Hugh Reilly: Why teachers are glad of their hard-earned immune systems

Published on Tuesday 5 May 2009 19:19

WHEN my palms began to sweat and my bones started to ache, I self-diagnosed that I had either contracted swine flu or had drunk a bad pint of Furstenberg. If it were the former, I faced the awful prospect of being quarantined at home for a few weeks (on full pay) and enduring an anxious wait to discover exactly how much my media representative, Max Clifford, had screwed out of the tabloids for my "don't kiss but tell" story.

Perhaps H1N1 had been unwittingly transmitted to me by a Mexican tourist when I had enjoyed a cappuccino at the Dancing Midge Caf in Millport. True, the bloke sipping his latte at the next table hadn't been wearing a sombrero, but he certainly sported a rather suspicious looking moustache.

However, after an hour or two of having my extensive brow mopped by my squeeze, I was back on my feet and tainted beer took the rap for my temporary discomfort.

As mass hysteria reaches heights not seen since Salem cleansed itself of wart-faced crones, the only silver lining is parents will be under enormous public pressure to end the current practice of sending sick kids to school so that neither mummy nor daddy need take valuable time off work to care for their ailing child.

Believe me, when strolling the aisles of a classroom overflowing with coughing kids, I have felt like Florence Nightingale walking the wards of her disease-ridden Crimean hospital – maybe I should consider carrying an owl in my pocket.

If I'm being honest, classroom teachers must be the only people who are unafraid of any strain of respiratory infection. We chalkies spit in the face of flu because, as a consequence of working for years in a germ-filled environment, our bodies have acquired an immune system to die for. Kids just back from Cancun can cough till their tracheas bleed: I am confident that Sir's white cells will wipe out any potential influenza invader.

This immunity is hard-earned. My teaching career started in 1980 – a time when a snotty-nosed child considered it polite to pointedly flick his handkerchief before bellowing the content of both nostrils into the monogrammed cloth.

For those youngsters who couldn't remember to bring a hankie, the sleeve of a school jersey provided an alternative depository for germs. In summer, when wearing a short-sleeved shirt, sneezing into the crook of one's arm was the civilised thing to do.

By the early Nineties, I thought myself immortal, but a severe chest infection laid me low for weeks. A course of antibiotics appeared to worsen my health, and weeks of steroids didn't seem to help much either. Call me melodramatic, but I was in the middle of picking my funeral music when I was finally given an appointment at the chest clinic of the local hospital. A steroid inhaler was added to the arsenal of chemicals being fired into my wheezing lungs.

After some time, I was well enough to return to the classroom trenches, to inhale the foul air that had made me ill in the first place.

The youth of today don't carry hankies; instead, the modern sniffling teenager perceives Sir to be an outreach branch of WH Smith – a supplier of pens, pencils, rubbers, sharpeners and paper tissues.

While I have learned to live with my role as a distributor of stationery, I draw the line at doling out Kleenex to wet-nosed youngsters. When beseeching me for a tissue, the best a snivelling kid can hope for is a council-issue paper towel made of recycled cardboard that has the dual action of absorbing nasal fluid while efficiently sandpapering the user's septum.

If swine flu does take hold, you can be sure that your local school will become a hub for spreading the virus to your community. I've bought a mask, though how I'll be able to drink my Furstenberg through it is anyone's guess.