Familiar cars disgorge unexpected passengers, not the usual CCCS pupils but Fantasy heroes or characters from popular tales. This year the playground reminded me of Jurassic Park with some magnificent inflatable dinosaurs striding the tarmac spaces. At breaktime the climbing frame was topped by a resplendent Harry Potter, almost as if he was in the middle of a Quidditch match. Meanwhile an intensely serious Sherlock Holmes was engaged in an intensive chess match while Charlie Brown, complete with baseball glove, watched close by ready to utter a memorable wise-crack.

I had challenged the boys to guess who I would be. What fascinated me was that a number of them guessed that I would appear as Sherlock Holmes. When asked why, they responded that I had been Sherlock Holmes last year. Clearly innovation is not a quality they associate with their Headmaster! “Gandalf!” responded another, imagining that someone of advanced age would have been a natural choice for me. When I appeared, therefore, in a brown rectangular box with stripes on the front, they were surprised and generally at a loss. “A biscuit?” one boy suggested, rather forgetting that a literary association was the order of the day. A bar of chocolate from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory suggested another. It was only when I pointed out that the costume had doors and that, when one opened them, a snowy scene was revealed, that people guessed correctly. I was the Wardrobe from that Oxford masterpiece, “Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” by CS Lewis. For me, this Wardrobe has always been one of the most powerful ideas in children’s fiction, a plain looking, ordinary object which, when passed through, leads to another world. It is a symbol of the process of reading a book. The cover is opened and one is transported into a different world. – a world of the imagination.

Which takes me on to the Library. One of the excitements of the near completion of the Pavilion is that we can begin work on the Library at last, as we will be able to move the equipment which has been housed in the room which will become the Library. Over the holidays we will empty and paint the room which will then mean that we can then be in touch in terms of the development of this wonderful facility. Many kind parents have said that they will help with the design and development of the room and I am very grateful to them. Certainly, judging by the excitement over reading in the school at the moment, it will be a very well-used facility.

We were honoured that the Master of Pembroke, Sir Ernest Ryder came to talk to the Prep School in the Cathedral today. Before moving to Pembroke, where many of our boys sing, Sir Ernest was a Lord Justice of Appeal, the second highest type of Judge in the country. He gave an immensely inspiring talk about the benefits of hard work (always music to a teacher’s ear) and of the possibility, thereby, of achieving great things. At one point in the talk, he asked whether any of the pupils had ever thought about being a lawyer. A few boys put up their hands. At that point, he revealed that he had with him his judge’s wig, made from horsehair. He allowed one of the aspirant lawyers to put it on; the boy was able to wear it for the rest of the service. It did not take much to see the boy in question sitting in splendour in front of a court in a few years time!

One of the features of visiting the Nursery or Pre-Prep is that one is always greeted with extreme excitement. No sooner did I arrive in Nursery on Wednesday when the cry went up “Look, It’s Mr Merry!” Nothing is more likely to ensure that I live up to my name!