Dear  Ms. Smalley,

My name is Bruce Middlemiss, I am a full time police officer from London in the United Kingdom and a part time photographer. I wanted to write to you for a couple of reasons.

I was recently on holiday in San Francisco with my wife and son and visited the Museum of Fine Art. Whilst there and walking around the gardens, we wanted to see the large archway structure in the middle.

We found it and were enjoying the serenity of the grounds and a bit of a relief from the hustle and bustle. All of a sudden a group of excitable young people turned up and in typical British fashion I thought “well that’s the end of the peace and quiet” and started to move on. The young people then formed into a circle and started to sing. Again in typical cynical fashion and little experience of America I shuddered at the thought I had walked into an episode of Glee.

It was at this point I realized I how wrong I was. They were amazing. Their impromptu performance was one of the most beautiful things I had heard, especially one where a young lady did a solo. I have a wide range of taste in music and my wife can sing classically and we both stood there blown away.

So you may still wonder why I have written to you. Well, I believe they may be from your school. I wasn’t able to speak to them but saw a number were wearing jackets with what I believe was your school logo and after some searching online think I am right.

Why I wanted to contact you was two-fold. Firstly, as a Police Officer, as you can, imagine, I have occasion to come a lot of young people who don’t behave. Many groups of that size with kids of that age often bring a negative experience. I was so impressed with behaviour of your students I thought it important to write to you. Even at their most excitable there was no profanity and what could be considered anti-social. Actually, and I am only 43 and remember my school days well, they made me want to go back to school and have such fun. Between their behaviour and the singing they really portrayed your school in a good light.

Secondly, I took a handful of photographs of the students as they performed and would like the school and students to be able to access them. I was going to put them in a dropbox so people could download them as they so wished. I just needed to double check I had the correct school. I have attached a couple of the shots below to help ensure they are your students.

I hope I haven’t wasted your time but I know people are very quick to highlight poor behaviour of young people and think they should be praised when the reverse happens.

Kind regards,

Bruce Middlemiss