School Post 1 Oct. 1949 [antikvár]

your Letter from the Editor Summer is over and in England it is too cold to swim in the sea any more. Or perhaps I shonld say it is too cold for all normál people— a few will continue lo take their daily dip until Christmas or *after. I can assure you, however, thai these tough people are very few indeed and so far as I am concernecl, they are welcome to any pleasure they may get from it! I am thinláng, as I write this, of how deserted the beaches will now look. No ice-cream men, no children playing on the sands, no visilors; only the seagulls wheeling and screaming over the big white-crested wa.ves and a lonely person or two walking along the shore. The don-keys, who gave children rides on the sands, have gone too. I had• never asked myself how they spent the winter; I had not even thought about ihem any more once summer had passecl. Then a few days ago I dis-covered that children are not so thoughtless. Many of them are giving the donkeys a home for the winter. One owner has had several offerrs for his donkey Snowey, and even more for Whisky, his little black and white Shetland pony, who gave children rides at Hunstanton. Children have made several important finds lately. In one case, they noticed somé scraps of faded old paper covered with strange writing, when they were playing on a rubbish dump. They took them to their history master who, when he examined them, found that they were ancient parchment documents written in Latin and referred to the transfer of monastic lands in the fifteenth century. These manuscripts are now to be preserved at Kings College, Cambridge. The other lucky "find" was made by a few children fishing for tiddlers. They accidently knocked away a piece of earth at the edge of the pond and out streamed a hoard of shining coins! They were Román coins of 50 BC to AD 138 ancl in a very goocl state of preservation. Does not thai make one wonder a thousand things? Whai did the person who híd them there look like? Whai made him hide his wealth and what prevenled him from coming back to fetch it? And now I had better explain what is meant by "fishing for tiddlers It is a great pastime among English children. There are many ponds anid streams in the fields and woocls, and no matter how small they re. they are simvly teeming with wild life—newts, iadpoles, water boatmen, water spiders, and many other kinds of queer creatures, íamona them the "tiddler.s", which are tiny fish! So the Seventh World Jamboree is to be held in the Salzkammergut! I am sure that all Austrian Scouts are pleased about that, although 1955 does seem stich a long time to wait. As the Thirteenth International Scoui Conference will be held at Salzburg at the same time. it will be a busy period. Congratulations to the winners of the Summer Competition. The per-centage of children who sent correct answers was much higher than that of the grown ups Well done children! With best wishes, BJuUr Mary Bojár (12 years)—Moeder-brugg "I am a 12-year-old country school girl and attend the 6th form. We have been working at English during the last three years and we love it very much. Our English teacher, who has been right round the world, telis us such interesting things and when I have finished school I too want to go to England and Austra-lia one day. My home in Möder-brugg is a beautiful place with high mountains. Many Viensaese people come here during the summer holidays. We should all like to see the Editor of our "School Post" too one day." Irene Kenneth (12 years)—Chicago "I was bőin in Vienna and my mother is Viennese too. But un-fortimately I moved from Vienna to Hungary and from Hungary to A.merica two years ago. I am twelve and love animals, sports and books and my favourite sub-ject is history. "I like "School Post" very much but I wish you had somé puzzles or contests as you did at Christmas. I alsó liked the poem about \he teddy bear, I think it was very cute and you should have somé more good poems like that." * Iiaethe Wagner (13 years)—Haus-mening "To win a prize in your summer competition seemed at first to be an easy task. Alas! I struggled for hours to find the real solution then rainy weather enabled me to concentrate my thoughts! I shall be very proud if my solution wins a prize."