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,