#oneaday Day 547: School books

I've been thinking about school again. I do that a lot for some reason. Nostalgia for happier days in the past, perhaps. A melancholy reflection on a failed career. Or an earnest desire to go back. It doesn't really matter. I do it a lot, regardless.

One of the things that my brain has decided to fixate on today is the concept of "school books" — specifically, exercise books. I don't know why, but I really liked having a book for each subject's work.

Obviously, from a practical, logistical perspective, it makes sense to have one book per subject, particularly in secondary school, because pupils tend to have different teachers for different subjects. But it also makes sense in primary school to a certain degree, as it allows the teacher to clearly demarcate different subjects' work — which is taught at different times in the week — and for the pupils to easily compartmentalise the various things they've been learning.

I don't know. There was something inherently pleasing about every subject having its own colour, and I bet a lot of schools around the country used a similar colour scheme. We had red for English Language, green for English Literature, grey for Maths, orange for Science, blue for Languages, a different green for the subjects grouped under "Humanities" at our school (Geography, History, R.E.), and your Journal would be a different colour according to what year you were in.

That Journal was a handy little thing, too. It was essentially a weekly planner where we could record any homework we got from our subjects and the date it was due; it was then, of course, up to us to check it regularly and ensure we actually did that homework. This was before any sort of handheld electronic devices with reminders on them — pre-"smart" mobile phones didn't become particularly widespread among me and my peers until we were into sixth form. It was a good and healthy thing to do, I think; it helped teach us matters of personal responsibility — and also occasional bullshitting on the inevitable occasions when we had forgotten to check it properly.

The Journal was treated like some sort of holy book, though. Every single week, we had to get it signed by our parents to prove that they had seen we had been recording our homework, and every week, our form tutor had to sign it to confirm that our parents had signed it. A space on each week's spread was also set aside for any communications between our form tutor and parents — for more serious infractions, of course, you got a Letter Home from the school office, but for minor things (and not necessarily problems!) there was this space in the Journal.

Heaven help you if you doodled anywhere on your Journal, though. Defacing it in any way was an immediate ticket to having to buy — yes, buy — a new one. As you might expect, the end of term rolling around was an immediate signal to many of us to immediately deface the crap out of the Journal for the term just gone. These defaced Journals became companions to "The Rough Book" among me and my friends — there was something about the neatly laid out tables in the Journal that made it ripe for customising with ridiculous doodles. My favourites were ones where we absolutely covered the page with tiny stick figures, all standing on the various lines of the table, flinging themselves off the edge and getting up to no good. I kind of wish I still had some of those.

It was the same for your subject exercise books, of course. Some teachers insisted that, as our inaugural piece of homework for a new term, we should cover our exercise book as a means of discouraging and/or preventing any doodling on the cover. Most people went the "wrapping paper" route, but there was a fun degree of self-expression among us all, and there was always some posh git who would laminate the cover of their book at their Dad's office or whatever.

I realise, of course, that the relative strictness with which we were taught to treat our school equipment can be looked on, from some perspectives, as being stifling to creativity and borderline authoritarian. School in general has always been designed as a means of, among other things, socialising us into becoming "good citizens" — and part of that, at least when I was at school, involved treating things with respect — whether they were the things that had been given to you by the school, the things you had brought in from home, or the things your peers were using.

It didn't always happen, of course, but there was a certain degree of pride that pretty much everyone had in their school possessions. Outside of covering books, one of the best ways to express one's individuality was through the stationery you brought to school — and the pencil case in which you kept that stationery. Some folks had cool, branded, zippered pencil cases; others had little tins. I remember my proudest pencil case at school was a Nintendo-branded tin with Super Mario Bros. pixel art on the front; it was also one of my least practical pencil cases due to its size, but I loved it nonetheless.

Anyway, you'd think I'd have a point about all this but I really don't. Something just got me thinking about the colour of school books, so that's what I've talked about today. Hey! They can't all be winners. Or perhaps you found this absolutely fascinating, in which case I am happy to have served.

Either way, at 20 past midnight I think it's probably time to go to bed.

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#oneaday Day 541: Back to school

I often think about my time at school and, while there were certainly elements of my experiences as a teenager I am very glad to have left behind, there's a lot I miss — to such a degree that I often find myself wondering if there is any sort of way one can get oneself into a situation, as an adult, that works similarly to school. A situation that isn't, like, prison or something.

I thrived in school — particularly secondary school. For the most part, I dealt well with the inherently predictable nature of a timetable — though I have recurring quasi-nightmares about being back at school and not having a clue what my weekly schedule is — and I didn't even mind having homework all that much. I did well in lessons, though I tended to be fairly quiet rather than the sort of person who was always the first to answer teachers' questions, and I ended up with good grades. Not perfect grades, mind, but good grades, nonetheless.

I'm not really sure what it is about the school experience — as opposed to, say, university — that I find so particularly appealing. Perhaps it's the inherent variety of things that you study, at least up until you start choosing "Options" for Years 10-11 and, if you're going on to do them, Years 12 and 13. There's definitely an element of that, because when I think back on some of my fondest memories of time at school, the visual part of the memories is very much associated with my "lower school" experience — Years 7-9.

