Mark Dunn

This Thursday i’m giving at talk at Bourne Community College – to the senior english class – on Keats and the Eve of St Agnes poem.

Keats was a genius. In a very short life (he died of TB at the age of 25) he wrote poems which have changed the way civilised people think.

He wrote the St Agnes Eve poem when his was staying in Chichester, in January 1819.

He walked over to Stansted Park, and I think a visit to the Church there, was a big influence over the poem.

It must have been cold…

Ah Bitter Chill it was !
The owl for all his feathers was a-cold,
The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass….

In the four years since the Bourne community last elected me to The County Council I have made the continuing improvement in local West Sussex schools and colleges my major interest.

As the WSCC ‘Cabinet Member’ for Children and Young People’s Services, until April 2008 – when I was elected Chairman of the County Council – I was privileged to lead a team which secured over £150 million of new funding for building schools in West Sussex. (Working on this was the most satisfying job I’ve ever had!)

In The Bourne we are blessed with a really outstanding Community College, which is at the centre of a group of first class primary and infant schools. Their plans for further improvement are near and dear to my heart.

There is a special case to be made for the Primary School serving Thorney Island and the military base. This school needs more space and invstment to serve the growing number of children. I am speaking up for it and will go on doing so.

Teachers, Governors and Parents – not to mention the children themselves – will find me always ready to listen help and advise. ( I have fourteen grandchildren, so there’s no risk of me going to sleep on the job !)