Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Mrs Banfield, a primary school head ruined the new Harry Potter book for pupils — by reading out the final page on the last day of term.
Youngsters looking forward to reading the best-seller over the summer holidays were left reeling as Carolyn Banfield gave the game away.
Nine-year-old pupil Louie Swift said: “I don’t know why she read it.”
Whatever one thinks of the Harry Potter books and their worldwide popularity, what this woman did was unforgivably vile.
She probably won’t be fired for it: grown-ups, on the whole, are utterly insensitive to what children feel and deeply care for.
Still, since she so enjoys leaving these rotting carcasses around and spoiling things for others, I might as well oblige her by telling her the true end of this story she started:
Mrs Banfield, most of the world will have forgotten your despicable and demented deed in a few weeks’ time.
Not so those children, of whom you were in loco parentis. They will remember you and they will tell their friends and loved ones about you, on and off, for the rest of their lives. You will be reviled by them and by those who hear the story.
Oh yes, for people do remember those teachers who made a difference: the ones who did good and the ones who abused both their position and their charges.
And when you die, those who do remember, those whose pleasure you ruined and those who were told about it – those who will hear of your death, will then whoop with joy and say, shout or whisper:
“The witch is dead.”
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