Adrian Magson
BEGINNERS
Back in the dim mists of time, when Twitter was a bird sound and Facebook was two separate and unrelated words, I first heard the expression ‘show don’t tell’. I had no idea what it meant, nor can I recall where I saw it or heard it first, but I know it wasn’t Mr Hall, my fearsome English teacher. He was more of the ‘work don’t talk’ school, followed by a faded dap scything across the room to signal a full stop to subversive chatter. (This was back when hurling a dap – an old gym shoe to the trainer generation – was, if not approved as a form of exerting control, at least better than being on the receiving end of a blackboard rubber, which was made partly of wood.)