Monday 14 February 2011

St Valentine And The Red Rose Of Disappointment

I claim there ain't
Another Saint
As great as Valentine.

So wrote Ogden Nash.

It was patently obvious that he had not been travelling on a bus, when he wrote this. Today, on St. Valentine's Day, the atmosphere on the morning school bus engendered feelings within me of hostility towards this saint who supposedly sent a farewell note to his gaoler's daughter.

"I demand to know who he is," said one girl to another for the tenth time. She was not talking about Valentine, but the girl who was sitting behind her. "Who's she going out with? I'm going to find out who it is."

All of them were at it. It was an antagonistic morning.

On the return trip in the afternoon, several of the girls appeared on the bus carrying a single red rose. "They cost £1-50," said one. "But it wasn't romantic at all. The guy who gave me it was the smallest guy in the school. It would happen to me."

"You were lucky," said another. "I got given this rose and another boy grabbed it and stuffed it down his trousers, which took a little of the gloss off it."

Schooldays are the best days of your lives......maybe that should read except on Valentine's Day.

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