Mrs. Wallace was our (young and new-fangled) geography teacher in an English girls’ selective grammar school in the 1960-’70s. Although we thought it traditional and constraining, looking back I realise that the teachers wanted all the girls to realise their potential and make a difference in the world.
Mrs. Wallace once asked – off the cuff – “Why is this place like this?” I felt as if my head had caught fire and a new world had exploded before my eyes. That little question opened up concepts of a sense of place – geography, history, sociology, biology, psychology, politics, geology, meteorology and on, and on, and on. The world and ways of thinking about it were connected. I wanted to know more about what gave a place meaning and the role we played in that. The rest, as they say…
Thank you Mrs. Wallace. This is the first time that I’ve had the opportunity to say so.
