Go on, have a good cry

As I said, I was terrible at football. Indeed, I was terrible at all sports.

A direct result, I feel, was that there were many times when I was subjected to significant isolation. Sport is about being part of a team or a group. Not liking sport can result, perhaps, in the opposite.

Not that I remember this as being particularly painful but I'm sure it was the case. And besides, being isolated and alone at school can be about more than just not liking sports.

I would usually find my place in the order of things though. Sometimes it would be as a referee of a football game (until I sent one too many people off). Sometimes it would be just me and the new girl, sitting under the massive tree in the school field on the edge of the football pitch, swearing like sailors. On other occasions it would be just me and the psycho kid from nursery playing epic Star Wars-like adventures in the wasteland behind my parent's house (now a housing estate). Or it would be when every kid in the class came out from having their lunch and asked me what I was playing and whether they could join in. "We're playing at keeping order on the playground - your position is over there - keep order!" came the answer. That particular game didn't last very long.

Does an almost encyclopeadic memory of these sorts of childhood events constitute "dwelling unhealthily on the past"?

Crying, knee deep in "sinking mud", terrified as to what it reaching my neck would involve. Watching "the snoggers" in the local park. Making elaborate mazes in the long grass in the aforementioned wasteland. Watching the wasteland being dug up and seeing the first new residents move in. The fact that one of the new arrivals was a kid my age who was occasionally prone to wearing mesh, see-through black tee-shirts. See a kid gluesniffing down by the stormdrain in the park. Scaring some girls in the small woodland next to the stormdrain by whispering their names from up a tree. Losing the cat and looking in the woodland for her. The cat coming back. The Mayor coming to school and asking us if any of us were in the cubs. We were all in the scouts by then. Playing "The Entertainer" in the school hall whilst two of the girls from my class acted out a chattering mime to the music. One of them's dead now. Standing on a podium after having sung "away in a manger" as a solo for the second time, waiting for the applause that I was assured was going to come and didn't. Every birthday being marked by spanks from a metre rule, over the teacher's lap. Mrs R crying with laughter at the image of Charlotte trying to spin her web. Telling on SM for sniffing a PrittStick. My brother crying at the thought of having to deliver free papers to a road with lots of dogs. Country Dancing. Being good at Country Dancing. Sledging. Running as fast as I could. Running away from the kids half way down the street who wanted a "toll" to pass - the penalty for non-payment being a stone thrown at your back as you cycled away. Falling off SB's bike outside my house and my mum asking if I'd damaged the bike. Falling off my own bike and needing stitches. Not wanting (screaming that I didn't want to) to go to get the stitches done. Having ringworm. For ages. The cat nearly getting put down for "giving" me ringworm. My brother catching it too but a more common version. Mine was special. Never really believing in Santa. Or the toothfairy. Water fights in the street. Stick Insects. Being obsessed, for a limited period, about how old I was going to be when my parents died. Being obsessed, for a limited period, about the fact that my limited savings of £102 were never going to be enough to buy a house of my own. Spanking the cat. Spanking the monkey. A lot. Being disappointed at the inconvenience of something "resulting". Tickles. Debaggings. Iced Buns after Dad got home from golf. Chicken in a Basket at the golf club. The magician at the golf club. The smell of the golf club. Scary Mr T. Scary Mrs B. The particularly scary dinner lady.

When it was all over, on my last day at junior school, with so many more exciting and scary things ahead, with my pink school progress book sitting in my lap - finally in my possession for good - I felt sad. I felt as if something was lost that would never be gotten back.

"Go on, have a good cry" said my Mum.

Swot

Swot and Softy. The two words that I remember being associated with me - pre 11 years old.

School work did come easy to me - there's no doubt. From the age of 5-7 I was put on a class table that needed little attention from the teacher - indeed it was out of sight. I would get my work done in no time at all and spend the rest of the period in question acting out these fantastically detailed imaginations where my friend and I were child spaceheroes who had mechanical bird assistants called Quiet Wings.

