Breaking Up Is Hard To Do – Part 2

So Part 1 looked at the transition from Primary to Secondary School – fast forward 5 years and 1992 brought to a close my compulsory education years.

Over those 5 years, as is the case for the vast majority of teenagers, I’d built up some incredible friendships destined to last, with both individuals and as a group alike. So much so that during our last year, we’d extended not only to simply meeting at the park or sleepovers, but  to also going out for full blown meals in Brighton. How very grown up!
The irony is that now I can't actually afford to go out as often as we used to back then!

I recall one night going for a birthday meal at the Marina for one of the girls and during the course of the evening it significantly snowed. I say significantly, it was about an inch (a man's inch), but at the time it had been years since the last snowfall, so some of us ended up walking back towards Brighton throwing snowballs from the beach, which seemed a bit surreal at the time!

Fish Dandruff

The last few months at school were fine, though for me absolutely carried a sense of impending endings – which I found a bit confusing as to how I ought to feel about it. Would I be friends with these people forever? Would I ever see them again? Did they even want to keep in touch with me anyway!?

All these considerations were set against a backdrop of imminent GCSE exams. Shamefully, I barely revised at all – mainly as no matter how hard I tried to revise, it seemed that the more I read (and re-read) my books and notes, the less confident I became. I did alright in the end though, with my best result being attaining the highest grade in German that a male had achieved to date at the school. Wunderbar!
I'm sure it’s been smashed since...

May 8th 1992 - Our last day before taking exam leave !
It was quite emotional for some, and we all dressed up for the occasion but by and large looked pretty terrible – such was early 1990’s fashion.

Many girls (and probably some boys) were seen to cry – seemingly in the misplaced belief that they would never see any of their friends ever again. Whilst the final assembly party was in swing, I joined a few of my best mates on a final tour around the deserted school to say goodbye to the ghosts. Albeit this was a little bit daft, as I was coming back to same school the following September to the in-house Sixth Form!

However that day really did feel like the definitive end of my schooling. Like my time at Primary School, I had mostly enjoyed Secondary School too. I had made the best friends and enjoyed some fantastic laughs along the way, and barring one or two notable exceptions, most of the teachers were pretty good too.

And, certainly initially, the end of school didn’t totally mean the end all friendships. Primarily with my male friends, we were together virtually every day of that prolonged summer (due to exam leave etc) – I didn’t own a bike, but I borrowed one belonging to my friend’s brother, and we cycled all over the place at all hours of the day and night just talking about everything and nothing, girls and football, school and music, starting a band, drinking, Winona Ryder etc.

I really don't care that she was once a shoplifter!

It was a hot summer and it was one of the only times in my life that I got anything like a decent tan!
Rather belatedly I also finally grew a bit taller – earlier in the year I had been a stunted five feet three, but by the time I started Sixth Form, I’d towered to all of five feet nine!

It’s fair to say though that many friendships through school association did in fact disintegrate from this time, and I guess that’s the way it is meant to be. You don’t live with your parents forever as you eventually outgrow most of what they can provide for you, and it’s the same for your school mates. By the time you get to 16, there’s less and less you have in common with them apart from the fact that you have to be in the same building as them up to that point.

My step daughter recently passed up the idea of having a big 16^th birthday party (not my fault!!) on the basis that she is very focussed and particular as to who her friends are and likes the fact that it’s a smallish group. I think that’s probably a realistic and sensible approach.

I’m in my 40^th year now, and although I don’t still have any kind of regular contact with ALL those who were in our school group of about 9 close friends, I happily communicate with those who want to still be part of my life, and know that with one or two of them, we often resume our friendship as if we’d only been at school yesterday, which is a nice state to be in.

Musical interlude time again: I've gone with the Number One for the week in May I technically left secondary school (for exam leave)

Two years later, and it really was the last year at school! I had been quite looking forward to my Sixth Form years, as I had this illusion that it would be a great last hurrah for my school days.

Lower School, turned Sixth Form, turned entirely new school now

It wasn't!

The last few months at Sixth Form were a drag and I was sadly pleased when it had all finished. I’d enjoyed some of it, and had bonded in some new friendships with people I had not known so well before, but from very early on it felt like my heart simply wasn’t in it. I had genuinely enjoyed 99% of my school years, but during the last year I just felt I’d had enough.

I got bored with the work and coupled with the fatigue I was feeling all the time (I had Glandular fever and Anaemia), I was in no right mind to want to go to university. I’m sure it probably showed in my work as towards the end of my final year, one teacher absolutely (and unnecessarily) ridiculed me in front of my classmates, which totally wiped out any confidence and drive I had left.
After that humiliation, I had classmates that I didn’t really know that well come and offer sympathies because of her attack.
Given that I train and teach people for a living now, as my teacher for several spells between 1987-1994 she really ought to have known how to get the best out of me a lot better than how she attempted. It’s unfair to say that she alone ruined my lasting memory of school for me, but she didn’t help bring the curtain down on a happy note that’s for sure.

