Victorian (pen-in-cheek) Vignettes
Book Description
In August 1998, I began a new career: the career of a retired Civil Servant. Curious, I didn t ask to be made a civil servant. French laws governing the statutory body in which I was a Research Fellow for a quarter of a century offered all foreigners with the rank of researchers (chercheurs au Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) the possibility of opting for the status of a functionary i...
MoreIn August 1998, I began a new career: the career of a retired Civil Servant. Curious, I didn t ask to be made a civil servant. French laws governing the statutory body in which I was a Research Fellow for a quarter of a century offered all foreigners with the rank of researchers (chercheurs au Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) the possibility of opting for the status of a functionary in the French State. I did nothing, and one fine morning I think at the beginning of January 1984 - an official letter arrived announcing that I was nominated a Civil Servant which meant that I could not easily be sacked unless, say, I dangled myself by my chignon from the Eiffel Tower and sang the Terang Bulan naked! The curious thing is that I was a Stateless Person when I arrived in France in 1972 and still am. Soon after being retrograded into active retirement, a relentless hunter after Victoriana surfaced out of the Internet to rope me into raking my memory of old school days. Nothing was farther away from my thoughts than the solitary turban-turning memories I entertained of the old school. In less than a year-and-a-half, we Chung Chee Min (a former school laureate, later a teacher, and now one of the school webmasters) and I had chalked up over 1500 small-print pages in correspondence over old school mates, teachers, and other Tom Brown school-type reminiscences. Our correspondence focussed on the numerous official careers of the old boys and girls from the Victoria Institution, the vaunted premier school of the country. They all smacked of the odour of success in public life: straight, square, solid, with squire-like stolid citizen success stories. There s nothing wrong with that, of course, but I was put off by the odour of goodness and sweetness that pervaded all their fragrant memories. Look, what a pretty boy I am, Mummy Victoria! Obedient! Clean! I have done all my homework for the week, and ... that sort of achievement.
Publisher | Cyberwit.net |
Binding | Paperback |
Reading Level | Uncategorized
|
# of Pages | 207 |
ISBN-10 | 8182531071 |
ISBN-13 | 978-8182531079 |
Publication Date | 04/25/2008 |
You must be a member of JacketFlap to add a video to this page. Please
Log In or
Register.
View T. Wignesan's profile