At the end of Junior School, aged 11 therefore, I remember the teacher taking pains to remind us all that at our next schools we wouldn't be the brightest, the fastest, the best at football. Eyes turned to me - which I thought was unfair - I was terrible at football.

There's no doubt either that I was a softy. I hated conflict (I still do) and the closest I got to a fight was what could only be described as a "face off" with another kid - the stress of the instance shook me up so badly that I had to go home.

I was still confident however. I didn't care about being in this group or that group. I did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. The digs that were taken at me ("he's got pidgeon feet", "he's got the wrong bag/coat") were easy to brush off and my relative dearth of friends, every now and then, I don't remember bothering me. It did bother the teachers it seemed - I was shoe-horned into the second eleven football team (a disaster for all concerned) as well as the chess team (ditto). Such tribulations I, more or less, took in my stride - the kids didn't hate me, they didn't much like me in their droves either.

The parents' role is always interesting in the name-calling/labelling debate. "You don't want to be a softy like him" I recall a mother telling her kid, about me. Her son's, at the moment, unemployed and onto his second marriage. She must be so proud.

Trouble

I still think about the first times that I got into trouble - either at school or at home. I wonder why this is? Is it about not wanting to be criticised or is it just about wanting to be good and to do well??

Kids clearly thought of me as someone who didn't tend to get into trouble - because I can remember the startled reactions from when I did. I was told off in assembly once by the fearsome headmistress (I think I was talking when I shouldn't have been) and the joy that this provoked in a certain individual who was always getting ticked off by teachers still rings in my ears. Even though I would dress my naughtiness up (as I do now) with a smile and a dose of charm, I would still get told, every now and then, that I was stepping over the line. Indeed, a school report at the age of 10 warned against the dangers of over-confidence and arrogance. Not knowing what either term meant, my brother happily filled me in - "it means you're a cocky little squirt". I was so upset that I was told that I could rent a video of my choice for the evening. I chose the film "Fame".

I remember being given an enormous telling off for stealing an After Eight Mint. And I remember, most notably, being smacked for upsetting my brother. He was struggling through a piece of music - I think it was a depiction, for piano, of Robin Hood and his Merry Men - and I commented to the room that I thought it interesting that he was still working on this piece after quite some time. Little did I know, that the struggle next door was causing him significant pain and anxiety and my comment pushed him over the edge with the shout - "we can't all be f**king Liberace"! A smack and a slap I got for that.

Swiftnick and other prepubescent pervs

I am almost entirely sure that the first indication that I was "different" (although I didn't identify those feelings as "different" then) was my unshakeable attraction to Swiftnick from the Adventures of Dick Turpin.

I know.

I can remember one particular image from the children's novelisation that I would go back to again and again. It was a line-drawn illustration of Swiftnick - he'd been captured and was being questioned by some Sherriff of Nottingham-type figure. He was viewed, in the majority, from behind and he was, notably, stripped to the waist. His blond, curly hair was tied in a pony tail with some bow-tied black ribbon.

I have looked and looked for this book, in later life, but to no avail.

Thirty-odd years later I can still recall this picture and I can still recall going back to it time and time again. I'm sure, at the time, I didn't know why I was going back to it but there was clearly something about his back. His strong, muscular back.....

There was, in fact, something about homo-erotic imagery and imaginings, in general, that kept me coming back again and again. On many a night I would go to sleep, having this lengthy elaborate fantasy about being at some sort of futuristic boarding school where everyone arrived and was told to take off all their clothes. We were stood in cubicles - all of which faced the same way - towards a stage at the front where there was, perhaps, a hologrammed head, giving orders. The head would then order us to put on a type of loincloth worn by red indians.

Well - some people count sheep....

I even wrote all this up in a school project (this is all pre-11 by the way!) complete with illustrations.

What must the teacher have thought! Well, I'm sure there were other signs.