For those of you who have read Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank and Ernestine Gilbreth this posting may come as no revelation nor surprise. (I notice that nowadays it's by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey but it weren't when I read it as a lad - sorry that has to be said with a Lancashire accent) I've not seen the film but I doubt this bit made the celluloid.
Frank Bunker Gilbreth Sr (July 7, 1868 - June 14, 1924) was an early advocate of scientific management and a pioneer of motion study, but is perhaps best known as the father and central figure of Cheaper by the Dozen.
Anyway, I digress. One of the things FBG Sr advocated was not wasing the time spent in the bathroom. He put things to be learned by the children on the back of the bathroom door. Many years before I read the book - in fact when I were a lad - I used to take my Schoolboys Pocket Book to the bathroom with me and read all the interesting goodies it contained. One of these was the Greek alphabet. I learned it by rote before I left prep school. At that stage I had no idea that all these years later it would serve me in such good stead. "For what?" you may well ask. For doing cross-words.
Now didn't you just want to know all that?
