I remember screaming in terror, and running - running faster than I had ever run in my life. They were close now, and I knew I only had seconds left...
"Mark, don't be silly!" yelled my mother who, being in the latter months of pregnancy, was unable to join the chase "Come here this minute!" I was still running as fast as my legs would go, heart hammering as I desperately tried to evade my pursuers. My flight was in vain, and inevitably a strong hand grabbed the hood of my little red duffel coat and lifted me off my feet. I was then carried across the tarmac playground, kicking and biting at my captors, into the huge, soot-blackened Victorian edifice that was Saint Wigbert's school for infants.
When my struggles finally ceased and my screams subsided I was put into a little yellow smock that smelled of sick.
I was four years old and this was my first day at nursery school.
Every morning I would fight tooth and nail to avoid another day of Saint Wigbert and his yellow sick-smock. I eventually won the battle of wills, and Saint Wigbert told my parents that perhaps I wasn't quite ready for school. I think the last straw had been when I'd told the nursery staff that the Police had taken my mummy away to prison.
Shortly after, the stork delivered a baby sister, and I was delighted! She was round and bald and cuddly, and she giggled a lot in that strange way babies do. I had no idea of the monster that she would become in a couple of years.
We were a very happy family.. well, almost. But I began to suspect that, in their eyes, I wasn't quite the 'little treasure' that I had once been. My constant fidgeting began to irritate everyone, and my habit of hanging upside down from the furniture would infuriate my father. I would wail and burst into tears for the slightest reason, turning my face into a wet mess of tears and snot.
And talking of snot, by this time my nose was constantly producing rivers of it. My mother had an extreme dislike of washing snotty handkerchiefs, and would provide me with a few tissues instead. These tissues would last perhaps an hour before getting soggy and disintegrating, and then I had to resort to sniffing, sleeve-wiping, and going around with a permanently green, crusty upper lip.
I soon discovered that everybody hates a kid with a snotty nose.
The day arrived when I had to go to a real school. My mother combed my hair and wiped away the snot and told me to be a good boy. Then, smartly dressed in my maroon uniform with matching cap, I set off for school. I walked along a quiet country lane, taking the footpath to the village which wound through a field of grazing cows, and through the old iron gate to the school. The cows were huge and terrifying to my eyes, but I reached the school without being eaten.
I arrived at the school to discover that I was the only one in uniform, which was something the older kids found funny. I was not the only lost and bewildered kid there, but I seemed to be more lost and bewildered than most. I was eventually found by a teacher, a fearsome looking lady called Miss Burrage, who told me to blow my nose and led me into the school.
(Warning, sad bit) I'd like to say what a popular kid I was but, unfortunately, that wasn't so. Despite Mother's best efforts I was always scruffy: my hair wouldn't stay combed, my socks wouldn't stay up, my tie wouldn't stay straight, and my shoes would be heavily scuffed within hours of being bought. Even without the crusted sleeves and the green upper lip I wasn't the sort of kid others wanted to be seen with, but my snotty nose ensured I was always the playground pariah. Anyway, even on those rare occasions when I was clean and with dry nose I didn't have the knack for making friends. I soon stopped trying, and most of the time I was embarrassed to be around other kids. My parents would tell people that I wasn't interested in friends, that I always preferred to play alone - but that wasn't strictly true. (That's the end of the sad bit)
Anyway, once I'd settled into the school routine I proved to be a fast learner and, to the disappointment of many, I soon began to leave the rest of the kids behind. Were it not for my bad behaviour and nasal bubbles I would have been a star pupil - at least for the first year.
I think it was at the beginning of the second year at school that my laziness first became apparent. On the first day back after the summer break, the class was to write an essay about what they had done during the summer. During the hour or so we were given, I managed to write:
September 2nd 1963
My Holidays
We
This, I think, was the first time I had found myself standing in front of the class with an apoplectic teacher yelling the word "Lazy!" in my face, all the time heaping ridicule upon me and my work. I, of course, just burst into floods of tears and (as usual) snot.
This was to become part of my normal school routine, and furious teachers demanding "What have I got to do to make you do some work?" would eventually be met with just a bored expression. It probably occurred to none of them that, had I known the answer to that question, I would have produced the required amount of schoolwork and saved myself an awful lot of bother.
A couple of house moves over the next few years meant having to change schools twice, but the story was to be the same at these schools too. My parents decided that the state education system clearly wasn't working for me, and that perhaps a private school would unlock my potential. And so it was decided that I would be going to a posh school where I would mix with the offspring of the 'Upper Class', and I soon found myself at an exclusive all boys school.
Perhaps, with hindsight, it was obvious that I wasn't really going to fit in at this place...
It was an elegant building which dated back to the early 1700s, had a coat-of-arms featuring a monster eating a sailing ship, and had the motto 'Confide Recte Agens' (although the school taught Latin, the motto was something I never translated. It sounded obscenely biological, whatever it was). The school also had a dirty old man who slobbered down his tie and would spit all over you if you let him try to talk to you (I think he was a person of some standing, and was referred to as the 'VP' - which I thought probably meant 'Vile Pensioner').
The other kids were all clean and somehow shiny, and were chauffeured to school in an assortment of Jaguars, Mercedes, and other expensive cars - while I caught the 451 bus from Shilton brickyard. One kid, a tall fellow called Martin, asked me my father's occupation; when said my dad worked in a factory, he broke into a smile. "What a coincidence!" he said, "My father's got a factory!"
This school excelled in sport, especially Cricket and Rugby, but I wasn't really the 'sporty' type. When the team captains where picking their teams I would be left until last, standing bored and shivering, snotty nosed and with hands shoved down my shorts for warmth - but that was fine with me, it meant that I would be put somewhere away from all the action. I did throw a cricket ball once (it landed at my feet when I was 'fielding') - I just had to pick it up and throw it to the bowler - but I threw it to the wrong end of the wicket and it hit a batsman on the head (fortunately he only got a mild concussion). Stupid game anyway.
I stayed at this school for three or four years, long enough to develop a posh accent of my own - but otherwise the story of laziness and bad behaviour was pretty much the same as before (except for the part where, instead of getting yelled at by an irate teacher you'd get beaten across the backside with a stick).
I was twelve when my parents finally accepted that they were wasting their money, and decided to return me to state funded education.
To be continued...
