Title: Seeing It Through
Byline: The Story Of A Teacher & Trade Unionist
Author: Andy Ballard
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Andy Ballard comes from quite a humble background; being a
working class boy from a council estate at a middle class grammar school left
its marks. A career teacher with nearly twenty- ve years in state education, he
forged a second very successful career as a local, regional, and national of
cer of his trade union. His story includes how his work at the Association of
Teachers and Lecturers would secure the future of ATL and lay the foundations
for the formation of “The Education Union”. Ballard describes the interplay
between his private and professional lives, and bares his soul when the
pressures of a lifetime of commitment brings his story to an unexpected
conclusion.
PURCHASE LINKS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andy Ballard has enjoyed an extensive career in
the education sector including twenty-five years as a science teacher before
transferring his efforts to being a trade union official and advocate for
teachers and their pupils at local, regional and national level rising to
become national President of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. Since
then he has spent several years as a Senior Regional Official, covering the
South West peninsula with a role as spokesman and advocate on employment issues
for the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. Now retired, Andy enjoys spending
time at Weston Rugby Club where he occupies the role of first team manager, as
well as taking long walks in the Mendip Hills with his dogs, and writing the occasional
comment article for his regional newspaper. He lives in Somerset with his
family.
ABOUT THE EXCERPT
In this short extract describing my school days I recall the
difficulty that being a boy from a council estate at the middle class grammar
school presented.
My Grandmother's admonishment had a lifetime of impact on
me. She had spent most of her life working in domestic service starting at the
age of twelve. Her employers refused her permission to marry until she was 32,
and they extracted every last ounce of effort from her for little reward. She
regarded them as being entitled to this way of life and looked up to them,
almost to the point of revering them. They were gentry, from a different class
and people such as her, and by inference me in my turn, had no business seeking
to be on equal terms with them. Despite coming from a very humble working class
background she remained loyal to the ruling class and would not countenance and
criticism of them or the system that kept them in their privileged position.
Although I didn’t realise it at the time this is the mindset
against which I have railed and set the scene for my own contribution to the
fight for equality and social justice.
EXCERPT
The
distinctive blue and gold cap, the blazer with the school badge, and the blue
and gold tie meant that you could not hide, or go to and from school unnoticed.
This was especially true on the corporation bus that I caught just down the
road from my house and which went through the council estate of which our road
was an annex. The children from that estate were the ones I’d been to primary
school with, and my brother and I were the only boys from our council estate to
go to the grammar. They did not attack us or have much to do with us at all,
but their disdain was all too obvious and comments about us going to the ‘snobs’’
school set us quite clearly apart. If this were not bad enough, the boys at the
grammar school, once they knew where we were from, made it plain that this was
their domain, and boys ‘of our sort’ had no place amongst them. Their fathers
were bankers, lawyers, accountants, doctors and military men. Many of them
lived in large private detached houses, and most owned cars; they regarded
themselves as being superior to us in every way. They were far too middle class
to be openly hostile, but there are many other ways to isolate people and make
them know that they do not belong. I was dismayed and hurt by this. Surely
there would be some reward for putting up with the discomfort of being treated
with disdain by those who lived near me? Surely showing that I could be as
clever as some of these middle class boys would win their approval? I came home
one day very disconsolate and my grandmother asked why I had such a long face. I
explained how hurtful it was that these boys could treat me as such an outsider
and she told me, in words that are now burnt into my soul, “Don’t you dare
speak about those boys like that, they are entitled to behave like this, they
are gentry.” She didn’t mean to be unkind, she was just reiterating her life-long
adherence to knowing her place and she was upbraiding me for wanting to get
above my station. Little did she know that this would echo down my whole life,
set the foundations for my lifelong belief that there is a better way, and
drive me ultimately to my own mission to do whatever I could to improve the lot
of ordinary working people and in particular their children. I didn’t know this
myself at the time but the fact that I can remember her indignation that I
should question the right of my betters to decide how my life should be serves
to prove how life defining that moment was.
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