...Perhaps you've forgotten that you've pm'ed me under
both names?
Oh dear, still no evidence at all presented to back up your allegation that I am/was Louise...
Count yourself fortunate that you have given Nick so very little on which to base his fantasies!
In my case, he knows a great deal, because years ago, I told him things. I didn't realise then that he would elaborate on what I'd told him to create such poisonous fictions.
No one else is interested in your past pecadilloes, Jean.
Other people may well not be, and I'm sure they're not tempted to believe the story Nick's invented. But just to make quite sure, with everyone's permission, I'll devote some time to examining the way he has structured these fictions.
A little more here about how he claims to have found out about my having been 'sacked for misconduct':
Note in passing how what started out on this thread as an official-sounding
report:
I had... a report from one of your employers.
has been downgraded to mere
conversation of a very passing kind.Note too what's missing.
Crucially, the name of the local authority whose Chief Education Officer (presumably) was leaving. Then, the status of the individual who chose to 'gossip' with their 'designated chauffeur' about a previous employee of the authority. Or did the chauffeur merely hear a couple of council officers talking to each other in the back of his car, and chip in with something like 'I know who you're talking about!'? And did they then say 'How amazing! What a coincidence!' and open up to him with all kinds of interesting detail?
Is that very likely?
But let's look at what he
does know about me (because I told him). He uses some facts to lend credence to the 'passing gossip' which he claims as the source of the lies:
Note how, in
suggesting my name rather than revealing it, he can (he hopes) lead the reader to believe that he
could tell you more than he chooses to - if in respect of
this information (he thinks you'll think), why not also of the other stuff he merely hints at?
But he
does know my second name. He knows because I told him. He knows my address too - I'm beginning to wonder if I should worry about that.
Completely untrue, even if we knew what the hinted-at 'predilections' were supposed to be.
Not sure what this has to do with anything, except Nick's visceral hatred of the whole idea of public sector pensions, but not true in any case.
I thought long and hard about leaving my job teaching Latin, a job I enjoyed and did well (whether it was
worth doing is another question entirely, and not one we're concerned with here). I had been doing it for a long time, and I just thought I would like a real change, specifically to live in Italy for a while. The obvious way of doing that was to teach English (I rejected the idea of travelling round selling guide books). Friends and colleagues urged me to take a sabbatical, but once I'd decided to go, I knew I didn't want to have to go back. It was the right decision, and I never regretted it.
There's plenty about my time in Italy
here, but it doesn't fit Nick's chosen narrative, so he expunges it from the record.
I was teaching in a private language school in a small town close to Venice. It was an idyllic environment. But after three years, I decided that if I wished to take this career move further, I should get some more qualifications, and besides, I had made good friends in Italy who I could continue to visit (as I still do, regularly). So I came back to the UK and completed an MA in Applied Linguistics (Liverpool University, 1993-4. Should I have revealed that? What can he do with it, I wonder?)
Not quite. Having a higher degree meant I could get a job in a university, teaching not only 'Practical English' (for which I would only have needed basic qualifications) but content subjects too, in my case Linguistics and what they called Historical Grammar - the history of the language.
I'd be the first to admit that the Polish town I lived in was not as seductive as Venice, but I loved the job and would have stayed for longer but that my mother began to suffer from dementia and I had no choice but to come back and care for her. Thus I found myself
But again, not quite; I was back in the public sector, teaching a course run jointly by the local authority and the university medical dept., aimed at the refugee doctors who'd been sent to Liverpool and who needed to reach Level 7 in IELTS (I think it was) as well as pass their PLAB exams in order to practise here.
Just one more small point.
I wasn't very 'lucky' if the 'union protection' I enjoyed didn't manage to save me from being sacked, was I?