A pleasant nook, an absorbing book ...
MISS KITTO
She wasn’t my Latin teacher but she did teach Latin – and Greek
Although Latin wasn’t a language that you could actually speak,
You could declaim in it,
And some found fame in it.
Like Cicero, the brilliant statesman, whose orations were spectacular,
Some of them he translated from Greek and delivered in Latin - but not in the vernacular.
Other famous orators were: Marcus Antonius, Quintus Hortensius and Julius Caesar
(Who, until he met his death in 44 BC, was a renowned crowd-pleaser.)
At school, Miss Kitto was rumoured to be very strict, and sarcasm was alleged to be her defining feature.
It was generally agreed however, that she was an absolutely brilliant teacher.
Quite by coincidence, we met up again, much later on, when I was seventy one and she was ninety two.
In a short time, I got to know and understand her, and from that, our
friendship grew.
She had a very keen brain and a wonderful dry sense of humour,
Of sarcasm there was no trace,
Those earlier allegations had been quite base.
She was, in fact, the kindest of souls – an absolute cutie,
A gentle intellectual, who was blessed with inner beauty.
Requiescat in Pace
Maggie Smart
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