Head Teacher re-instated. Commonsense prevails

Remember the tale of Marcus the sheep. It would seem that the majority opinion over his fate has prevailed.

A head teacher who resigned after a row about the slaughter of a school lamb is to return to her post, Kent County Council has said.

Andrea Charman stepped down as head of Lydd Primary School in Romney Marsh in February for "personal reasons".

She was criticised in September 2009 after sending Marcus the lamb - who had been hand-reared by pupils - to slaughter, despite calls to save him.

Kent County Council said she had the community's support and was returning.

'Overwhelming support'

Kent councillor Sarah Hohler said: "I am very pleased that Andrea Charman is returning to Lydd Primary School.

"The community has spoken and made their feelings known loud and clear. There is overwhelming support for her.

"Under her guidance the school made tremendous progress and I know she will relish the opportunity to continue that work and do her best for the children and staff.

"Welcome back Mrs Charman."

Well done for showing the Kids where their food really does come from.

And on a lighter note

Stevie has difficulty with his stutter.

A Retired Engineer

How more satisfying life is now that I've retired from Marine Engineering.

When I first went to sea we had to work a watch system, day in, day out. If you were unfortunate to be appointed to the "12 to 4", this meant that you had little or no social life. Midday to 4pm and Midnight to 4 am was a killer. Bearing in mind that in those days the work/leave ratio was 9 months ship/3 months leave. By the end of the 9 months you were nigh on barking.

Things did change for the better later on when the leave ratio to appointment time reduced to 4 months on and two months off. (Before someone comes in and says that's a fantastic leave ratio. Don't forget the working hours were 10 hours a day, seven days a week. And bank holidays).

By this time ships were becoming highly automated and watchkeeping had gone by the board. The machinery spaces could be left unattended during the night time. Sounds good doesn't it? But no. Every three days you would become the Duty Engineer and were responsible for the whole works for a 24 hour period.

That could be hell. Imagine doing your 10 hour day and then being on call for the rest of the 24 hour period. Trying to sleep, hoping the machinery alarm box in your cabin was not going to scream at you at 2am. Knowing you only had 3 minutes to get up, get dressed, and get to the control room to acknowledge the alarm. If you failed it got every man jack out of bed to look for you in case you were injured.

And of course you were expected to have expertise in all disciplines and be able to fix anything. (Including 30mm weapons, General purpose machine guns.Sa80's,etc, as a sideline.) Oh. And Officer in charge of a fire brigade bigger than most Towns have.)

This was never meant to be a moan. Just telling it how it is.

Now I don't have to work to any regime apart from my own. Get up when I want, blog when I want, read the paper when I want, etc.

I am at last free.

Except for the Bloody state of course.

Metro poll puts Conservatives 10 points ahead of Labour

The Conservatives are ten points ahead of Labour and on course to win an outright majority at the general election, a Harris poll for Metro suggests.

Tory leader David Cameron would move into Downing Street with a 12-seat Commons majority if voters went to the polls now, our survey found.

His party are on 37 points, while Labour have 27 and the Liberal Democrats are on 19, the poll showed.

It is the first time the Tories have enjoyed a double-digit lead – the differene between a hung Parliament and an overall majority – since Harris began polling for Metro in January.

The latest figures would give the Conservatives 322 seats in Parliament, Labour 240 and the Liberal Democrats 56, with 14 going to

nationalist and minority parties. The Tories have gained two percentage points in a week, while Labour have dropped one and the Lib Dems have lost two. Ukip, the BNP and the Greens have all dropped points since last week’s poll.

‘Perhaps a combination of a pending new tiny addition to team Cameron and increased militancy from the unions has served to widen the political playing field in this latest week of polling,’ said Caterina Gerlotto of Harris Interactive. Meanwhile, one in four people said they thought Samantha Cameron’s pregnancy would give the Tories an election boost.

Half of people asked said it would have no effect but 28 per cent said the news will give the Tories a poll boost compared to just two per cent who said it would see them losing votes.

Harris polled 1,133 people nationwide online between March 23 and 29.

Source: The Filthy Engineer