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Welcome to the world of the Vincent D'Onofrio obsessed - and a bit of real life thrown in.


Wednesday, January 25, 2012

The richest man ever to visit Deptford

I was born and bred in Deptford, a very poor part of south east London. In my grandparents' day dockers worked whenever there were ships to unload, and didn't when there weren't; railwaymen built new railway lines until they were all built. The tallyman lent money till payday (what's so new about payday loans?) and unemployment was rife. The docks and surrounding area were bombed extensively during WWII, and I grew up among ruined buildings (great for playing in!) alongside the public park that had been made out of the gardens of the 17th century diarist John Evelyn's manor house...or what was left after Peter the Great of Russia had himself wheeled through the hedges in a wheelbarrow. I suppose in absolute terms, the Tsar of all the Russias might have been richer, but today Bill Gates visited Deptford Green School.


Deptford Green was the first school I taught in, and it's the school my student Alex's brother now attends. He was one of the students chosen to attend the function, so I followed the news with interest.

4 comments:

vikeau said...

That is so totally cool. Love the fact that he's giving his money away while alive.

Eliza said...

I like Bill Gates, I like his commitment to charity and his willingness to put himself out there..not many wealthy people would do the same

JoJo said...

That's really cool!!! I admit I would love to have explored those bombed out buildings w/ a metal detector though!

Bill Gates is pretty much a saint in Washington State.

val said...

You'd have had to send the metal detector back through a time warp, JoJo!

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