Yesterday was not a good day for me.

In some of the exams the students are allowed to have what we call an ‘anti seche’. This is a piece of paper of designated size where they can note information they feel that they might need during the examination. They choose the smallest writing possible, the tiniest margins and cover the paper all over. This is often for an exam on business law like yesterday. My job was to check everyone's paper, which I did. Then I came across a young man with paper which seemed rather thick. He had two papers! As the exam had not started I asked him to put the paper away and take his bag to the end of the room as usual. I still felt uneasy about this paper and kept an eye on him all through the exam. Towards the end of the exam I could see that he did indeed have the second paper under his note paper. He swore he didn’t use it and I don’t think he did but we had to make out a report. Checking his answers he hadn’t cheated. He barely answered any of the questions. I felt really rotten, but it’s important for the reputation of the school that there is no cheating in exams.

Rob and I went for our evening walk, there was a beautiful sunset reflected on the water which was really calm. When we got to the cliff we could see that something was wrong. Further down there was a car on the rocks. Our cliffs aren’t that high really, if you decided to jump you’d probably break your ankle and suffer a few bruises. A young man had decided to try to kill himself by driving off the top of the cliff. The emergency services arrived soon after we did. The tide was coming in and it was getting dark. We were stood with a few other people near to a camping car which was parked up for the night (illegally) and when a woman arrived (from the scene of the accident) another woman asked if she knew if her husband was okay. The newly arrived woman was really stroppy with her and walked off. The woman started to cry and explained that her husband had gone to help (remember the tide was coming in). I comforted her the best I could and we watched the rescuers running around trying to sort out how to get the equipment onto the beach round by the cliff. We sent the woman into her camping car and watched for a while. The husband returned and was soaked. He told us that the man had wounded his neck and was still alive. Not long after that a helicopter flew over towards the fire station (there is a helicopter pad in front of it). We walked home and I went to bed.

Olivier was on the beach at the time it happened, heard the car rev up and saw the car go over the cliff and roll over a few times. The young man had taken off his seatbelt and finished up in the back seat. Olivier told me that as the car was an Audi the body wasn’t damaged much. The helicopter came back with equipment was used to help remove the roof and then lift the man to the top. The car was pulled up from the beach this evening damaging the already fragile cliff. The rumours have started, some say the man was dead when they got him up from the car. Olivier doesn’t think so because they fit him up with a drip.

I didn’t sleep very well and it suddenly occurred to me in the small hours that my young man who was cheating could have been the man in the car. Not true of course.