COME COME AWAY

And what now? Nobody told me that remembering would be so hard. It can't be done. Words are not right. Words are never enough. They never say what you want them to say. They hide rather than reveal the truth. Words are bricks. They make walls. You can hear muffled noises behind the walls, and you can never, never quite make sense of them. You feel what they should be saying but they aren't. And it's the feeling you want to recapture, remember, relive - now there's an impossibility.

The rain lashing down at Rainham as eleven boys hold out for an improbable victory in the semi-fibal of the Kent Cup. A boy losing his foster home yet again because he had tested them too far, stuffing a stolen photograph of himself and 'his' family into the little hold-all containing everything in the world he owned. Poppies dancing in Flanders fields as little white crosses stretched to the horizon. The sun dropping behind the Belmont cricket ground as a six is belted into the football field giving yet another improbable victory.

Crawling along the corridor in the dorms on the sweltering Suffolk trip flashing torchlight to convince the kids to scramble back into their bunks at one in the morning. Singing our way to and from Disneyland Paris but never actually finding the singing competition while we were there. Directing the panto 'Robin Hood' where the teachers are far more temperamental than the kids. Throwing a wobbly in Rheims and storming off to find a kebab and a few bottles of Efes Pilsen, to return to a warm-hearted welcome hardly deserved. Rounding up the kids in Swanage single-handed because my lovely 'assistants' couldn't resist 'Big Brother' and another glass of wine. Returning to the school on so many occasions; the kids bundling out of the bus smiling hugely as they collapsed in happy exhaustion into the arms of happy parents.

So are we nearly there yet? Who knows? I don't know what the end is. A beginning then? No, not a beginning either. Not a beginning, not an end. Maybe it isn't anything at all. Just another bit of the middle. And what's the point? Don't know that either. This is just who I am. And it's not written for you. It's written for me. It's just a pointer to who I am. But as soon as I write this I realize that this is not who I am - it is only a little bit of history; and it has much truth as any history has. It's the past remembered, not as it was, but as I remember it, or perhaps as I want to remember it. But I've just worked out the point of it all! The point of this little bit of history is to help me escape from my history. And maybe that's what we should all be doing - escaping from our history.

Are we nearly there yet? There's a road sign just ahead. I can just about make it out. It does not say 'retirement'. Retirement could not be further from my thoughts. And since I don't do domestic, I hate gardening, and I never listen to 'The Archers', I have no idea what to do with retirement but give me time and I'll think of something. Come late autumn I'll be back in a classroom, not sure where yet, but I can already hear children laughing so I know all will be well and all manner of things will be well.

I can't quite make out what it says on the road sign but I recognize the boy sitting beneath it. In my mind's eye I see him still - in his summer sandals and Fair Isle pullover. He is always at the edge of the picture, always silent, always thinking, always somewhere else. A dreamer, the boy lives inside his head, by far the safest place. In his head he tells himself stories, and in these stories he is always the hero, and sometimes he wonders if he will be the hero in the unfolding story of his own life. Already he knows he is an outsider, will always be an outsider, yearning for acceptance, believing the ideal exists somewhere, struggling between the spirit and the flesh, struggling to uphold the dignity and value of the individual, and ever and always longing intensely for the union of the physical and the spiritual that will bring him - home.

I reach the sign. I read it. Tears trickle down my face. I am overwhelmed by love. The boy smiles, and his smile reminds me of everything I have ever loved in my life, of everything that is of value and holy. The boy rises. He takes my hand. We walk on down the road, and, as we go, we sing: "Sing we then, comrades, With heart and with voice, Welcome thrice welcome Our bright holiday, Laverocks are murmuring Come let us rejoice, Brooklets are murmuring Come, come away… Come away… Come away!"

And, as we go, I remember... in the end there is nothing left except love.