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Reminiscences - Martin Dryden

I recall Paddy Blomfield. He used to tell new classes that he kept two implements in his desk - a persuader and a convincer. Boys, he would say, often had to be persuaded and they occasionally had to be convinced. As I remember, the persuader was a large stick with nails in it - I don't think I ever needed convincing...

Latin lessons with Paddy were a trial, especially for those of us who struggled with the language. I vividly remember standing in front of the class for the umpteenth time raising my right hand and uttering the timeless phrase "nos qui moritori sumus vos salutamus" before crawling on my hands and knees between the legs of the rest of the class who could decline their verbs (or was it conjugate?) As you can see, while the phrase has been imprinted on my mind, I am to this day entirely unable to distinguish an ablative absolute from a gerund.


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