It's another sign of getting older - counting the years that have passed since you left school. It's more than thirty years for me now but I can still recall it as if it were yesterday.
I've been thinking about my school day lately as I've been in touch recently with an old school friend. Like me, Colleen remembers some of the old school trips and some of the things we used to get up to. However, her view that school days are the happiest of your life is not something I share.
I didn't particularly enjoy school. In fact I detested primary school and the nightmare that was school dinners. Truly awful, quite inedible gunge that was passed as food was, at times, quite sickening. Literally so, as the Commandant who was the teacher in charge of the school meals hut forced every child to eat what was on their plate. It was so awful, some of us used to smuggle out items of food in handkerchiefs so we could show the old battle axe our plate was empty. For nine year old children, this was quite traumatic.
Secondary school was a bit better - but then the work was harder! I fell through, what I call, the fourteen year old trapdoor. The first two years at secondary school were fine. But then, at fourteen years of age, I discovered girls. At the same time, punk rock was coming to the fore. With both these major events in my life happening, my school work never stood a chance. From 1976 to 1978 I lost interest in working at school and concentrated my efforts on other things.
I left school on 31 May 1978 with just four 'O' levels. I started work, in a furniture store, four days later. A dead end job which I hated. But I soon got another job and learned more away from school than I ever did at it. I tried to warn my two daughters about the perils of falling through the fourteen year old trapdoor. Laura ignored me and fell into the same abyss which I suspect she regrets now, even though she has two wonderful children of her own and is busy working part-time. But at just twenty-two she could have had so much more career-wise. Michaela did listen and has done well for herself. She still left school at sixteen but she has a decent job, her own car and until last year her own flat. Her ambition, I'm delighted to say, still burns brightly.
Of course, school days three decades ago were much different. We had to wear school uniform for a start. And there was corporal punishment for those who misbehaved. Six of the best from the maths teacher was one way of teaching you how to add up! And there were no computers in schools in the 1970s - certainly not the one I attended.
The best days of your life? Sadly, not for me. School taught me nothing about what to expect in the big wide world. They say what you do at school can shape the rest of your life. But, for me, women, relationships, music and football were far greater influences.
If the lovely Colleen reads this, she may know exactly what I mean....
3 comments:
Just a few weeks ago I met up with an old friend in Edinburgh. He and I were best of friends back in my Primary school days when I lived in the Highlands. I hadn't seen him since I was 11 and it was great catching up with him. We used to run around the moors together.. fun times. I wasnt so keen on secondary school for many reasons.
Yes, I had a friend from High School that recently found me on Facebook. I kept getting e-mails of "Remember when..." she kept saying how nothing was as great as HighSchool. UGH. I was the same way Mike, I was a terrible student, I wanted to live life and have fun and not be stuck in a classroom. That is when I also turned to punk rock just to rebel and be different from all the "cookie cutter" kids that all wanted to be the same and not be an individual. I was well liked but I never felt like I fit in with anyone, it was a very sad and lonely time for me. I'd say my 40s are now becomming the best years of my life. I am sure of myself, have confidence, know what I want in life and I don't take crap from anyone any more. God, I would never want to be 15 or 16 again...
hey there Mike. My school days certainly weren't the best days of my life but having you as a mate certainly made them more bearable.
We went to Linksfield Academy in Aberdeen as you know or at least I hope you can remember that far back. Like you, first and second year weren't so bad. But it was probably at the beginning of second year I felt it all starting to colapse around me. I was quite clever at primary school and not too bad in first year (although I was inexplicably put in a remedial class for arithmetic which I still tut about to this day), but I soon realised that French was becoming double Dutch and the sciences were a bit more than making smells over a bunsen burner. And, round about the time you were discovering women, the bullies of the school seemed to have stumbled upon the fact that I was a "poof" as they so pleasantly put it.
Obviously, some of what that rabble of polytechnic degree'd, second rate arsewipes we called "Sir" or "Miss" taught us must have lodged in my brain as I can string a sentence together and change a lightbulb (although not both at the same time - I'm not a girl). But, what I remember most was making a hero out of Fred Dinanage and drawing pictures in my maths jotter of the continuity announcer on (the sadly missed) Grampian TV who spoke ou oft the side of his mouth and wished you a ginger peachy goodnight when television went to sleep through the night. I remember never taking gym as I hated being the last person picked and being caught out cheating cross country by running over the Broad Hill then walking home for a little rest. I remember discovering Abba, Donna Summer and Boney M then finding out years later that my record collection could be found in every gay club in Britain. I remember Mr Black trying to get us to climb down Arthur's Seat on a trip to Edinburgh which would have surely killed us and I haven't forgotten that we started a rather dodgy campaign to get Councillor George Keith re-elected in Tillydrone. Finally, I remember the moment I realized Graham Baxter didnt actually like me very much at all when I was transferred through to Mrs Lennie's maths class mid term and I saw him roll his eyes. Oh! And I've just remembered having to leave school two weeks early after snogging Caroline Flett's little sister at a school disco and was to embarrassed to come back.
Maybe they were "some of" the best days of our lives but not in the way the old saying means. I have had better days but I've had a hellova lot worse.
Gary Adams
4A
PS: Typed this up on my iTouch and it has a weird spellcheck on it so apologies for any mistakes or oddities.
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