Literary magazine

An Interview With Mr Skerten

sunshine and then they’re dead very quick- ly. So they don’t have to deal with Her Maj- esty’s Revenue and Customs like I do and they don’t have to have an opinion on the EU. Skerten: It is true but there is something special about the spider mite. Who knows what it is thinking? There is no one policing its thinking and also when they get squashed by children’s thumbs they look like little dots of blood and that’s quite fun. I’d like to look like a little dot of blood one day, when I die. TLM: If you could go back in time and meet your younger self, what would you tell him? Skerten: I would go back in time to meet my younger self quite recently, because I’ve got nothing useful to say to my younger self from ten years ago: they have to learn that on their own. But I would quite like to help myself out about a week ago when I spilled some milk on the floor and some of it went under the oven which is quite a difficult place to reach so it was quite frustrating. So I would say, ‘Don’t leave the milk there, just put it over there instead, or leave it in the fridge’. TLM: Would you rather live forever, teaching at this school or die right now? Skerten: Oh, I would prefer to die right now because my current retirement age is 68 and if that happens… well it couldn’t hap- pen because I will make sure it doesn’t. I would rather be very impoverished and very poor, possibly very ill, than teach up to the age of 68. TLM: The same is true of many animals.

TLM: What is your favourite book?

Skerten: My favourite book is probably… hmmm that’s a difficult question. TLM: But a key question, after all a person’s favourite book reveals a lot about a person.

Skerten: Well it’s very difficult.

TLM: What if we said your favourite author instead? Is there an author whose work you are particularly keen on? Skerten: Probably Pam Ayres, and my fa- vourite book by Pam Ayres is actually the second edition of poetry she released, which is called Some More of Me Poetry . I think she first found fame on a TV show called Opportunity Knocks in the 1970s. TLM: Okay, now we are going to jump straight into a political question. What is your stance on leaving the EU? Skerten: I think it is a very robust stance, but I would probably adopt a stance once I have read up about it. So at the moment I would regard my level of knowledge as be- ing what’s best described as ignorant. I think the most reasonable thing here would be to adopt the opposite stance to whatever The Daily Mail proposes. TLM: I f you could be an animal, which would you be and why? Skerten: (laughs) I think I would like to be a spider mite. One of those red spider mites. Because they come out in the sunshine and just live on brick walls and get squashed.

TLM: That appeals to you?

Skerten: Yeah, they have a nice time in the

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