Level Peddling

Four days level pedalling and we’ve clocked up 80 miles, an occasional ice cream, cakes from the seventeenth best cake shop in the country, and some Rick Stein fish and chips. Yes they were as good as it gets. Though staggeringly, Julian, our superb grounds man, ate his cold and still claimed they were delicious!

So that’s the Plym Valley, the Tarka Trail, the Camel Trail and the Granite Way. They are all fairly level, easy rides and lots of fun to do. There was only one broken bicycle and no accidents this year. We’ve had a great group of students whose only mildly annoying habit has been the mini bus chorus of: ‘Are we there yet?’ At least it shows they were keen!

One of Andy Hamlyn and Heather Stimson’s many legacies is the annual Enrichment Week Cycle Camp down in Princetown. Devised and run by them for many years it continues to thrive with Don Phipps at the helm and I’m sure it will go on for as long as cycling is popular. It’s a wonderful activity for keen off-road cyclists over the varied and spectacular moor, down to the bunk house at the Plume and Feathers.

Now there is another cycling activity that deserves annual billing: Level Peddling. That Andy and Heather have put this together and run it during their final week in post is another example of the professionalism that makes teachers so respected by the public.

We said our farewells to them last week with a power point of photos in assembly that featured Andy as never before seen at South Dartmoor in his entire 37 years- yes, beardless! Did anyone recognise him? Heather was a schoolgirl at Ashburton, displaying her prowess as a hurdler- though I’m told not in a team!

One of my many memories is the first time I met each of them. Andy was a scary figure at the Governors’ and staff tea party during my interview back in 1989. ‘Lovely school,’ I enthused politely, aware that I needed to make a good impression. ‘Do you think so?’ he enquired scathingly, before filling me in on all the changes that were needed. It was just the information I needed for the interview the next day!

Heather marched in to my office, a local parent at that time, after I had been in post only three weeks to tell me I was taking the school in the wrong direction and she was considering sending her child to a different school! Once a member of staff, she repeated the warnings every time it was felt I had got things wrong. So you can see how indebted I am to them both.

They have been at the sharp end of work in the school, dealing directly with all the problems thrown up by students and parents in a period of social upheaval and changing standards. They are supreme professionals, true friends of South Dartmoor, colleagues who have shaped the destiny of the school and the lives of thousands of youngsters.

Tough times, but they have been enormous fun to work with. At last, in retirement, for each of them it now really will be level peddling.