Culture vulture

10th March 2006, 12:00am

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Culture vulture

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/culture-vulture-97
Monty Python and early morning rock get Pippa Dore through anything

BEST BOOK EVER

If This is a Man by Primo Levi (Abacus) is such an intrinsically honest book about the Holocaust. It shows how the victims themselves, without hair, without a name, without even the strength to remember, stop thinking of themselves as human individuals. I use it a lot in my teaching.

BEST FILM EVER

Monty Python’s Life of Brian because I went into labour with Emily, the first of my three children, watching it. It is the best of British satire, and I notice something new every time I see it.

BEST INSPIRATION

Listening to music. I’m an early riser, so around 5am I put on the earphones and start the day rocking. I go in for all sorts, but I like to start with loud 70s rock, The Who or One Live Badger, a small Welsh band that only ever made one album. In school by 6.30am, I blast out Van Morrison, then Robbie Williams, all the way down the corridor. God help anybody else who turns up before 8am. As the day goes on I like something a little calmer and uplifting: Brahms String Sextet No 1 or Durufle’s “Requiem”.

BEST RESOURCE

The Ryedale Folk Museum, in Hutton-le-Hole on the North Yorkshire Moors, and its curator Mike Benson, an ex-steelworker who is such an enthusiast and so full of ideas. We have just collaborated with the museum on a DVD about the local rural community during the Second World War.

SOMETHING TO SHARE

I hope to work with the Holocaust Educational Trust to bring Holocaust survivors into school. Racism is ever present and it is so important that children are made aware of its horrific consequences.

LOOKING FORWARD TO

Our family holiday in France. Last year we were all packed up for three weeks’ camping. Just before setting off we realised one of our daughters’

passports had run out and the whole thing had to be called off. This year we have the passports, the insurance, the tickets.

Pippa Dore, a violinist and pianist, is head of history at Malton school, a secondary in North Yorkshire. The Countryside at War DVD can be obtained from: info@ryedalefolkmuseum. co.uk. Tel 01751 417367. Interview by Elaine Williams

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