Above: Mr Single during the Humanities launch in Fancy dress.
Arriving promptly at 1pm in the library, Mr Single (English teacher and Director of the Humanities) looked unduly nervous. However after the first question was asked he seemed to relax a little and start to enjoy being interviewed for Book Blast.
I started off with a relatively easy question and received the ‘correct’ answer that you would expect from an English teacher. The first question being ‘do you like reading? The answer- the expected: yes! The second part of my first question enabled us to see a little more into Mr Single’s childhood. Mr Single’s parents used to encourage their children to read as much as possible with his mother taking him and his siblings to the library often. As a young boy, Mr Single also had a love of reading ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’ books by Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl books as he grew older. His favourite Dahl book was ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’ though he himself never tried to feed his grandmother some disgusting ‘medicine’!!
As I was told that his one of his favourite genres was Greek mythology I thought it was rather appropriate that, coincidentally, there was a book behind him on Greek mythology. As well as mythology, Mr Single also enjoys reading auto-biographies, biographies and of course the classics.
My next question was one that I always want to ask as I think that it is a very important piece of information to know about someone- especially an English teacher, because we are always being told that it is important to read. Mr Single appreciates that reading helps with creative writing, the ability to think and argue as well as benefiting literacy skills but also believes that it is escapism. Escapism is where you can forget about the world around you, focus on the story and be transported to another place.
When I asked what he was currently reading, Mr Single brought out a copy of ‘The Dangerous Book for Boys’ whilst explaining to me that he is actually reading three books at once which he hasn’t done for years. Another book that he is currently reading is Stephen Fry’s autobiography. He has always been a fan of Stephen Fry and thought that he should read his autobiography before embarking on reading his novels.
After deciding that ‘101 things to do on a Desert Island’ and ‘Cooking for one on a Desert Island’ were not really what he would want to read on a desert island despite their usefulness, Mr Single decided on something that would make him laugh yet think at the same time.
William Shakespeare is the one author that Mr Single would like to meet (the question saying that the author could be dead or alive) because there is so much that is unknown about him for example whether he did write the plays and where or who he got his inspiration from.
My next question was about books that have been made into films and whether Mr Single thinks that they are good or a bad reflection on how interesting a book was. Even though he enjoys watching films at the cinema and on DVD sometimes he finds a book that has been made into a film disappointing as everyone interprets a book in a different way and a film is just one person’s interpretation, although he did enjoy the early Harry Potter films and ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’.
My penultimate question was to enquire what Mr Single, as Director of the Humanities, plans to do to benefit our school. Things planned include: activities to benefit both the school and local community, more opportunities for extracurricular activities, introduction of new courses and a look at even more ways to approach teaching and learning at DGGS.
Finally I asked how Mr Single’s first term at DGGS had been and whether it was what he had expected. He told me that everyone had been patient and helpful and it was much better than he expected it would be!
Book Blast would like to thank Mr Single for giving up his lunchtime so Hannah could interview him and we hope that it was not as bad as he was expecting!!
Hannah 10H
(One of Mr Single’s favourite pieces of advice from ‘The Dangerous Book for Boys’ falls into the girls category and is: If you see a girl in need of any help, unable to lift something for example, do not taunt her. Approach her with a cheerful smile whilst surreptitiously testing the weight of the object. If you find you can lift it go ahead, if you can’t, try sitting on it and engaging her in conversation.)
