From grumpiness to happiness in one speech!

Mr Axon, Mr Wayne, members of the Board, Colleagues, parents, boys and girls, it seems hard to believe that it is twelve months ago that we were here holding Parents Day 2008, celebrating last year's successes and achievements and handing out the same prizes as we are about to do now. To me it seems that it has come around in fewer that 365 days. How many fewer is hard to say. Time is so relative. As Stephen Hawking said “Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end”.

This year is something of a milestone for me as in the Autumn I will no longer be able to claim to have a 4 at the front of my age. I find the thought quite terrifying, quite alien, quite hard to comprehend. It doesn't feel that long ago that I turned 30. I hated that! Losing the 2 at the front was really hard to bear. Reaching 40 I quite liked – it felt respectable, grown-up yet still youthful. Where did those years go?

As children we spend, or seem to spend, our entire life looking forward, looking forward to the time we reach double figures. And then the teenage years; 17 to learn to drive, eighteen to leave school, 21 to fill in Palace of Westminster expenses claim forms and then we are of age. But what happens to the here and now?

My theme today is a journey from grumpiness to happiness.

I remember sitting in my Pre-Prep school many years ago, being told to write the year 1965 at the top of the page. It felt so exciting, so strange; so innovative; so groundbreaking that after the Christmas holidays 1964 became 1965. It felt as if time was stationary; 1965 would last for ever.

Back then a year had 365 days in it; each day contained 24 hours, with real minutes and genuine seconds, not any of your modern rubbish! Those were the days, real days. Days lasted the full 24 hours. Today we have inferior days, they aren't built to last the full 24 hours. You get 20 if you're lucky and check before you buy to see how many minutes you get for your hour. It's this European Union that's to blame, you know. Oh yes! Just like with weights and measure, it's all approximate. The weights on packets are all approximate – that's what the little ‘e' means. A tin of tomatoes weighs 450g approximately, but will not weigh less. But it's not that simple anymore. I checked. I raided our cupboard and found a tin of broad beans that unsurprisingly had passed its sell by date. “Broad beans in water 300g.” With the big e in front, not a normal, familiar lower case e, but a rather sinister looking one. Check if you don't believe me. It looks rather like the little munchy thing in that early Pacman game.

Anyway, next time you're doing the shopping in readiness for that special meal you're preparing and the recipe requires 400g of chick peas, be prepared! Is that chick peas in water, brine or rosemary infused Greek spring water; is that ready to eat or dried, in which case they need soaking overnight. But the guests are coming in three hours and I've only got one tin. Help! Maybe if I use half and half they will balance each other out. No one will notice? Except the dinner plates will end the meal with a ring of rock hard bullets of chick peas arranged neatly like a necklace!

So – where am I going with this? Anyone here a Jeremy Clarkson fan? OK. Indulge me. Ladies – please close your eyes for the next fifteen seconds. Ok, guys – hands up if you're a Top Gear fan. Thank you. OK ladies, you can open your eyes now. Hello? You can open your eyes………….Oh… She's asleep. Sorry. Must be the excitement of the occasion has got to her. Too bad.

Well, Jeremy Clarkson and I have something in common, and clearly it's not physical appearance; he's very tall …………………… Nor is it the cars we drive. He hates the Audi A4, even though it is the TDI 130 bhp, sports version, low profile tyres, sports steering wheel, wider wheel arches, sports suspension - oh sorry- there are two ladies asleep now!!

No, we share two things in common – first we both have at some time had a hamster as a pet – mine died in1969 when the dog got hold of it and Clarkson's had a bit of a shunt while filming the last series of Top Gear.

The second thing we have in common is that we both qualify for the category of Grumpy Old Man. You know the ones who complain about the sate of the country, the nanny State, Health and Safety requirements, children today, hoodies, electronic games, supermarket check-out operatives, and the ridiculous ease of GCSE and A levels today – now I come to think about it, it sounds strangely similar to Chesham Prep School Governors meetings!

So children today – you have it so easy you know, you really do. No corporal punishment – too humiliating, demeaning, contravenes your human rights. Nothing about it actually hurting rather a lot! Back in my day we got the cane, the gym shoe or up in the dorms, the slipper. Foolish was the parent who sent their child to boarding school with leather soled slippers – they really hurt!

Neither do you have to contend with rote learning of Latin declensions and conjugations. No compulsory boxing lessons either, no public exams where you were tested on what you knew and could remember. No black and white television – now there's deprivation!

No, today it's all changed. Punishments have to be psychologically beneficial, brief, positive, respectful, uplifting and enjoyable experiences.

