The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2681 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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The ride back from Southampton was uneventful and we made small talk while Hannah listened to her MP3 player. Ms Whittington thanked me for the lift and she told Hannah to just enjoy herself while she had access to such wonderful resources. Hannah looked at her and giving her a determined look, told her she was going to. I didn’t doubt her for one moment.

David had made some prawn salads for lunch and although Hannah wrinkled her nose at the thought, once she’d tasted the food, she tucked in with enthusiasm. I’m not that keen on prawns but the sauce David had made was exquisite, none of the yucky pink stuff you get with prawn cocktails in hotel restaurants and which they buy-in in big jars. I thanked him for such a delicious meal and he smiled appreciatively, blushing a little in the process. He is an absolutely wonderful cook.

I took Hannah back to school for the afternoon session and explained to the Head Mistress that I’d taken her to see her mother who was still in hospital. “Yes, Livvie told me.”

“Livvie?” talk about surprised, after the way she confronted Ingrid I suppose she was starting to assert herself—at ten, that might be a little early; on the other hand living in Trish’s shadow for so long, perhaps it isn’t.

“Yes, she said she’d been to see her the day before to tell her to smell the coffee. She has a lovely turn of phrase, does she not?” I didn’t have the heart to say it was a phrase in common use. “I take it she agreed for Hannah to continue attending here?”

“She agreed to an arrangement organised through social services that Hannah would stay with me for the next three months and we’d review it then and see what was what.”

“Oh wonderful, another month with us and she’ll realise what a boon a good education is.”

“Are we talking Hannah or her mother?”

“Eh? Hannah of course, I’m not responsible for her mother’s education.”

“Of course.” Hannah already recognises the difference in the two schools she’s attended recently and how much better this one was. As an education is a cumulative experience that one can only look back over discover whether it was a good one or not in hindsight. Although I suffered dreadfully through mine I realise academically, it was very good. That I have seemingly suffered so little since tends to indicate that the humiliations and bullying I suffered had less effect than I expected, for which I’m grateful. These days Murray would have been arrested for child abuse, somehow then, he got away with it. Mind you, I don’t think for one minute my parents fully understood just what was happening.

Compared to university, which was largely spent in my room working, it was awful but it trained me to see the main chance lay in getting a good degree and from there a good job, as I fully expected to have saved loads to be able to transition. How wrong I was in those days long ago. Had I realised how easy it would be, I’d have thought about it at university—but in those days I suspect that although the rest of the world was becoming ready to deal with gender different people, I wasn’t—ready I mean. I’d never have coped at eighteen—or would I? We’ll never know, but in lots of ways I’m quite contented with my life, it could have been a whole lot worse.

It was only when I parked in my designated spot at the university that I realised I was so rapt in my thoughts that I must have driven there on autopilot. I quickly collected my handbag and laptop and hurried to my office.

Delia had a long list of things to deal with but I persuaded her to make us both some tea before we started to do so. I then spent two very exhausting hours working through her series of items. In those two hours I made five phone calls, dictated a dozen letters and signed a dozen more. I also agreed to continue as acting professor for another term—they wanted me to do it for the whole year—but I refused suggesting that if they had better-qualified people than I was, they should appoint them instead of me.

Daddy of course continues as Dean of the faculty of science which covers all the traditional sciences of biology, chemistry, physics and geology; computer science is a bit different and more allied to mathematics than the material sciences, so is lumped with it. Mind you, because we’re a relatively small uni, as professor of biological science, I have responsibility for things like biochemistry, microbiology and the small amount of bio-engineering we do. Basically, I have a monthly meeting with the departmental heads who tell me what they’re up to, what the budgets are doing and how much they’re publishing in the way of research. We set a rough target for the year and providing they’re close to it, I let them get on with it. If they’re not, then I have to give them more attention and where necessary cajole or demand better performance.

One of the things we do and which for my sins I introduced is a complaints system for students who feel they are either being poorly taught or, not getting value for money. Let’s face it they’re paying up to nine thousand pounds a year and we have a contract with them to teach them up to degree level. It means all the teaching staff have to keep a bit more paperwork detailing how they consider students are performing and if they believe the students are underperforming, we have a system for reminding them they’re wasting their money.

We implemented it despite protests from other faculties but I felt it was the best way to enable students to have some say in their education and in the long run, if they do poorly, we’ll be able to show that they were advised to pull their fingers out and what they needed to do. This will be the first year it’s run so the feedback for the next two or three should prove interesting—and you thought being a professor was about supervising research students to win the next Nobel prize—I wish. Still, I had two draft papers to read which if I accept will be submitted with me as the primary researcher bringing my total output to nearly thirty, ten of which were as supervisor of each project and mainly concern mammal populations and distribution with a view to climate change. Colleagues at IUCN have suggested the sixth great extinction is underway and I’m afraid our data tends to agree with them. Enjoy the natural world while you can because the rate we’re destroying it, only pest species or those who benefit from our actions will survive. You have been told.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/19/humans-cr...

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/21/mass-exti...