Wisbech Community Forum

WELL, THE CONCERNED PARENTS AT PECKOVER SCHOOL have had enough of all this multicultural nonsense. Some of them have organised a petition to prevent their innocent (English) children being forced to learn a Lithuanian song for a concert at the Thomas Clarkson Academy. The children are heartbroken. They are coming home in tears because they don't understand what the song is about.
I have the utmost sympathy for these doughty campaigners. My bitterness and sociopathic view of life is the result of my being forced to learn and sing Frere Jacques at a very impressionable age. Coupled with the time my parents made me dress up as Harry Lauder and sing 'Loch Lomond in the Leamington Spa Methodist Chapel Variety Show in 1953. I had just begun to recover from this double trauma when disaster struck again. I paid a very high price for passing the scholarship exam to a local posh school. The devastating quid pro quo was that I was brutally forced to learn a poem in Latin about some bloke called Horatius who stood on a bridge and whacked the enemies. Those chilling words still resonate in my nightmares:
"Lars Porsenna, Clusinorum rum, per deos ille iuraverat, novem
Maiorem iniuriam pati non Tarquiniae.
Deos ille iuraverat, per novem et dies trysting nominatur,
Ascendemus nuntii eius, et iussit foras,
Oriente et occidente et aquilone et austro,
Accersere ordinata."
There is a tiny, tiny voice in my head that whispers about worthy organisations trying to be too politically correct. We have all heard of councils naming streets, parks and community centres after revolutionary terrorists (sorry, make that Freedom Fighters, and keep the capitals) Our own esteemed Thomas Clarkson Academy has one of its houses/teams called 'Madiba' after the old gentleman currently on a life support system in a South African hospital. But, but, but. One of my most talented guitar pupils is Latvian. She speaks better English than some local born-and-breds. She writes her own songs, and is happy to sing them in English, and Latvian. Contrast this with a comment from a local resident about the Peckover affair on a social media site about Wisbech.
"this is the uk u dount have to sing if u dount wount to stick by ur guns."
I think the scholarly bit that goes after that is "sic erat scriptum"
Maybe the teachers at Peckover were trying a bit too hard. Maybe The Wisbech Standard is just trying to stir la merde again, and shouldn't have given these people publicity. Maybe some people have too much time on their hands.