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Newton’s First Law of Motion
Someone, and it may have been the legendary Little Billy Pearson, tried to knock a rudimentary knowledge of Physics into what he described as my “numb skull”. Practically all that remains after nearly half a century is Newton’s axiom that “for every action there is an equal an opposite reaction”.
I should have borne that in mind when I discovered the mouse. It was a recently deceased rodent and it had perished in my stock cupboard, which was handily adjacent to the school kitchens. Thinking that it would be a splendid wheeze to make an exhibition of it, I hung it on a piece of string and attached it to the staff-room notice-board with the caption “so perish all traitors”.
Was I to know that the Senior Mistress was mouse-a-phobic? Was I to know that she would be the first one to see it? They had to take her, screaming and drifting in and out of consciousness, back to her office and ply her with strong, sweet, tea and, no doubt, some medicinal brandy from the first aid box. Without a shred of evidence, I was blamed for the incident. The said Senior Mistress, unfortunately, was solely responsible for the covers for absent staff. The equal and opposite reaction, which I thought was a bit over the top, was to make sure that I lost all my non-teaching periods for a month; so I ended up looking after the most unruly classes that it was possible to find, from girls’ PE to French with hooligans.
Christmass is the action; the equal and opposite reaction to a month-long surfeit of carols is to forget all about the Christ child for another year, which is a pity. On 2nd February we celebrate the very end of the Christmass cycle, Candlemas, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our cribs will go away then, to remind us that Mary carried out her religious obligations with regard to her infant son, and that the equal and opposite reaction to a life of dedicated faith was for Simeon and Anna to see the promised Saviour in the twilight of their days. So neglected, by even the worshipping public, is this major festival of the church that we have been permitted to transfer it to the previous Sunday. What a sad state of affairs!
May God bless you all, Fr. Allan
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