Page created on 22 May 2000, last modified 1 Sep 2002 and published
He said in his letter to me: "My happiest years were those connected to the Forces".
Well, we spent a very pleasant afternoon together mulling over our experiences in Service schools and looking at piles of photographs and slides and generally indulging ourselves in Service-type chat.
Mr. Trevan was born in Staddiscombe and later moved to Plymstock, where as a youngster, he attended Goosewell Junior School and later Plympton Grammar. His Army National Service took him from Chillwell in Nottinghamshire to Nanyuki in Kenya, a journey that was not uneventful as he spent two weeks lost in Eygpt on the way!
His premature release from National Service meant that he could begin his teacher training course at St. Luke's, Exeter, on time. That was in 1949.
By 1959 Mr Trevan was married with four young children and decided that he could no longer afford to live in England so he applied to the old Air Ministry for a job in a Service school abroad. His application was successful and he started work in Luqa, Malta, in the same year.
After four years there, he and his family came home very briefly and then went out to Cyprus for 7 1/2 years, where Mr Trevan taught in junior schools. They all loved life in Cyprus and his children were lucky enough to have all those years continuous schooling, unlike their counterparts from military backgrounds, who were here today and gone tomorrow and often at very short notice.
He returned to teaching in this country, spent several years in Plymouth's Chaddlewood Junior School. He was secretary of the local branch of the Natioanl Association of Schoolmasters / Union of Women Teachers.
Mr Trevan stressed the adverse effects that this constant disruption can and does have on Service children and how great the need is for their teachers both in this country and abroad to understand their problems and not to underestimate their potential and ability just because it didn't manifest itself in the obvious ways.
He quotes examples to illustrate in a simplified way what he meant. After arriving back in this country from Malta, one of his children was asked at school to draw a picture of his house. He naturally drew a flat-roofed house and palm trees, which drew sarcastic comment from the teacher who failed to realise that was all the child knew as home.
Another example was when Mr Trevan asked the children to go out and pick primroses for their grandfather birthday. They returned empty handed as each had hoped that the other knew what a primrose was, but none of them did! Any Mediterranean plant they would have recognised instantly, of course.
"Service children mature much earlier than their civilian peers", commented Mr Trevan, "and are much better at the stiff upper lip business in times of crisis." Again he illustrated his point with examples.
My own three children to date have had no less than 26 schools between them so I was able to identify with all that, Mr Trevan said. I felt that the children in his care were lucky indeed to have had such a teacher who, perhaps of his own children's experiences, was very aware of the needs of the Service children in his care.
But what about these Service Schools' teachers and their career prospects? Well, although Mr Trevan was earning almost double his local wage, it was very shortlived as all Service schools teachers have to retire at 50 with no exception. Sadly, getting a job back in UK, especially at any high grade, is virtually impossible and many find themselves on the dole.
If they retire earlier so that they can become established at home, they are then depriving our children of the experience, maturity and continuity that an older teacher has to offer, thus making our Service schools abroad top heavy with young and inexperienced teachers. All a bit of a chicken and egg situation really.
Nowadays the education of children from all three Services is adminsitered under one umbrella, the Service Children's Education Authority (SCEA), which is staffed by education officers of all three Services and established under the Director of Army Education.
And a final word on our Service children's schools. Are they as bad as some parents make out?
"No, definitely not," was the emphatic reply. "The ones I taught in were equally as good as any I've worked in in this country. I retired early but now I'm itching to get back. Sadly they wouldn't have me now, I'm too old"
I left Mr Trevan with his wall-to-wall collection of classical music records, tapes and row upon row of encyclopedias and the world's great literary works and thought with much sadness how much this man has to give to our children and here he is at 54 years of age on the scrapheap.