Scaffolding

The summer holidays is time for renovations, and Haileybury has sprouted skips and scaffolding.

You may know the old scaffolding joke. The builders thought they had finished and dismantled the scaffolding, but then the house fell down. When the forman was told he was very angry. "How many times have I told you to put the wallpaper up before removing the scaffold?"

Seamus Heaney wrote a poem about scaffolding

Scaffolding

Masons, when they start upon a building,

Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,

Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job's done

Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seems to be

Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall

Confident that we have built our wall.

The Haileybury Society is all about relationships. I hope that the Society will continue more and more explicitly to recognize that this does not just mean alumni, but includes teachers, parents, non teaching staff and many others who have Haileybury in common.