beginning a jail term for a crime he didn’t commit. I wasn’t looking for trouble. I faced the right direction in class, and when lunchtime came made my escape to the nearby town centre where I would walk up John Street, buy a Daily Mirror at the newsagent and then sit in Sidoli’s Café and have lunch. This consisted of sausage and chips followed by a glass of milk and a Kit Kat, my confectionery safety blanket. I would arrive home at the end of the school day and look forward to night-time and the warm secure feeling of lying in my bed, watching the numbers on the Groundhog Day -style digital alarm clock flap over to ten o’clock and the sound of John Peel lulling me off to sleep by the time his third record had begun.
I like Elvis.
After this first week spent not knowing a soul, and struggling to take in the scale of my new environment, I trudged home one day to find Mum in the garden.
She asked me how it was going.
I replied, a tad overdramatically it now seems, ‘I’m the loneliest boy in the world …’ I might even have allowed my lower lip to tremble.
This must have been heartbreaking for Mum, but she didn’t let it show, instead promising that if I felt the same way at the end of the term I could return to Swansea.
The lessons at Porthcawl were more difficult than they’d been at Dumbarton, where the classes were smaller and the teachers were able – in theory, at least (and often in practice) – to give more attention to individuals. It was annoying that the O level curriculum in several of my subjects was different to what I’d been studying at Dumbarton. This meant being handed piles of work to catch up with, and so it was decided that I would be given the work of Marie Claire Pearman, a model pupil. She kindly handed over her files and I took them home, the idea being that I would copy them and soon be up to speed with the rest of the school. It didn’t quite work like that, although the fact that I had been given the books of a girl with as dreamily romantic a name as Marie Claire was a great source of amusement to Mum, Dad and Pete, who delighted in imagining the romantic possibilities in such an arrangement.
I can’t pretend that Porthcawl Comprehensive was in any way a rough school, although compared to the vaguely gentleman’s club atmosphere of Dumbarton it was certainly a little edgier. The pupils seemed more worldly-wise and, in the absence of fees, inevitably came from a greater variety of backgrounds. The banter in the playground had a harsher edge to it. There was a very kind boy named Michael Jenkins. (This is not of course his real name; I’m sure the last thing he needs is someone accosting him in the street and telling him how much they enjoyed hearing about his childhood afflictions.) Michael was one of the first to befriend me, but unfortunately he suffered from eczema, giving his face, hands and I dare say other more delicate areas of his body a rather florid appearance and forcing him to rub himself frequently for relief. This would be met with cries of, ‘ Itch! Itch! Itch! ’ from his friends and classmates, which I thought was pretty unfair and couldn’t imagine happening back in Swansea. They of course didn’t limit this cry to the times poor Michael was mid-scratch. He would often be met by a cheerily sadistic chorus on entering a room, or simply as he passed by in the playground.
There were many playgrounds or open areas where the children congregated at break times, far more than at Swansea. They would always be buzzing with activity and, from my slightly nervous perspective, potential danger. I had arrived at the school in the middle of a new and very popular craze, which involved boys approaching each other and asking, ‘Can you cope?’ This related to a television documentary, unseen by myself, involving a boy with some kind of mental disorder who apparently at a given point in the programme had indicated that he could/couldn’t cope. It had caught the
I like Elvis.
After this first week spent not knowing a soul, and struggling to take in the scale of my new environment, I trudged home one day to find Mum in the garden.
She asked me how it was going.
I replied, a tad overdramatically it now seems, ‘I’m the loneliest boy in the world …’ I might even have allowed my lower lip to tremble.
This must have been heartbreaking for Mum, but she didn’t let it show, instead promising that if I felt the same way at the end of the term I could return to Swansea.
The lessons at Porthcawl were more difficult than they’d been at Dumbarton, where the classes were smaller and the teachers were able – in theory, at least (and often in practice) – to give more attention to individuals. It was annoying that the O level curriculum in several of my subjects was different to what I’d been studying at Dumbarton. This meant being handed piles of work to catch up with, and so it was decided that I would be given the work of Marie Claire Pearman, a model pupil. She kindly handed over her files and I took them home, the idea being that I would copy them and soon be up to speed with the rest of the school. It didn’t quite work like that, although the fact that I had been given the books of a girl with as dreamily romantic a name as Marie Claire was a great source of amusement to Mum, Dad and Pete, who delighted in imagining the romantic possibilities in such an arrangement.
I can’t pretend that Porthcawl Comprehensive was in any way a rough school, although compared to the vaguely gentleman’s club atmosphere of Dumbarton it was certainly a little edgier. The pupils seemed more worldly-wise and, in the absence of fees, inevitably came from a greater variety of backgrounds. The banter in the playground had a harsher edge to it. There was a very kind boy named Michael Jenkins. (This is not of course his real name; I’m sure the last thing he needs is someone accosting him in the street and telling him how much they enjoyed hearing about his childhood afflictions.) Michael was one of the first to befriend me, but unfortunately he suffered from eczema, giving his face, hands and I dare say other more delicate areas of his body a rather florid appearance and forcing him to rub himself frequently for relief. This would be met with cries of, ‘ Itch! Itch! Itch! ’ from his friends and classmates, which I thought was pretty unfair and couldn’t imagine happening back in Swansea. They of course didn’t limit this cry to the times poor Michael was mid-scratch. He would often be met by a cheerily sadistic chorus on entering a room, or simply as he passed by in the playground.
There were many playgrounds or open areas where the children congregated at break times, far more than at Swansea. They would always be buzzing with activity and, from my slightly nervous perspective, potential danger. I had arrived at the school in the middle of a new and very popular craze, which involved boys approaching each other and asking, ‘Can you cope?’ This related to a television documentary, unseen by myself, involving a boy with some kind of mental disorder who apparently at a given point in the programme had indicated that he could/couldn’t cope. It had caught the
Similar Books
