Red Haired Roderick

RED HAIRED RODERICK

I take my place on the rostrum and gaze at the children assembled with their anxious parents.I begin ,feeling anxious

“Once upon a time,everybody ,there was a sad little boy called Roderick and he had red hair and he was the stationmasters son of Invergarvary on the railway line from Glasgow to Skye.in the district called Stordart .He began attending the village school and he was very bright as he could read at three ;he rapidly grasped the principles of arithmetic; the village dominie told him all about the history of that country of which it is said “Land of hope,a fair domain/served by the friendly Nor-western train,that leaves dour Glasgow at the rise of the sun, I know the landmarks every one, from Finnieston tunnel to the mountains of Skye,all that pleaseth a tormented eye.” And know those landmarks he did for at first whenever he travelled on the train he would rattle off everything his teachers had told him; about the Ice age and ancient volcanoes,of the first peoples ,the Picts, who left their mark as place names and of later men on horseback and indeed those who had built the railway ; and he knew of the world beyond s Scotland s shore through his stamp-collecting .But the other children bullied him because of his red hair and though he was attentive in class he stopped talking,.That made his parents very worried.After school and during holidays he refused to play with the other children.A relative found him wandering in the hills ,and gazing at the ever changing skies ,or listening to the melodies of wind and tumbling waters.On visits to the wild coast of Stordart he would be out of sight and later spotted paddling in the rock pools or simply gazing at the views of airds and skerries ; and the snow capped Cuillins sometimes visible on the horizon. The dominie told his parents that she had caught him reading her Herald and treatises on geography for high school children; He sat at the front and wrote page after page that showed that he had an intellect far beyond his tender years.She taught him to draw and so he would be away with a sketch pad and come to the school with drawings of those landmarks in that ballad I quoted ,which she instantly recognised .At the age of ten he was given a bicycle and rode it far during the Easter holiday and came back with dozens of sketches .then after he was waylaid by older children in the summer holiday he went missing…

He was found in a fisherman s hut on the Stordart coast with a sketchpad full of drawings that he had done and he was taken to Glasgow to see an eminent doctor and he sobbed,sobbed,sobbed throughout the journeys and he simply would not talk .So the doctor knew the man we know of as Lord Trefoelwyn ,the headmaster of Treheol College in that part of Wales called the Welsh Marches, children the country of hills formed before the earth had an atmosphere either side of the railway from Shrewsbury to Bristol .His parents made the long journey to Delormebury on that line and the boy sat gazing at the countryside and when they arrived the boy drew from memory,children a view of Shrewsbury seen from the train-remember, children ,those lines “High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam/Islanded in Severn stream” – that boy had but a fleeting glimpse of the town and there he had captured it,children, so the parents presented that sketch to the great Lord Trefoelwyn …

“So the great Lord Trefoelwyn said to the boy “When I was your age,young man I lived in my home town of Charford over the hill which has its own separate Welsh name ,Abercammaen .Then my father was promoted and we moved to Sussex where I began attending a grammar school. All the boys picked on me because I am Welsh so I ran away from school and even travelled without a ticket to my aunt in Romanbridge the cathedral city down the line.And I would not talk.Because of that I was sent to a remedial school near Maidstone that is the county town of Kent through which the Channel Tunnel railway runs.The headmaster unlocked my mind, young man so my ambition was to follow him …..Here I am to help you “

So the boy was enrolled at Treheol College where the great Lord Trefoelwyn taught him that his peculiarities were incidental and that all people ,that on earth do dwell ,now and forever were to accept,understand and master themselves.Lord Trefoelwyn was exceptionally tall and short sighted and went bald at age twenty eight so he is allegorised, as on a coat of arms as the Welsh Dragon.with glasses and bowler hat” (I display our famous emblem …)

…the boy met a classmate named Heidi from that flat part of Germany called Schleswig-Holstein that borders on the tideless,freshwater,Baltic Sea This girl had lost her parents in an appalling tragedy As she was enchanted with the mountainous scenery near the school they went out together and he taught her to draw,dear children; and he began writing poetry about his homeland,Stordart ,children so after lessons they cycled the byways of this district,Avalon ,which in Roman times was a kingdom under Roman suzerainty,children,because it paid taxes to Rome,children and known as Siluria ,children…..She taught him German and so they visited his parents and when they alighted his parents failed to recognise him! Smartly dressed and fluent in German he was explaining the scenery of Stordart in German to Heidi and neither parent could understand ! But they were so thankful for Lord Trefoelwyn who had correctly diagnosed what is called Aspergers Syndrome in their son. We have different kinds of brains,children.we who accept understand and thank God for it..Now Roderick and Heidi did so well at Treheol College that both went to Glasgow University and after graduating trained to be teachers.They joined the staff of Treheol College and all agreed that they like their classmates had grown dragon s wings . … I pull out a rubber dragon toy-with glasses and bowler hat ! and spread its wings I say that Lord Trefoelwyn taught all children with distressing peculiarities that they will be remembered,not for what they looked like or for habits like involuntary swearing ,but for the extent to which they struggled to master their infirmities of character and develop all their latent abilities by constant practice at demanding pursuits.He taught by the example he set ,even in his seventies leading his pupils up lofty mountains .So these children grew dragons wings so to speak by living according to the teachings of Socrates Plato and Aristotle notably to be inspired by the idea that an exemplary life is the ultimate beauty .Lord Trefoelwyn s life was that ultimate beauty dear children .He was no film star with his pebble lensed glasses ..I show the famous portrait of him on the summit of Moelwyn Mawr ….Roderick and Heidi got married ,dear children ,and are now jointly in charge of Bonavaig School for children like yourselves who are what is called high functioning autistics so let me present you with this memento of Roderick s own childhood –his anthology of poems and sketches produced in his days at Treheol College…”

I hand out a copy to every child in the hall and declare

“May this inspire you all to emulate my dear father .Red Haired Roderick “..

By: David Seagrave