How I became a teacher.

I once worked in a series of almost identical modern offices where amusing baby anecdotes were banned and anyone over 30 was virtually frisked for contraband Lego blocks, cute photos and shoulder patches of baby vomit.

This was fine with me. After all, my parenting skills were - and are - so negligible that after spending one short day looking after my lovely offspring, my single, childless brother booked himself in for an emergency vasectomy.

I worked part time when the first two children were small and gave up for two years when the youngest was born. But I couldn't bear it. In addition to the money, I needed stimulation.

I also wanted to be surrounded by brilliant people who radiated charm and knowledge in equal measure and, frankly, my three small children just weren't up to the job.

Instead, though, I got a job as a teacher. Frankly, it wasn't my first choice. I'd been here but not for twenty years, when I got halfway through my music teacher training interview, realised that if accepting a place meant that my life was going to consist of people in brown corduroy jackets nodding supportively and rhythmically while I ineptly extemporised to the tune of “Do, a deer, a female deer,” it wasn’t going to be worth living; reached ‘Tee – a drink with jam and bread,’got up and left.

But now the lucky world had been given a second chance to enjoy my Julie Andrews impersonation talents. A school down the road was looking for a part-time music teacher. I wouldn't have to do literacy, maths, cursive writing or make anything out of plasticine, with the possible exception of my acceptance letter. It was job on a plate, part time and mine for the taking.

I took a deep breath and accepted, dusted off my educational qualifications and tried to feel positive about the new vistas opening up in front of me, fighting off the overwhelming sense of doors behind me crashing shut.

Things didn't start well when, on a camping holiday just before the start of my first term, I meet the lovely Sally, who was a teacher, had always been a teacher, probably would always be a teacher and said she loved 95% of all children and couild see good in the other five per cent.

I loathe 99% of all children, mine included, and can see good in the other 1% only with the aid of an electron microscope.

As Sally and I supervised a table full of children one lunch time, the differences between us became immediately obvious. Sally bent tenderly over the little ones, successfully motivating them to eat up using only her voice, a series of non-competitive games, and a small tambourine, rather than the assortment of small firearms I would always assume to be an essential back-up on these occasions.

“I bet she even follows the national curriculum in her sleep,” I muttered, rather louder than I’d intended. Cathy blushed prettily. “You must think I’m a really boring person,” she said. “No,” I lied, “I’m just envious.”