I pushed on through though until the exams were done, and pointedly I set up the Alice Cooper classic ‘School’s Out’ to play on my walkman as I left the school and walked down Portslade High Street for the last time following my final exam.

It was time to go out and earn a living...

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do – Part 1

A fairly pivotal few months lie ahead for two of my children. My son is making the step up from Middle to High School (or in old money, Primary to Secondary), and my step daughter is imminently about to embark on GCSEs and the move to College / Sixth Form.

I can’t help cast my mind back to when I experienced the same events myself, back when every summer seemed to be a long and hot one, and my biggest concerns had absolutely nothing to do with money!

I left Primary School on July 22nd 1987, and I doubt I could have enjoyed my time there any more if I tried. The teachers were 99% tip top and the same went for my classmates. On the last day of school, my favourite teacher gave her goodbyes and put it to us that we should come back and visit the school in the future – not necessarily the next term, or even the next year, but in years to come. And I did so in 1999, 2007 and 2009, and I actually found it quite an overwhelming experience (in a good way!)

Primary School - clearly NOT in July 1987

Here's another photo I took earlier...

And as is my wont, I have to include an obligatory music gesture! For this blog it comes in the shape of the song that was Number 1 the week I left Primary School:

Whilst it was sad to leave, I didn't sense any particular feeling of loss, as every member of my class was going to the same Secondary School anyway. So come the third of September 1987, we all moved up the ladder.

Told you I had blond hair!

I personally found the step up to be immense. I think that coming from a relatively small village primary school with barely 150 students in the entire school, I was now amongst more than 150 students in just one school year. I’d gone from being the fifth oldest in my last school year, to being about the twentieth oldest in this new place. I recall getting horrendous 'flu just a few weeks into the first school term. In fact I actually felt a bit voiceless, having drifted into the mass of numbers somewhat, not that I'm an attention seeker! Much.
*cough*
No-one believes me that I'm actually painfully shy!

Looks appealing doesn't it!?

I also had a bit of a rough start as I was selected in a class with not one of my male friends from primary school, and just one female. I got on really well with her, but being rather shy (seriously!) I needed a bit more of a comfort blanket than that. Most of the class seemed to know each other and were on the whole friendly enough, though one or two were crueller than they needed to be. Thankfully I found a couple of people who went out of their way to be incredibly friendly and helpful to me. They put in so much effort to get to know me during those early days which I was incredibly grateful for. I've never forgotten that and to this day I am pleased they are still amongst my circle of friends.

In spite of their great efforts though, both me and my female friend (with all due respect to each other) were still unhappy and craved friends that we were more familiar with. With the aid of a phone call from my Dad, a meeting was instigated with our terrific head of year, and he went through all the student class lists to see what arrangements he could make to help us. Thankfully there was a supremely easy swap which suited us both. My new tutor group was great from the get-go, and some of the children I met over those early weeks became lifelong friends, although there was one guy who seemed determined to exercise his height advantage by starting to bully the children of a smaller stature – namely me. He just gave me so much grief for the first month or so, such as literally shoving me out of the way for no reason and physically trying to intimidate me at every opportunity. It came to a head when I had just had enough of it all. I challenged him to meet me on a Saturday at a local park to ‘sort it out’. I managed to get the support of many of my new classmates, as they too had got fed up with his antics.

As it happened, I didn't go to the park. Maybe it was fear and I just bottled it, but I just thought that he wouldn't show up either. Come the following Monday though I walked straight up to him in front of his mates and bluffed: “Where were you then!?”... He countered with the same. Both of us claimed to have been there, smiled to each other and left it at that, and he never gave me any aggro again!

So all in all, once the minor issues had resolved themselves, it was a relatively easy transition, and one that I reckon my son will cope with well enough. Mainly as he’s far more confident than I ever was!

In Part 2, I’ll have a look at leaving Secondary School, which is a slightly different ballpark!

Substitute Teachers

In these present days of Teaching Assistants galore, classrooms are nicely awash with support for children, but it wasn’t so long ago that only having your regular teacher in class was the norm.

That said though, a sprinkling of substitute, cover or student teachers occasionally dipped in to the mix which usually meant absolute chaos would ensue within seconds of them entering the classroom.

They were often an odd sort weren't they? Horrendous dress sense, totally incapable of maintaining any kind of decent control over the class, and seemingly prepared to accept all kinds of personal abuse from those who fancied their chances against them.

"Yes, Barry Manilow DOES know..."

In fact, none of those who taught classes I was in seemed to exude any skills of note. Perhaps they should have watched what Sidney Poitier did in To Sir With Love?

