In Praise of Alastair Sim

There is, I confess, little pressing need to post this clip from The Happiest Days of Your Life beyond the fact that a) it is always good to see Alastair Sim in action and b) this thought was triggered by this, entirely unrelated, story* in the Scotsman which quotes the head of Universities Scotland – a chap named Alastair Sim.

The Happiest Days of Your Life, you will recall, is a splendid caper during which the exigencies of wartime demand a girls’ school be sequestered at a boys’ boarding school. Alastair Sim is the much put-upon headmaster and Margaret Rutherford the splendid headmistress. As always, Sim is the real star however.

I should declare a minor interest: Frank Launder, who wrote and directed the movie, was the grandfather of one of my best school-chums and great-grandfather of my godson.

*A story, incidentally, which reports that two-thirds of Scottish voters think students should pay what is coyly termed a “graduate contribution” towards the cost of their education.