A handful of pills

I think my parents were quietly worried about me - especially in these early days.  If I discovered that my son had (happily, blythely) spent the majority of a day trip to Bologne on his own I, too, would have been worried for a variety of reasons.  They called my form teacher with concerns (as ever, handled clumsily by all concerned) and expressed sentiments of confidence when they spotted me happily dancing with someone at a school event (let's be clear - it was pensioners day - at which my parents were on St John's duty - wrong on so many levels). I once, too, overheard them asking each other what they thought was wrong with me (I sneaked off after hearing this - I was indeed in quite a funk at the time - but it was because I'd been musing, generally, at the time, on the theme of death as well as on my, as I saw it, future inability to afford a house of my own on my current savings position, even including future interest!).

I guess, on reflection, they did have cause for concern.  I was clearly not over-run with friends and my run-ins with school bullies had been noted and documented.  Indeed, I'd suffered a black eye in return for fraternising with the "wrong" girl in the class, I'd been pushed over a variety of times and I clearly enjoyed (if that's the right word) the company of some girls a few years my senior who would hang out by the music block prior to band practice rather than kids my own age.  And even though, on the surface, I was handling it all with my usual aloof stoicism, I'd spent a number of evenings wanting it all to end, by whatever means necessary, and had even spent one particular evening sitting on the bathroom floor with a handful of pills in my hand  wondering whether taking them all was a solution of some shape or form.

I guess the advantage that I had was that I knew, deep down, that it does, indeed, get better.  Even though I would say that I was lost and that things would never be the same again, I guess I knew that things always change, you always end up finding your way and that optimism is always better than the alternative.

Deep down, I guess that's what I knew.

Girlfriends

My first (not, in fact, only) girlfriend was around the age of 13-14.  I'd had someone who I'd held hands with momentarily, prior to that (prompting a great deal of soul-searching with my brother as to whether I should tell our parents or not), but E was most definitely a girl friend and we are best described as "on and off" for a number of years.  Indeed, the first time that we were "off", I didn't realise in the slightest until a number of members of our year came up to me and told me that they'd heard that we'd broken up and that I'd treated her terribly.  Indeed, the Number One School Bully in our year (there were numbers 2-9, all of whom were accolytes of his, some of whom are in prison, hospital or working in timber yards now) took it upon himself to give me a good menacing on the subject (he's also memorable in that he "offered me out" once on the basis that he was the "hardest of the hards" and I was the "hard of the stiffs" in my view, or so he thought - more on that, perhaps, another day).


And I really did try!  Our first kiss (with E not Number One Bully)(and I'm starting to think that it was our only one) was by the side of a dual carriageway, walking back to her house with a couple of other friends, from the railway station.  My overriding memory is of an overly soft wetness that I couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

The ups and downs of my relationship with E, either as friends or as boy/girlfriends, was the catalyst, some times, to whether I had any friends at all.  Indeed, she held such sway over the small group of acquaintances that I had that people would, indeed, decide whether they would or could talk to me on the strength of her say-so.

It was with E that I sat in the back row of the cinema (Freddy Krueger movies during the daytime) furtively fumbling.  It was E who famously touched me up in the front row of the balcony of Les Miz.  It was E who gave me a very fruity pair of briefs with hearts all over them.  We're still friends today - we've not talked about our past for some time.

Chase Me!

So - it turns out that 1R wasn't, in fact, the bottom class - it was one of the two that were second from the top. The form teacher was a kindly woodwork teacher, close to retirement, with very exacting standards when it comes to the conduct that he expects in that first twenty minutes of the day. He kept someone behind once for answering "Oui" to the register, rather than "Yes".

I had, on reflection, quite a schizophrenic first couple of years. I was incredibly studious in class and, in the break times, I went to the strangest lengths to blow off steam. I'd taunt kids who were significantly older than me (some of whom were contemporaries of my brother - which can't have helped his case at all) and, for want of a better phrase, get them to "chase me". There's an irony here in that it made me a friend in TB - someone who wouldn't have been seen dead sitting next to me in class but who would approach me in break times and ask if I wanted to "get a chase".

I was top of the class in everything. Apart from PE and Home Economics/Technical Studies (we were the first year where boys and girls both had to do both - the boys would burn their scrambled egg on toast and the girls would get their fathers to produce intricate drawings of ballpoint pens). Further down the line it transpired that there was some debate about whether to move me into the top class in the year but the idea was ruled out in that I was "making friends" in 1R.... Kids don't exactly warm to other kids who are top of the class in everything. Indeed, the crazy Czech chemistry teacher ("are we having a smashing time?") berated the class mercilessly for groaning at the announcement of another high-scoring test result - "why you GROAN! you should RESPECT!".

I took my school report home once and showed it to my Mum who was having her hair cut in a neighbour's kitchen (the neighbour had the same name as my Mum and a similar taste in swirly carpets - their similarities ended when it came to smoking and divorce). "Look at all those Ones" my Mum said (referring to my position in the class). The hairdressing neighbour just rolled her eyes and groaned.

CB was a girl who I fought endlessly for my top slot with. She left, unfortunately, after the first year. My father was quite keen on her - I remember him laughing when she referred to me as her "number one rival".

I also remember a game of Kiss Chase (did we really play that at that age?) at Hatfield House where I was chasing her - a caught her and lived up to the name of the game - something that ellicited the response from CB - "blimey - I didn't think you had it in you!".