My memory is usually pretty good, but it has failed me a little for this one, as there are quite a few such specimens that I can remember by appearance, but not by name! So out of fairness, and to promote anonymity, I've opted to revert to nicknames for all of the candidates below:

Alan

Let’s start by clarifying that Alan was actually a female, and was only known to us as ‘Alan’ as she looked like the brother of one of my best mates – who was called Alan!

Alan was a student teacher assigned to teach us French in Year 11 (5^th year) during the LAST TERM before we left to take our GCSE exams. The LAST TERM! Whoever made that decision wants their head examined… at a time when we needed that final push and support before leaving school, it’s no wonder so many people got low pass marks. On the whole, she was a very forgettable teacher, but  bless her she was memorable for trying to express ‘pain’ in French, by running around the classroom feigning tummy illness – for 20 minutes.

At least I think she was faking it…

Denny

So named because I think this chap was Danish. I could've gone with other food related links to Denmark, but was advised caution against being ignorantly racist!

Poor Denny seemed to lose the class before he'd even started. Another student teacher, he was brought in to teach German and miraculously managed to survive just about one term before moving on. Bright and breezy in his introduction, some of my more ruthless classmates started tearing him a new one almost immediately. The lessons immediately crumbled into a torrent of abuse towards him, his accent, his beard, his dress wear, his lack of authority etc. No amount of him shouting and literally screaming could stop the barrage of mocking coming his way.

Towards the end of his tenure, our class was split into two, in order to help him attempt to manage / teach a smaller group – which clearly didn't help our education. During these split sessions, one of the heads of year asked me to tell her what we'd learnt, so I honestly and openly told her ‘not much’ and that it would take a miracle for the majority of the students to ever turn and warm to him.

Coming towards the end of term, we were ‘lucky’ enough to have him cover a Design Technology lesson for us. During which some students wound him up so much that he literally threw a desk at a girl who had dared to laugh at him! He then sent her in to another room and about a minute later all we could hear was screaming. Evidently he had held her in an attempt to calm her down apparently, and she had retorted with 'get your hands off of me you b******!’ before running out and home.

And to cement the growing list of incidents, shortly after the above incident he had the tyres slashed on his Citroen 2CV Dolly by a 1st year student.

Unsurprisingly he didn't return in September, and we had a brand new female teacher in his place. She was a breath of fresh air, instantly liked by all, and didn’t receive one dot of abuse.

A footnote to this story though, is that she actually knew her predecessor rather well. She ended up being one of the best teachers I ever had, but to be fair, whoever his replacement was would have been almost angelic in comparison. Long after his departure, she told me how amazed she was at the series of events as she found him to be such a nice chap!

Trusting her assessment of him, I'm sure he was probably a nice guy – he just didn't get off to a good start for whatever reason and it got diabolically worse from there on in.

Hagar – But Not Horrible

“I used to teach in London.”

A fact he often reminded us about. Possibly it was coding for ‘don’t screw with me’, but he was generally alright in the way he handled the classes. He basically used to give as good as he got, and to that end he had a fair good rapport with most students. What we ever learnt was debatable though.

He opened himself up to abuse by declaring he was a Crystal Palace fan, which was a burden for one of my Crystal Palace supporting mates (coincidentally the brother of Alan above), as every time Hagar appeared before us, he’d make a beeline for him to discuss how the football was going.

Oh and apparently he also taught John Barnes. Just in case we’d forgotten from the last 50 times he’d told us.

'Digger' Barnes - not yesterday

I think he also used to lift share with another cover teacher who I think was nicknamed Charley Farley, or Farley’s Rusks or something similar? The name Rudolph rings a bell though, but that might be due to a red nose I recall him having. It distracted from the tweed suit.

The Twins: Cunning Linguist & Watoo Watoo

And finally, a brief mention for these two student teachers who popped up at Primary School.

The Cunning Linguist wasn’t popular amongst fellow teachers and children alike. This was compounded when I heard other teachers slagging him off just after he left. The nickname is because he often used to mispronounce the name of our lovely headmaster Mr.Cunliffe (RIP) to Mr.Cunnicliffe – which as a child I found funny, and as an adult I find mildly disturbing!

And finally, Watoo Watoo was just a friendly play on the family name of the preceding nice young student teacher who at least came back and visited us again.

Think how much our children are missing out on these delights!

Do you remember the time?

So how is 2015 for you so far?

Enjoying your flying cars, Hoverboard,

Nike power lace ups and inside out jeans?

How about the Pepsi Perfect you had in the Café 80’s?

Not everything forecast in Back To The Future Part II  has come to pass (although the Nike Power Laces are on the way soon!), so whilst I’m taking February off, and replenishing my blogging juices for a proper bit of writing, I’m going to play my ‘get out’ card for this one!

I haven’t done a retro list for a while, so here are a few memory joggers for all you lovely 80’s and 90’s children!

