Six Degrees of Separation #1

On 23 June 2010 I posted this on Facebook

“Today's Guardian crossword is all geometry references. Amazed at how much of my O'level Maths/Geometry I could dredge up. Thank you Mr Booth of Llandeilo Grammar, wherever you are.  (Also discovered I got a better grade in O'level Maths than Fester - he he)”

I was the last of the grammar school generation.  In our second year Llandeilo Grammar and Llandybie Secondary Modern combined to form Tregyb Comprehensive.  Llandeilo Grammar was one of those schools where the masters and mistresses regularly wore academic gowns in class and Mr Booth was one of these.  After we went comprehensive the teachers only wore gowns on special occasions (those that had them).

When I passed the Eleven Plus I was determined to make the most of the opportunity and got myself the desk right on the front row of Form One, next to the window for maximum light and the radiator for warmth.  Yes children, in those days pupils had a classroom and desk of their own, and only moved out of it for those lessons where special equipment was required (chemistry, cookery, gym and suchlike).  It was much easier to have a dozen teachers walking the corridors than four hundred kids rushing from one room to another with bags, coats etc.  It also gave us a few minutes to let off steam, relax and ‘de-compress’ between lessons. 

There was only one problem with my choice of desk.  Masters tended to like standing next to the radiator too.  Some, such as Mr Booth, would perch on my desk in those moments when we were working ‘quietly and independently’.  It’s not easy using a pair of compasses and 12”ruler to divide angles whilst trying to avoid piercing a perching Maths Master.

But we learnt more than geometry from Mr Booth.

We learnt by example about sarcasm, irony, dry wit, how to put bumptious people in their place, when and how to apologise; and that praise hard-won is much more valued than that too-readily given.  I also learnt I was able to stand up for what I thought was correct. 

Our first term was mostly taken up with lines, angles and triangles. 

One morning, shortly after my twelfth birthday, Mr Booth swept black gowned into our form-room, placed himself by the radiator and ordered “Stand up if you know the angle sum of a triangle.”

So I, with about half the rest of the class (mostly the boys) stood up.

Various answers were given and met with a flat “Wrong. Sit.”

Upon which those who though similarly, or got scared, sat.

Eventually I realised there were only three of us left.  
Hamish in the back furthest corner of the classroom, someone in the dead middle and me about two foot away from Mr Booth’s shoulder and looking dead ahead so as not to meet his eye.  
I had a huge desire to cop out and sit down, but I knew that I knew. 
It was a matter of pride.

So of course he started at the back, and I became the last one standing.

“Well?”

“A hundred and eighty degrees sir?”

“Thank goodness for that!  There’s  someone in this class with a functioning memory.”

I sat down with huge relief and a firm belief there would have been a small explosion if I’d been wrong.  The thing is, other people must have known too but they didn’t have the courage or confidence to stand or stay standing.

I’m sure Mr Booth would have been able to explain Six Degrees of Separation:  the theory that everyone and everything is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person in the world, so that a chain of "a friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six.  

Here is one of mine.

I recently learnt, and confirmed via a Tregyb School facebook photo and posting, that Mr Booth is Oscar nominated actress CaryMulligan’s grandfather.

Which means I am three degrees of separation from her,  and four from any number of film and theatre actors, producers, directors and celebrities.

And you dear reader, if you know me personally, are four and five degrees away from the same.

My next blog will be more about Mr Booth.