Things I remember from school

I hated school. Absolutely, dog-gone utterly, hated it. Partly - early on - for keeping me apart from my mother, who I really was besotted with. Partly because I never really fit in. And partly because it just never really engaged me.

Flesh invited me to share my recollections. Hers are beautifully organised into triumphs and, modestly, rather more humiliations. Mine will be a rag-tag stream of consciousness. I fear there are rather more disappointments than anything else. At the moment I can think of no triumphs, but maybe some will emerge:

Jane Hollis (yes, I'm naming and shaming) falsely telling Jo Wilson that I'd disparaged her in some way, leading to much bad feeling and the end of a smiling acquaintance and what may have been a nascent friendship. (This memory is always associated with the deep end of the swimming pool. Literal or metaphorical, I don't know).

Mrs Corless being unable to disguise her dislike for me. She had a mean face, and the demeanour to match. I must have been 10. She made me sit at the front so she could keep a close eye on me.

I remember being regularly separated from friends.

OK, time to organise. There were 3 schools, then sixth form. I think I need some demarcation.

Primary school:
All I remember is Miss Missin, our violin teacher. She was tiny - tiny - and had big hair like Crystal Tipps (better links gratefully received), and she really got into the music: eyes closed and whole body trembling.

Junior/senior school 1:
This is where I was rent from friends by staff and pupils alike. By staff, because I was disorderly, talkative and distracting, and had to be separated from friends presumably to give the class some peace; by pupils, why? Dislike, jealousy, spitefulness? Who knows. Flesh (my contemporary from age 7-14) remembers me as 'a boisterous and angry child at school', which was painful when I first read it, but now makes me sad, and fearful for my baby. My fears for my child's school life are long-standing and wide-ranging, and my dislike of school and general childhood and adolescent dissatisfaction and sense of alienation are what contributed to my intention (prior to the intervention of my body clock) never to have children.

The happiest memory I have of this school is hanging out with Flesh at sports day in the third year (now ~year 9?). We went out the back way and hung out by the river, and I remember thinking she was really cool. Seven years at school together and she'd never really figured on my radar, and meeting her was quite exciting.

Oh dear, now I remember more: 'Pushing Dr S down the stairs.' This is a lie. I didn't, but he said I did, and he was the teacher. The headmistress took a dim view.

Not doing my homework for Dr S. And being smug and insolent about it.

Really not understanding matrices.

Let's move on.

Senior school 2:
Being fancied by the boys in my year and the year above when I arrived aged 14 in the 4th year (year 10).

Being ridiculed and reviled by the boys in my year and above when the novelty wore off. Specifically, being called 'scum' in the lunch queue by a particularly charming boy from the sixth form.

Writing bloody awful poetry.

Using laxatives to lose weight.

Using my lunch money to buy half-ounces of Old Holborn and smoking rollies with Jessie in town.

Mr Wade-Wright being a fantastic physics teacher, who spent loads of time with me when I just couldn't understand moments. And who bounced around pretending to be an atom. And being endearing, rather than the tit that makes him sound.

Being suspended from the school bus for a week as punishment for I don't know what.

Mr Gough being contemptuous to me as I exited an exam.

Sitting outside the deputy head's office doing O-Level exam papers in French because the French classes weren't taxing enough.

Figuring out the only way to leave at lunchtime was to sneak under the staff room window towards the gate. Then doing it, often. It was scary, not exhilarating.

Sixth form, after all that, was glorious. I met one of my best friends, K, aged 15, on a coach trip to see the Cure at Wembley, and she introduced me to all her friends. When I had to choose where to go to Sixth Form, I chose their school, which was a great, great choice. (Not necessarily academically; the abiding memory being walking out of an A-Level Psychology paper after 30 minutes because I'd revised 4 topics and only 1 had come up. I had to answer 3 questions.)

None of my memories of school prior to sixth form involve achievement of anything other than negative attention. Since my dad died this summer and my mum has cleared out his house, several school reports have turned up. In the senior schools and sixth form the more generous teachers' efforts to make positive remarks are almost palpable. But ultimately each report is littered with 'could try harder's. Ms Mooney comments on my lackadaisical attitude. Mr Hayes despairs of my apparent ignorance when he knows I know the answers. In primary school I was 'polite' and 'helpful'. I don't know what went wrong. I don't know quite when or why junior school became difficult and I became alienated. I do know that not many teachers attempted to help me. This is troublesome because not every child who is difficult or alienated at school has a supportive and cohesive family, and because not every child will turn out ok because they're clever enough (or ultimately conformist enough) to push the boundaries only so far, and to toe the line enough to make some conventional achievements that'll see them through to adult life.

God, I feel like Jerry Springer. Take care of yourselves... and each other.