A little Latin is a dangerous thing

This evening, lectores mei, I wish to talk to you about the learning, and the value of learning, Latin. So please put your chewing gum behind your ears and sit up straight.

I began, at the age of 11, with Mr Martin, who was an ace teacher of history, but only an approximate teacher of Latin. In one excited moment he communicated to us the information that some nouns of feminine gender referred to males, eg, agricola = farmer, nauta = sailor. I am sure he had no more than an academic interest in sailors.

I was then passed on, at the age of 13, to Mr Brookes, a tall cadaverous man with unbearably tight underpants (I deduced this from his tendency constantly to bend his knees while standing in front of us). Brookes, a Yorkshire chap, would regularly enter the classroom and say "Right, lads, we are going to learn Latin by a new method." Nothing worked for the poor bastard. I believe he left the profession and thereafter earned a modest living writing mottos for Christmas crackers.

Then, at 15, I was passed on to Mr Lloyd, affectionately known as Cellu. Lloyd, a Geordie, was much happier telling us about the parties and other riotous events of his student days at Durham University than imparting knowledge about Latin. We loved it, because we were all sitting in his class with erections wanting to know more about girls. I doubt he was more than 25, but he was ancient to us. I think I learned something about semi-deponent verbs and the ut+subjunctive construction from him, but I can't be sure. It's a long time ago....

Apart from that, I remember the Headmaster, Mr Thorpe, a bumwhacking member of the old school, repeatedly making a joke whenever he had the chance. The verbs of the third conjugation can be very irregular (compare English, go, went, gone), of which the most outrageous was fero-ferre-tuli-latum. Thorpe's contribution to English humour was the fabrication "pono-ponere-geegee-horsum". I never reproached him for caning my backside (which he did constantly and to our mutual satisfaction), but I couldn't forgive him for endlessly repeating - and then laughing at - his own poor witticism - pono, etc. In fact, for those who really want to know, it is pono-ponere-posui-positum. For more information, refer to Kennedy's Latin Primer.

As to the learning of Latin, many of us were called, but few were chosen. In fact, in the entire history - as far as I know - of my boondock Grammar School, I was the first ever to pass A Level Latin, and that with a bare 40%.

For those of my dear readers who have got this far - and I don't blame the others who gave up several paragraphs ago - I want to sing the praises of the study of Latin.

But I am not going to. I read Cicero and Catullus and Livy and Caesar and bits of a few other authors. But I am still baffled by most Latin inscriptions on tombs and monuments.

Dear long dead teachers, Martin, Brookes and Lloyd - and you Thorpe, you bugger - I hope for your sakes that St Peter speaks English. I also hope so for my sake.

Sic transit gloria mundi. Whatever that means.