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The Tea Maker
It may be out for summer but for those who attended before the holidays, they have to go back again. And for those who are just starting out, their miseries are only beginning. I feel sorry for the children, especially those who are just about to begin serving their time. I know that some of these five year olds will probably be relishing the fact that they are off to primary school but this enthusiasm will soon wear off. It did with me.
Right from Day 1, I hated school. I couldn’t read, I couldn’t write and for some weird reason, they wouldn’t let me talk. Worst of all, I couldn’t wander and explore anymore. I couldn’t even see through the classroom windows because of my height. My days of freedom were gone. Life as I knew it was over and I was only five.
Think about your own life at school. Apart from your first term at school, did you ever come rushing home, throw your arms around a parent’s neck and loving announce, “Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for send me off to school every day. I love it. I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing. Every subject is more exciting than the last and every teacher is more interesting than the next.” Did you fuck.
She killed me
If you were anything like me, and I’ll bet you were, it was all boring shit and you couldn’t wait to get home. My school was two miles from my house and I ran all the way, put on my normal clothes on, went off on my own and vowed never to return to school again, ever.
Next day I hid in the big hall cupboard but my mum found me and dragged me through the neighbourhood and in through the school gates. She gave me a lecture about everyone having to go to school, that it was good for me, that I would enjoy it and, if I didn’t do a full day, she’d fucken kill me. I had no choice but to listen to her. She was my mother, she was bigger than me and she had killed me before, so I knew she wasn’t kidding.
She left me standing there in the playground with the big iron gates wide open. I was home about two minutes after her and, always one to keep her word, she killed me.
The next day my mother was not in the best of moods and the way she glared at me suggested that it was something to do with me. I kept my mouth shut and we set off for school with her hand firmly clasped on my wrist. My mother was tall and I was short so my arm was sticking straight up in the air as we made our way through the streets. Even when she stopped to speak with people, her grip was relentless.
Killed again
She waited with me until the school bell rang and even accompanied me into the school and straight to my desk. When I say she ‘accompanied me’, what I mean is that she had me by the scruff of the neck and, with my toes struggling to reach the ground, she propelled me forward at warp speed until I collided with my desk. She then dumped me there like a bag of rubbish. She spoke to my teacher, Mrs Bilsland, and the two of them glared at me. Then my mother left with one final look that said “Don’t you dare move from that seat.”
I was sitting on the back steps by the time she got home. Then she killed me again.
The great escape
School life remained like this for years, with them trying to get me there and keep me there, and me trying to devise ways of escaping. It wasn’t that difficult. I would just ask if I could go to the toilet and keep walking. I was homeward bound in no time.
My school was straight from a Dickens novel. It was an old, grey sandstone building on two floors, with all the classrooms arranged around a central atrium. The walls were green porcelain tiles up to a height of four feet, with the walls above painted in a dirty looking cream colour. The classrooms had a blackboard and a teacher’s desk and chair, which faced onto four rows of double desks, all of which had lids so that we could store books, sweets and slings inside. The seats were held in place by bolts so there was no way to get comfortable. They were basically just blocks of wood and everything was varnished dark brown.
We couldn’t see outside because the windows were too high. Double glazing was unheard of (well, I hadn’t heard of it) and the ceilings were thirty feet above our heads. Even with the radiators on it was freezing, except in summer of course.
San Quentin
The playground was similar to an exercise yard in any high security prison. The whole place was surrounded by ten feet high iron railings with spikes on top and, when classes began, the gates were closed. This was the environment I dedicated my young years to breaking out of.
Every day we got a free bottle of milk, in actual glass bottles. None of that carton nonsense. This was the real thing. They each held one-third of a pint and, had I stuck in at maths, I would be able to convert that into millilitres for you. Every day, someone would deliver the crates of milk to the school and they would leave them outside in the exercise yard, in the sun, until they were curdled. I loved it.
Punishment invariably meant one of three things. I would be made to write something like, “I must not talk in class, even though I’m bored out of my fucking skull” one hundred times and this had to be done overnight, at home, in my best writing.
For instant punishment, based on sheer embarrassment, I’d be made to stand in the corner, facing the wall at the front of the class. I can still see that wall. It had vertical tongue-and-groove panels about four inches wide and painted pale green. The panelling came up from the floor and stopped at the standard government height of four feet. Above that was where the dirty cream paint had been applied to the bare plaster walls. I got to know that corner pretty well and if I crossed my eyes, I could make out patterns and faces in the paintwork. With a little imagination I could be off on adventures all over the world by just standing there cross-eyed for a couple of hours.
The Belt
In later years, i.e. when I was about seven, I was introduced to the tawse.
This was a thick leather strap that was split along its length at the business end and commonly referred to as The Belt. The ‘business’, of course, was acute physical pain. I would hold my hands out, one on top of the other with the palms facing up. The teacher would take his or her tawse, swing it over his or her shoulder and bring it down across my hands at high velocity and with varying degrees of brutality, which I think was determined by a combination of the seriousness of my felony and the teacher’s psychiatric profile.
Nowadays, when I hear teachers complaining about how much time they spend marking, I think back to how much time they spent marking me.
Best days of your life
So, may I wish all the five year olds in Dorset the best of luck in their new lives at primary school. In years to come people will tell you that these are the best and happiest days of your life. These people are called fucken liars.
What were your school days like?
Good? Bad? Or would you rather forget them completely?
The Tea Maker
PS: You can comment on this story by emailing me at [email protected] and I’ll respond to your emails in next week’s column. Your email address will never be published.