So do you remember the time, when…

… you could watch MTV and you knew EVERY song they played?

...If Clarissa couldn't explain it all, then Sabrina might try instead 

… Comic Relief was genuinely the funniest night on TV all year?

… when Starbuck was male, and not female, and not a coffee house?

… you wouldn’t eat porridge oats, as you thought the Quaker dude was looking at you a bit funny?

… we were apparently 18 months behind the Neighbours storyline?

... virtually everyone liked Band Aid?

... Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks were the best thing on the telly on a Saturday afternoon?

... barely four football matches were televised a month?

... we only had three channels on TV?

... it took half a day to set the VCR?

… you knew what a VCR was?

... Big Brother was a relation?

... kids played in the park?

... all we had were three Star Wars films?

… female celebrities had their original lips?

... The Beano and The Dandy gave away free gifts that glowed in the dark?

... the internet cost £2.50 per hour to surf at home?

…when surfing was something only west coast Americans did?

... Saturday morning TV was for children?

... flat screen TVs were only on Star Trek?

... when 3D was red and blue? Or you’d make your own out of those plastic sun visor hats?

... F1 was competitive between more than two drivers?

... a pound coin was a note?

… school glue was a fashion accessory?

… you knew what a Squarial was?

… a Polo packet cost 7p?

… you only had sausages wrapped in bacon at Christmas?

… ‘Wannabe’ was the only song on the radio all summer?

… Lime Green ruled 1996?

… Twitter was something the birds did?

… Celebrities were genuinely talented in their profession?

… hardly anybody’s parents were divorced?

… there was a pub in every village?

 

I’ll be Back To The Blogging in March!

 Belief.Love.Spirit

XxX

Reunions

On another forum I subscribe to, there was recently a debate about whether to attend school reunions. It was a mixed bag of comments, but a definite stronger leaning towards negativity:

The negative comments:

“The same clicky groups still existed”

“Shouldn’t have gone – far too much water had passed under the bridge”

“I don't feel the need to catch up with a bunch of people I didn't really like in school”

“If I wanted to keep in contact with my friends I would have done”

“Full of people looking to boast how well they're doing and bore you with baby photos – too many hideous look at ‘me-ers’… a bit like most people's Facebook page!“

The positive comments:

“It was absolutely brilliant, people chatting like there had never been a gap”

“I felt good to see my old school friends again”

“We recounted hilarious memories and stories – I’m so glad I went”

“It was great meeting two of my oldest mates, but it didn't give me any burning desire to rekindle old friendships.”

In my experience and research, the last comment possibly sums up quite a few people’s views. ‘Yes it was good to see an old mate, but we won’t be sending Christmas cards this year and it’s likely I’ll not see them again for equally as long a time…’

One other person made the observation that the key to a successful reunion (be it school, work or otherwise) is for the participants to have actually been friends once upon a time. A reunion with those that you vaguely knew or didn’t like could quite easily be rather dull and / or awkward.

As a result of old class mates joining the Friends Reunited website around the turn of the millennium, a ten year school reunion was organised in 2002. Personally I was well up for it, so I wilfully attended.

My impression at the end of the night was that it was a roaring success as around a hundred classmates from the ‘Class of 1992’ were able to attend and I honestly didn’t see an ego in sight. Everyone was incredibly friendly to each other and any daft gripes had been rightfully left in the past.

And whilst I wouldn’t say that my school years were the very best of my life, that night proved to me that, on the whole, those years were pretty good actually.

The only disappointing aspect for me was that some of my very closest friends wouldn’t / couldn’t attend, and I really think they missed out on a great night. Maybe they would disagree!

I recall one such friend (with whom I’d maintained contact since school) stating that he wouldn’t go because – to his mind – hardly anybody liked him. The truth was that many asked after him on the night and he was incredibly well loved. Perception is a very strong emotion.

A few years later a couple of mini reunions were organised, but had very few attendees, and the 20 year anniversary came and went without anyone noticing.

My guess about the lack of enthusiasm since that terrific night in 2002, is that the social networking era we now live in has probably negated the need for such events.

Nowadays you have even greater control and choice, and near enough anyone you want to get in contact with can quite easily be found on Facebook – and likewise you can ignore a lot of people too!

People knock Facebook a lot, but it has its place. For some, it’s clearly a hub for inane gossip, drivel and bitching – but for many others it’s a genuinely powerful support mechanism. Just ask people who have gone through relationship break ups, or suffered bereavements.

I’ve connected with people on Facebook that I barely knew at school, and the kindness they showed me when I needed it was overwhelming at times, so I personally am extremely grateful for social networking, as it helped me no end.

I digress!

So is there a place for reunions still? Well possibly, but you might find the numbers diminishing in this age of when everyone knows everything about everyone.

A Reunion Party Vs Lack of Privacy.

What’s more scary for you baby?