I have to admit, I experienced a conflict of emotions when I read about teachers keeping the windows open and sticking on an extra jumper to ward off Covid-19.

As I checked the article to make sure the “top scientist” making the recommendation wasn’t my mum, teenage Sarah awoke in my head. It turns out that it wasn’t my dear old ma suggesting a couple of extra layers, but Professor Susan Michie from Sage - a woman with genuine qualifications, rather than a thrifty Glaswegian with little consideration for personal comfort. 

But when Professor Michie breezily (and I use the word advisedly) went on to add, “I was brought up in Edinburgh - we had no central heating and we used to wear two or three jumpers in the winter,”  I stirred uneasily. 

“I see your Edinburgh, Sue…” I thought grimly, “…and I raise you Burgh Marsh.” 

Radiators: a perilous indulgence?

I spent the majority of my teenage years in a freezing house in north Cumbria, next to the Solway Estuary. It was bleak, not far from the place where, in 1307, Edward I gave up hammering the Scots and died out on the miserable marshland - and who can blame him?

Centuries on, in 1977, my parents chose to maintain medieval standards by shunning central heating. They believed (and still do) that central heating is to blame for the lack of moral fibre in the younger generation, and that installing radiators is a perilous indulgence. My mother once gave an involuntary and terrified shriek while visiting a relative, when a child was allowed to adjust the thermostat simply because he “was feeling cold”. 

Meanwhile, back on Hadrian’s Wall, socks, a woolly jumper - and from October onwards, gloves - were standard nightwear.

Telling children to put on another layer sounds great in theory. But, Susan, do you remember being really cold when you were a kid? Not just a bit chilly, but absolutely freezing? Do you remember watching The Waltons in a room where you could see your own breath but were unable to feel your own toes? I do - and it was bloody awful.

The volcanic discomfort of a hot flush

And then, in diametric opposition to teenage Sarah, there’s menopausal Sarah. Yes, I know we’re not being forced to rug up, but the thought - the very thought - of wearing a jumper to work makes me feel physically ill. Open those windows - yes, indeed. But a jumper? Christ no. I’d rather wrap myself in barbed wire. 

It was unfortunate that Tes illustrated the article with a picture of a jumper that, in our family, would be described as “stucky” - anyone who’s almost lost their ears while divesting themselves of an itchy knitted garment will need no further explanation. One look at that patterned knitwear brought me out in hives.

To the teachers experiencing menopausal symptoms - and, according to statistics, us 1960s-and 1970s-born lasses are keeping the profession going - the volcanic discomfort of a hot flush is all too familiar. The surge of heat, the sweat popping out of pores like pebbles, the faintness, is debilitating. 

School heating: either boiling hot or Arctic cold

I also wonder if any of these ventilation experts have been in a school lately. Professor Michie is wise enough to suggest a budget to reopen windows that have been painted shut (painted shut? What kind of sadist does that?). But does she realise that, in some schools, the heating is either boiling hot or Arctic cold? Where opening the windows actually makes the heating hotter? Where a West-facing room is icy in the morning but takes the unrelenting force of the sun not long after 2pm?

What’s that, Professor? Blinds? I’ve heard of blinds, but have you heard of an overeager blinds monitor, getting tangled in the mechanism, thus rendering the blinds inoperational until next year’s budget is released? Thought not.

Frankly, in schools, there’s no such thing as straightforward temperature regulation and uncomplicated ventilation. The hormone-driven furnaces of the middle-aged teacher versus the rapid-burning energy of the teenager is already tricky, without adding the jeopardy of corona. 

Still, I’ll let my mum know that leading experts believe that we can defeat the pandemic by opening the windows and popping on a jumper. She won’t be surprised that she was right all along,

(While you’re here - and this is nothing to do with education or The Virus - my dad has the best jumper story ever. Years ago, on a long journey up the M6, feeling chilly, my dad reached for the sweater next to him on the front seat and - while driving - put it on. Ten miles up the road, a police car slid into the lane behind him and put the blue lights on. Worrying that he wouldn’t be able to get out of the car, because the seatbelt was under the sweater and they’d realise he’d put it on while in control of a moving vehicle, he tried to wrestle his way out of it before he stopped. 

The police, aware he wasn’t responding, drew alongside him and signalled to him to wind his window down. He did.

“Pull over, sir!” they shouted.

“No officer - it’s a jumper.” he replied.

Turns out there was no need to panic: just a faulty brake light and a reminder to take a break during the course of a long drive. And perhaps - just perhaps - a warning to us all that jumpers can be dangerous.)

Sarah Ledger has been teaching English for 34 years