My O-Level geography teacher was a keen hill walker. Every member of his class for all the years he taught geography could read an OS map and 100% understand it - it seemed to be the number 1 item in the syllabus to him.
Mr Black was quite strict but a lesson once learnt from him, was never forgotten!
Well thank you! I wouldn’t have known where to look. Glad to see it’s still being taught.
Geography was my favourite subject. Well physical geography was my favourite subject. When we started the Higher and it was all political and mathematics - I bailed.
I had to pick between Geography or Latin O-level for the 4th/5th year at school. It was an either/or choice.
Geography had been at the boring “colouring in” stage till then. I’d completed the 1st year of Latin and it was trivially simple and made Spanish and French easier. Unlike Indiana Jones who chose wisely, I didn’t. I picked Latin as it was so easy only to discover that Geography was about to get interesting and Latin difficulty was about to be turned up to 11.
“Salvete Nauta” as we used to say to each other on entering the classroom.
Was a mandatory qualification for entry at University of Glasgow (Engineering in my case).
It was dropped the following year but our degree cerificates were written in Latin
CERTIFICVM MATERIAE IPSVM ET MATHEMATICVS HARDVM ET CONCEPTVS DIFICILE DVM DRINKVM BEERVS ET AQVA VITAE ET GIRLIES CHASVM SHORTVS SKIRTVS UEL PANTVS CALIDI
See the taxes spent on my education were not wasted.
My degree certificate is in English but I got one of the last issued BSc for an engineering discipline. Good old Monty Finniston’s changes came in and they became BEng not long after. Not that BEng vs BSc improved the status of engineering in this country. Nation of bloody philistines.
I remember when the VC of Aston wanted to do away with the civil eng dept, the prof said “He would still expect the s**t to go away when he pulled the chain!” No, its not a nation of philistines, its a nation ruled by Eton Wallies and bean-counters.
He of the sharp wit and even sharper mind:
“Accountants - those people who think they can run companies”
and, using his broad Glaswegian accent, he aways referred to members of the legal profession as “Liars”
It was a sad day when we allowed Engineers into the Wardroom
I too was encouraged to do Latin as preparation for a life at the Bar. For reasons that I won’t relate here my life took a different turn (though still involved the bar) and I can honestly say some 30+ years later that Latin was a complete waste of my time.
Yes but it was worth it just so you could truly appreciate the majesty of the “Romanes Eunt Domus” joke from Life of Brian. “But that’s motion towards…”