Rote learning is now in the same category as water-boarding – considered by civilised societies to be a form of torture; and as for public exams! You get your grade almost before you sit the papers based on your several attempts to produce the answer your teacher can do everything but actually write for you. And as for television – the three black and white channels I grew up with have now not only become colour but there are hundreds of them. But wait, now they are appearing in High Definition! That's just great! All these years I've been putting up with Low Definition!

And Parties!! When I went to a birthday party the rules were clear, best clothes, a few games, a sit down tea with Marmite sandwiches, chocolate fingers, jelly and ice cream and a home made cake with candles that actually stay out when you blow them out – none of this reignite two seconds later nonsense. And we played genuine party games; pass the parcel; musical chairs; musical statues; Grandmother's footsteps and pin the tail on the donkey. And no one cheated, no one burst into tears because their chance to unwrap the parcel didn't reveal the present.

Modern birthday parties probably constitute an insurance risk; you organise a game of pass the parcel and a child gets several goes to remove the paper but without success, you might find yourselves facing a charge of post traumatic stress disorder, or a charge of discrimination after a child is knocked out of a game of musical chairs because there were not enough chairs to go round. Far worse still, after a game of Mummies when you have to wrap your partner up with rolls of loo paper, a child complains of claustrophobia bringing about permanent mental scarring!

Beware the lawsuit after a game of Grandmother's footsteps from the grandmother who feels she has become paranoid for turning round just to see if anyone is creeping up on her, not to mention the RSPCA who will take you to court for cutting off the donkey's tail and then inviting a queue of blindfolded children to stick it back on with a drawing pin!!

Now this party bag thing. What has gone wrong in the world? A child has a birthday so his parents invite his friends to come to a party and they arrive dressed in jeans and T shirts, or football shirts. His parents employ a dodgy looking middle-aged man they have never met before to spend a couple of hours entertaining the children while they have a few drinks with the parents who get to stay at the party too. Do they do a Criminal Records Bureau Check?

And then, once dear old Mr Jolly Funny man departs with his £150, all the party goers are presented with the equivalent of a Christmas stocking! Why? Thanks for coming to our child's party! We need to bribe you or you won't accept our kind invitation next year!

Let's roll this one forward forty years. Your eight year old child who is in Year 3, (wave at me Year 3 just to show you're still alive and kicking the person in front of you) is now 48 and is invited to a dinner party to celebrate one of his friend's birthday. He probably won't turn up in a football shirt but designer jeans can be sooo smart. Does he turn up with a gift for the host and one for the hostess? Does he heck! But when it's time to go home, guess what happens? The guest is given a bottle of wine and his wife gets some flowers on their way out of the door!!

Oh, children today! How lucky you are. Indeed, we were also lucky when we were children, weren't we?

Children we celebrate you all. We are the children of the past. You are the children of the present and you will have the children of the future.

My message today to you the children is ‘be yourselves'. People will always give you instruction, at home and at school; that's life, I'm afraid, a certain degree of conformity is required, you have to fit in although sometimes it really feels awkward, embarrassing, difficult, terrifying or just wrong! But instructions are given or demands are made usually by someone wanting you to do things their way.

As you go through life, you might welcome instruction, you might enjoy demands being made of you. Fine. But sometimes living up to expectations is hard. Your parents expect you to do well at school. They expect you to behave. They expect you to get good grades. They expect you to be the person they dream you will become. My message to you is ‘Be the person you are today and the person you become tomorrow will be proud of you when looking back at the footprints you leave behind you and will think of you with fondness and love.

Parents, I have a question for you. Are your children your most treasured possession? Yes? No?

Well I do not believe that they are. Why? Because they are not your possession, they are lent to us for a brief time. It is our duty to shelter, protect, love and raise our children, allowing them to grow into the person they are destined to become.

Our job is not to instruct, not to demand nor indeed to expect. Our job is to suggest, guide, point, explain, provide, prepare and finally to release.

The size of Mars bars and Curly Wurlys, the number of Smarties in a box might very from generation to generation but one thing never changes: the privilege of parenthood; because that is what it is. We have no God-given right to have children. Some people become parents, others do not. Some people are good parents, others are not. Bringing a child into the world is a wondrous blessing; children are a gift. But these children are not ours they are made of our flesh and blood but they do not belong to us. They belong to themselves.

Children, do not be in a hurry to grow up. Do not waste your young years wishing you were older because, trust me, you will spend forty or fifty years wishing you were younger! Enjoy the moment, enjoy the day, enjoy the here and now. Thank you

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