Posted on 12/03/2014 4:45:14 PM PST by MeshugeMikey
ike all schools, it has a head teacher, governors, and a caretaker. But unlike any other school, Llanfynydd Primary has not a single pupil. The “phantom” village school near Carmarthen in South Wales remains open despite this, and will remain so for another seven months. Red tape means it cannot be closed for lessons even though all 11 pupils have left for other school.
No children have been taught there since last July, when it cost taxpayers £50,000 to run.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
They transferred to Hogwarts.
"I'd like to buy a vowel, please"
CC
And the kids left in a secret train stop in the middle of the most travelled train station.
Back in the Eighties, there was a British TV situation comedy, “Yes, Minister”, that had an episode about a similar situation involving a hospital. The confrontation between Hacker and Appleby about this was one of the funniest bits of dialogue since Restoration Comedy.
Some of those old British TV shows were so much better than the stuff that passes for entertainment in 2014!
I have the DVD's of the complete "Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" in my collection. They are my desert island disks. There is nothing on American television like it in terms of quality of writing and acting.
But think of all the matches you get for a “L”!
Have you seen the little episode that Margaret Thatcher wrote and appeared in?
They were put out by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which also did the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. The original editions of those books were a lot better than the rewritten versions, to remove racial stereotypes, big words, and the more interesting villains and ambiguous authority figures.
The one room schools on the islands here sometimes have 5 students, sometimes 1 and sometimes 0. When the school population is zero, the school has to technically stay open as the process to restart a school is a pain. (This is on the several very small islands with year round populations in the 2-4 dozen range.)
The one room schools where I live (Victoria, Australia) were shut down in the 1970s after some men kidnapped an entire school - teacher and pupils and tried to hold them to ransom for a million dollars. The plan failed because the teacher - herself only twenty years old - managed to lead the children in a successful escape. She was decorated for her bravery.
The state’s (conservative) Education Minister was seen as a hero as well. He agreed to meet with the kidnappers personally with the intention of offering himself as a hostage in exchange for the children - but the kidnappers had already fled at that point when they’d realised they no longer had their prisoners.
Great story.
That would be pretty hard to pull off on a Maine island with several miles of open water on one side and some really angry lobstermen on the other.
Yes - and in this case, it helped that once she'd pulled off the escape, the first people she found were a group of hunters, and that may well have dissuaded the kidnappers from attempting any recapture.
Kinda hard to pull off here too with so many armed Americans. Something like 30 U.S. states follow and/or copy FL gun laws. I never leave home w/o my little keltec in my pocket. Don’t even know that .380 is in there loaded with hollow points.
Good one, CC!
It wasn’t in the collection of disks.
For purists, it misidentifies Sir Humphrey's degree - but I guess nobody corrected Mrs Thatcher :)
I need to get those. To The Manor Born is one that gets some play.
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