A Room Of One's Own – the thin end of the staff room wedge
On the rare occasions I ever had cause to knock on the staff room door as the timid little chap I was back in the early 80s, a disgruntled teacher would throw it open, grumble about being disturbed, and demand what it was I had the temerity to be asking. It was a place of place mystery and unguessable wonder: what went on in there was essentially unknowable and dreadful. Even in the furtive fleeting snatches I had through the thick, yellow clouds of billowing smoke, you could see the place was packed: a humming sanctuary where teachers went to plot and laugh and moan. [...]