Monday is for what?

11th February 2022

Thank you for your continued support this half term. We have four more school/college days to go before the staff engage in their INSET day and we all then go into a well-earned half term break

Away from education, the country will be split down the middle this weekend.

There will be those who are passionately for and those who are vehemently against. There may well even be, within families, so much tension that there could be discomfort bordering on disagreement. In describing this dire drift / split I’m not talking about the present political position, or Brexit, or which team is likely to win the Premier League / Championship / League One – even though Rotherham look like they’re running away with that division. I am referring to the annual national division created by the concept of St Valentine’s Day. There are those who are for it, and love it! And that there are those who hate it and won’t have anything to do with it.

There won’t be many people sitting in the middle, on the fence, ambivalent. What is it about the 14th February which stirs so much misdirected passion in the population? Is it the history? Is it religious belief versus paganism or even commercialism?

If you want to find out more about the history of tis day and to understand the context within which we  face our divisions read https://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day/history-of-valentines-day-2

There is the history and the reasoning but why the emotion? I am guessing that St Valentine’s Day does stir the emotions so greatly because everyone does need a little love; but how that love is expressed and who one might direct that love towards is where our differences emerge. You don’t have to be someone who buys it into the contemporary vision of this day but it would take a really hard heart not to find some time to think about those people who really do mean something to you. For those of us who cannot abide by the commercial aspect of this day, so conveniently positioned halfway between the Christmas sales and the Easter eggs/bunnies, I think we all just need to realise that spending your hard earned cash doth not love make. A word, a gesture, an indication can mean as much and be as powerful as the largest valentine’s card, sloppiest poem or sickliest box of chocolates. It is the meaning that counts, not the economics behind this day.

I’m not here to tell you what to do, how to behave, but I do hope that you can find it in your heart to reach out to someone this coming week or so. It doesn’t need to be passionate or inappropriate. Make it thoughtful, make it meaningful and make it safe. We’ve all got to give a little, to receive a little in return.