First Day in the Rain

The Americans attach so much significance to one's passage through High School. People who've attending private schools in the UK appear to do the same. But we don't tend to give similar weight to "senior school" if you're in the comprehensive system. Now that we're getting older and a tendency for nostalgia and reminisence has started to kick in, a "favourite memory from your school days" trend is starting to emerge - perhaps aided, uniquely, by facebook. Perhaps it wouldn't have emerged without facebook and school days nostalgia would be confined to the small niche who've taken the time to join a old boys/girls society. Who knows in this facebook-dominated world.

Anyhow - my first day at senior school. It was raining.

My mum was insistent that I would walk to school - start as you mean to go on. However, S's mother had other plans - especially as it was p**sing it down. She had a green Triumph Acclaim - as did we (it was inherited after my grandfather died and was our first car with electric windows - a real sign that we had finally arrived - I was later to put a rather large dent in the back passenger door as well as burn the seat upholstery with a carelessly-discarded cigarette).

I was already "different" from the other kids in that my school blazer was from the original school outfitters in North London rather than being from the new one in the local department store - the identifying feature being a "properly" embroidered badge rather than an iron-on one.

And we walked, S and I, into school and headed straight for an undercover walkway, of which there were many linking the various school buildings together. This particular area was packed full of children waiting, in the dry, for the day to begin. And the first person that I bump into is my brother. My brother and a couple of his friends.

They were laughing at me.

I ignored them and took a left into the school building and the assembly hall.

I have little memory of the headmaster's welcoming address. All I can remember is hoping upon hope that when the class allocations were read out that I wouldn't be in 1R. We had already received word, via S's sister, that 1R would be the bottom stream - the thickos. I was a little nervous in this respect because I didn't feel that the entry exam had gone particularly well for me - it was on the same day, incidentally, as the one and only time that our home football team made it to the FA cup final . We lost. The maths had been terribly easy. The "english" exam was a fill in the gaps affair. S felt that it had gone well (and this was later proved through his being selected for the Top Class (from which he was later demoted)). The fact that for one of his answers, he'd said "Washington" where I'd said the answer was "marvelous" gave me particular cause for concern. Given the fact that I was a certified "swot", the impending sense of forthcoming injustice was becoming too much to bear.

And which class was I summoned to join?

1R.