OLD FRIENDS

This morning I had breakfast made for me by my son, a real treat and he is very good with breakfasts, his toast is much better than mine.
I had quite a lot of cleaning to do , hard luck but it had to be done, my son however had a wonderful day with some old friends.

My son was ten when we arrived here and he by that time already been to three Primary Schools. The trouble with the first one was that my son was one of those remarkable children who can read fluently at the age of two and are doing differential calculus by the time they are eight. By the time he began school at five he was well past year six standard and frankly the staff did not know what to do with him.

The day arrived when the Head Teacher Called me in to tell me what a problem my son was to the school and I thought that perhaps he had been misbehaving. It seemed that the teachers could not cope with the fact that he was more than able to correct their mistakes which he had been doing, politely but too often for their comfort. I had been exactly like my son and knew the difficulties that being different could cause. I was lucky, my Head teacher took me out of year two and into year six where I stayed until I went on to my next school. He prepared work for me and provided me with an endless supply of reading material which a read far too quickly for his comfort. Both my son and I are speed readers you see.

I could not let my son be taught by people who considered cleverness a problem and so O moved him to a small school were the teachers valued his abilities and were able to allow him to work at a pace which suited him. It was bad luck that a job offer too good to miss came up for Pa and we moved to Berkshire where we stayed for a year and thence to our present home.

The last Primary my son attended was unremarkable except for one thing, the boys and girls who attended it. I had worried that my son would find it difficult entering a group of older children who had been together for some years with an established pecking order. I worried that the fact that my son was so bright might cause resentment among some of the children but it was not so.

These remarkable young people welcomed my son whole heartedly, and within days he had established friendships which last to this day and even though they are now scattered all over the world they still meet whenever possible and remain in regular contact with each other . He became and remains the leader of this band of gifted youngsters each special in his way.
Many of them spent a good deal of time at our home as children and it has been fun to watch them grow up in to young men and I am as proud of them as if they were my own and our home is always open to them.

One of these young men recently returned from Canada and is now studying in Scotland so they have been able to do some catching up during these holidays. Today a group of them went to lunch together and tonight they are off to a Board \games night at our local pub. Most of them played and still do play the same D&D games favoured by my son.

It has been good to see my boy out and about enjoying himself for a change, he needs to relax more but getting him yo do it is the problem. Of course if I say anything he replies “@Look at who's talking.” and of course he's right, but I still worry about him.

We had a dinner of fish and chips this evening before my son went out and so today I have had no cooking to do at all and it feels very odd I must say. Tomorrow we take down all the Christmas decorations and say good bye to them for another year and while I am a little sad I must admit that it will be good to be able to dust properly and have the living room furniture back where it belongs.

Today had been special in many ways and seeing the old crowd together again makes me happy for my son who not only knows how to make true friends but also knows how to keep them, a precious gift indeed. Having people around who really know you can be a great comfort when things get tough as one of the group discovered last summer after a sudden bereavement. The word went out in literally within the hour the gang began assemble ready to help and comfort. They came by train, road and plane, a wonderful group of people who I am proud to know, and glad for my sons sake as an only child that he will have the same support when he needs it.