Sony Walkman and whichever six tapes I picked for a trip. Now even something as small as an iPod nano contains 33 times as many songs.

3. IT. The first laptop was sold in the 1980s and the storage was the old floppy disc. A modern flash drive has 5500 times more storage capacity. The iPad has revolutionised my life and 140 million have been sold worldwide and it was only launched in 2010 with 50bn apps downloaded to date. 

However, change doesn't only happen to technology, it also happens to people. Last week I dug out my old school reports and they don't make great reading. Comments like "he loses concentration too easily", "he must try to do something about his general untidiness and poor spelling" and "too fond of silly behaviour" are pretty typical. One comment stood out, however. "C+. Good, but could do better. It is up to him". I guess it was. 

I wasn't a Prefect, didn't win any prizes, wasn't Captain of anything, in fact my main claim to fame was that I ran the lost property office. ( As an aside I asked to see the lost property office on my tour of the school. Apparently, no one had ever asked that before, I can't think why! And they've moved it, without asking! ). Despite this things seemed to turn out okay despite the fact that I made a number of changes of direction in my early career. My concluding remarks were:

"One lesson that I have learned is to embrace change by keeping learning, grabbing opportunities, trying new things and not accepting the status quo or other people's opinions of what I can do" 

I ended by misquoting Charles Darwin. "It is not the Captain of the First XV that survives, nor the person who comes top of the class, but the one most responsive to change.

I really enjoyed the experience of going back to my old stomping ground and hopefully inspiring another generation of people fond of silly behaviour that they can change; and more than just their ties.

The new most important bit of the school

Going in the posh door.