The happiest days of our lives?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Great post, LitThink; thank you. I support wholeheartedly your observation about the generous spirit of the young:
"while those who didn't get through congratulated me, the amount of jealousy and even bile from their parents was quite unexpected and indeed horrible. Not for the last time, I learnt that people often become less mature in adulthood."

Best Wishes.

[Lateralthinking1]

Thank you ferneyhoughgeliebte. It is a good job that I had a great education. Spelling your name was only slightly difficult. I used to stay in a place called Ferney-Voltaire. I rather liked it.

[Stillhomewardbound]

My secondary school was in many ways a lovely environment. It wa very much a 70s comprehensive ... gentle, kind, mildly encouraging, enlightened even, except for the influence of one Maurice Franks. He was in the same form as me and soon had me targeted as the class 'crawler'. Even now, an expression that fills me with horror. Simply put, I was an innocent. I had an inclination to help older people cross at the lights. Yes, I would place myself at the front of the class for no better reason than I wanted to participlate in the process; and if it looked like the teacher could do with a hand, yes, I would step in and help out. Just in the way that if my mother asked me to lay the table, I would.

Well, why wouldn't I?!

The problem for me was that I was an independent thinker. I had no need to look to my peers to work about how I should react in a given stiuation. I had matured ahead of time and that cost me.

So, this Maurice Franks had me duly and collectively stigmatised for at least four years, and only once in that time did a teacher stick up for me. My only pals were the similarly picked on boys who would join me in an apparent 'corner of the abused' in the playground.

Don't get me wrong, away from this I was able to lose myself in the world of the regular school productions where I became responsible for lighting and stage-management. This was an area where I was completely free from my tormentor and I loved every liberating moment.

Better was to come when, after 'O' levels, MF left to go to an alternative sixth form and suddenly the sun came out for me, and without doinig anything I became popular and regarded as something of a character. Literally a spell had been lifted and at the end-of-year prize day after my 'A' Levels I received the Fr.DeFelice Cup for School Spirit from Cardinal Basil Hume (actually a hero of mine).

So, why, as I approach my 50s do I not exercise the maturity I boast of and sanguinely nod my head and say, 'that's life, that's how the cookie crumbles' ... then move on.

I think that would be easy but for the fact that this treatment meted upon me was because I was homosexual, and particularly, that the perpetrator, himself a homosexual, had me in his sights as his surrogate beard from the earliest day, his screen to hide his own sexuality.

Does it really matter? After so many years? Why waste emotional energy with it now?

Well, I am not one to bear grudges. Really, I'm not, but this particular chapter rankles with me after all these years, and, time and time again, I wish for my moment of reckoning to come. That denouement when I can finally hurl my hurt at this feet and harangue him for the wrong he did me.

What then? Well, if such an occasion arose and I was face to face with my tormentor, he would, as like as not, vanish, like vapour, disappearing, before my very eyes, and my punches would find only empty air.

Try and be sanguine about that.

[Lateralthinking1]

Did he look like George Osborne?

[Mandryka]

Sorry to read about that, shb. Sounds truly horrible.

Looking back on it all, now, my childhood was probably the most stressful time of my life so far: dealing with the alienating environment of school on the one hand and my parents' disintegrating marriage on the other (and, being an only child, having no one to talk to about these things) probably did its bit toward making me the somewhat cold and reclusive person I am today. I'm not given to feeling sorry for myself and I know that others had to endure much, much worse but it seems to me that a lot of us never truly recover from our early experience of childhood/education.

[amateur51]

Sounds vile, shb - the true miracle is that you've turned out as well as you have, a tribute you shouldn't under-estimate. Bravo!

I was similarly tormented at school by a pair of thugs & they made my life very miserable for a while. i'm working through it all gradually & it's a useful process.

I read that anti-gay bullying at school is still prevalent but at least it's recognised now and there are some moves to tackle it but bullies are devious people once they're inside your head.

[Lateralthinking1]

Sorry, yes, I didn't want to sound flippant. As an only child, I sympathise. I can't begin to imagine coping with a parental divorce on my own when young. I also wonder sometimes about interpretations. I have met a lot of cold people in my time and there are many in the media. Generally, they are the very opposite of reclusive and I doubt that any would contribute regularly and openly on a social forum. I also feel that the instinct of the aforementioned Maurice can be commonly observed in many of whatever sexual orientation. The precise nature of it, and any impacts, are often defined generally as they would prefer such things to be defined. It goes with the territory. I have to say that I tend to doubt their overly self-comfortable lines.

[Mahlerei]

Mandryka is right, I don't think we ever recover from those childhood traumas. I dream about boarding school often, an endless loop of acute anxiety and isolation. Can one ever break that cycle?

[gamba]

As I have mentioned elsewhere I attended a total of three schools throughout my life & was expelled from two of them. I played truant repeatedly, spending my time in London's galleries, bookshops, concert halls, recital rooms etc.. Also exploring nearby towns & countryside on my bike or by bus, meeting all sorts of interesting people - I suppose I could claim to be largely self-educated, at least in things of interest to me. Although it did ultimately deny me appropriate paperwork required in applying to become a Spitfire pilot ! There was a war on at the time (1940). However, after a bit of 'squarebashing' & four months intensive training on aircraft engines I found myself at RAF Hawkinge near Folkestone ( Hellfire Corner ) responsible for the airworthiness of three Spitfires. We worked under trees in the woods surrounding a large field. This involved a close association with their pilots regarding a mutitude of matters regarding whether the aircraft was suitable to fly or not & without my signature on the dreaded Form 700 it did not. To this day I find it hard to believe an 18 year old lacking any proper education was shouldering such authority & responsibility. I became an adult overnight..

I simply did not enjoy school, I was loner & always have been.