WELSH protest-rockers the Manic Street Preachers once famously sang “libraries give us power”, celebrating the life-enhancing potential of education. David Blunkett would, no doubt, approve.
Whether he would be quite so impressed with an unlikely band of imitators who have recently sprung up from the classrooms of Lancashire, remains to be seen.
Step forward, the Manic Stressed Teachers, a group of former and present classroom practitioners who have been making light of their professional burdens to entertain enthralled audiences in pubs across the egion.
The five-piece started out performing in front of their bewildered pupils at Mount Carmel secondary school in Oswaldtwistle, where all except the singer Mandy Glover teach.
Now, carefully scheduling their gigs between marking, they play all over east Lancashire, with a repertoire of covers including pop, rock, Motown, R and B and even punk.
Bearing in mind all the initiatives raining down on schools from Mr Blunkett these days, we wonder whether they ever feel tempted to reprise that other Manics anthem: “Everything must go.”