At the chalkface: Work 'til you drop

I died last week – in the classroom.

It did nothing for the teaching.

The NASUWT is much exercised by this kind of thing. Teachers who run the risk of “dying in their classrooms”.

Neil Jeffrey, a secondary school teacher, showed the scars left by a triple heart bypass at their annual conference.

The union promptly passed a motion lamenting “the fostering of a culture of work until you drop”. Well, too late for me.

The demon stress precipitated my demise – things like genteel poverty, perpetual exhaustion, permanent anxiety, savage melancholy or the rage consequent on contemplating famished children queuing for gruel or obese or skeletal children with criminally toxic diets, or was it pondering on deep cuts or hearing that a school in West Yorkshire has introduced a once-a-week “dark day”, when all the lights are turned off.