Open Learning

Offers of work are like double decker buses: they always come in twos. This morning was an open learning class in a red-brick building opposite the Newcastle General. I scuttled about like a kitten chasing string, helping Pakistanis to make three letter words out of plastic alphabet tiles, Poles practising extreme adjectives, French-speaking Africans listening to two friends planning a picnic, and Bangladeshi housewives tracing letters on lined paper.