I remember in 1976 revising for my O’Levels during one of the hottest summers on record up to then, and I think it is still considered a very hot summer. Trying to work hard whilst sitting on the grass under trees is not probably the most obvious way to show you are being studious but I do remember the large exam hall being filled with boys allowed to have no ties and take off their blazers.
Yet this same school had no mind but to force us to watch school sports in all weathers and cheer on our team, which seems to me to be taking health as secondary to being spectatorial, not the kind of value system you really want to inculcate in the young. Or maybe it is. Today I remember those kinds of days when I am able to sit in the cool of my own home, or out in the garden beneath the hazel trees and smell the honeysuckle and roses. It seems to me we would have a brighter world if we taught our children how to plant and care for gardens more, and how to kick balls around a field less.
At least if I ever have any children that is what I will teach them.