Teachers, good, bad or indifferent, can never know where their influence ends. Many people teach for 40 or more years: my grandfather, who was 15 and thus a very junior teacher when he started his career, was a record breaker.
After retiring at the age of 65, he became a part-time school librarian, and did not retire again until he was 70. It is obviously quite impossible to estimate how many young lives he influenced for better or for worse.
My father, also a teacher, died at 89, and my brother and I were touched to see the number of former students who came to his funeral.
I now have no idea how many students I've taught in two countries: I don't think I ever really tried to count them. I remember some, usually the high achievers and their troublesome and often troubled opposites, but most are unfortunately a blur: the human memory has its limits.
But I think I can name all the teachers I ever had: this, of course, is much easier to do. And there was more evidence of this ease today. I was in the Kalamata post office, waiting my turn and clutching a fistful of cards and letters bound for Australia, when a bearded young man asked me a question of a practical nature.
I answered, and was surprised, to say the least, when he beamed, and said in English, 'I knew it! I knew you immediately, but I wanted to check your accent in order to be absolutely sure. You taught me 20 years ago, and you haven't changed at all.' (Gallantry is not dead in the Peloponnese, it seems.)
There was no point in pretending: I had no idea who he was, so I used the passage of time and his beard as excuses, and went on to ask his name. 'Andrew. Andreas,' he said, and in that moment I saw the boy he had been. A nice teenager he was way back then, and now he is a nice man.
I wanted a brief summary of his life to date, and he obliged. He is now a lawyer, following in parental footsteps, and had spent some time studying in Essex. 'How was England?' I asked. He laughed and replied that life is quiet there (it always strikes Greeks that way), but that he had had only a 40 minute train ride to London, and that had been great.
"He brightened again, and recalled classroom days. 'You were strict, but that did us good. We appreciated it.' Perhaps in the long run, I thought, but said nothing."
But when I asked about work, Andreas' effervescence subsided. 'It's not going too well, to be frank,' he said. 'These are troubled times, and people are reluctant to consult lawyers because of the expense.' As I had once accompanied a friend to the Kalamata Court, and had decided that once was quite enough, I murmured about recourse to law involving a significant ordeal. He sighed then about too much tangled bureaucracy and not enough efficiency and organisation. And sighed again when I asked in true Greek style whether he was married. 'I don't think I can afford it,' he replied. He's probably right; in any case Greeks have never believed in the myth of two living as cheaply as one.
He brightened again, and recalled classroom days. 'You were strict,' he announced, 'but that did us good. We appreciated it.' Perhaps in the long run, I thought, but said nothing. He then ensured that I had a better place in the queue and disappeared on his own business. A few minutes later he returned, and proffered a couple of stamps. 'These should do for Australia,' he said. 'I am very grateful to you, so please take them.' Of course I did, while feeling quite overcome by this spontaneous thoughtfulness.
We said our goodbyes, exchanged wishes for a happy festive season, and parted. At this stage of life my mind resembles nothing so much as a layer-cake composed of fragments of text, and so I recalled the Wordsworth quotation first taught me by my father: it concerns that best portion of a good man's life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
But I will not soon forget Andreas' act of kindness, one that made me feel, even after all these years, that my efforts had been valued. I had received, all unexpectedly, a charming Christmas present.
Gillian Bouras is an expatriate Australian writer who has written several books, stories and articles, many of them dealing with her experiences as an Australian woman in Greece.