That was the time when you study all sorts of things, with multiple subjects every day, and each and every day was packed with things to do. Sure, you didn't always like every one of those things you had to do each day — for me, Maths and P.E. were my particular bugbears — but you endured them, along with the things you actually liked, and sometimes you'd even surprise yourself with how well you ended up performing. I have zero achievements of note in P.E., but I did get an "A" in Maths at GCSE, which was pleasing.

Early secondary school is a time you get exposed to a lot of things you wouldn't have thought about studying, too. I remember being surprised how much I enjoyed language lessons — particularly German, which I liked more than French — and Science, although not a subject I had any intention of pursuing beyond a passing interest, was always full of interesting and unusual situations.

As you might expect, my biggest strengths were English and Music. In English, I relished the opportunity to write a lengthy essay about something we'd been studying — whether it was on the "language" or "literature" side of the fence — while in Music, I was often quite ambitious with my compositions, and in terms of performance I was considerably ahead of anyone else in my class thanks to the years of private piano lessons I'd had by that point.

It was nice to be good at something, and to have tangible proof that I was good at it in the form of good grades, certificates and, eventually, qualifications. I think that might be one of the things I miss the most in life as an adult — the simple knowledge and confidence that you can do something, and that someone is going to acknowledge that you are good at something, even reward you for it. It didn't have to be a big reward — I was a sucker for the "Merits" and "Commendations" we had at secondary school, and those were just little signatures on a page of our Journal and occasional certificates — but that little bit of acknowledgement that yes, there was something you were good at, and that gave you value as a human being, was pleasant.

I am not, obviously, advocating for modern employers to start implementing systems of "Merits" and "Commendations" for their employees, because I feel that most people would probably find the whole thing incredibly patronising. Interestingly, back during my brief period of time working for the shithole energy company SSE, I found myself thinking that a lot of the way the company did things was like how it was back in school — but in that situation, it was a negative thing. The difference? SSE wasn't interested in celebrating the successes of people and the things they were good at — they were, instead, obsessed with making themselves, as a company, look good, and specifically going looking for things they could reprimand their employees for.

Schools have to have a solid behavioural policy in place, of course, but I always found it pretty easy not to run afoul of it — and on the few occasions when I did, I knew it was a completely fair cop. SSE, meanwhile, would bollock you if you didn't hold the handrail when going up some stairs, for going under your desk to pick up a pen you'd dropped without wearing a "bump cap", and for not reporting the fact that you'd spilled a tiny bit of water from your cup carrying it back from the cooler to your desk — and all that absurdity meant that there was no time left to actually praise anyone for doing a good job.

So you can't just transplant elements of the school structure into a corporate environment without thinking about the things that make school good for those who thrive in that environment. I don't know what the answer is, and at this point I'm not even entirely sure what the question is any more either. I'm rambling. I'm tired. I'm a bit cold. So I think I'll leave that there and go to bed!

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#oneaday Day 436: RIP my sixth form

When I originally went to secondary school, my school was known for having a good sixth form. For those unfamiliar (i.e. not British, I suspect), a sixth form is where you go for "further education" (as opposed to "higher education", which is university) after your compulsory 11 years of school in the UK. It's called sixth form as a hangover from the old method of numbering school years, where primary education didn't really have a fixed method of distinguishing year groups beyond "infants" and "juniors", and then secondary education from 11 onwards started at "first form" all the way up to "fifth form". Today, primary education starts at Reception, then goes from Y1 to Y11 as one continuous run from primary to secondary, with most secondary schools starting with Y7. While some people do refer to sixth form as "Y12 and Y13", the term "sixth form" has, for one reason or another, stuck.

Anyway, none of that is the point. The point is, my school used to be known for having good sixth form provision. It's one of the reasons I went there, as I was a bright child and it was probably a given that I was always going to stay on into post-compulsory education, and indeed I did — two years of sixth form, then four years at university. I was fortunate enough to be in a year group that was the first to take advantage of a brand new sixth form centre built (well, adapted from the former upper school dining hall) on the premises, and it was a really lovely facility. I had a wonderful time there; I enjoyed my studies, I made and solidified a number of friendships, and, as I've remarked a number of times in this blog, I think I count those two years as possibly the happiest, most content of my life.

Every so often, I like to check in on my old school. No real reason, I'm always just curious how it's doing. It never was an amazing school, outside of the sixth form provision, and it's certainly had its challenges over the years. What I was rather surprised to see when I took a Google Street View down to the premises was this:

(Pixelations are mine; I just don't want randos looking up my old school for whatever reason.)

I saw those doors and thought, hang on. That doesn't look right. That building used to be the pride and joy of the school campus, so why haven't they painted the doors for what looks like several decades at this point?

It's because, it seems, the sixth form that was once one of the best things about that school is no more — and, in fact, it has not been a thing since 2015. (The photo above was taken in 2016, which just goes to show how frighteningly quickly a building can start looking dilapidated and shitty.) I found this out from looking at the school's Wikipedia page — I was surprised to discover it even had a Wikipedia page — but there it was, the cold, hard facts. I followed the links to see the news and yes, it seems it's true; the "Post-16 Centre" where I had such amazing, wonderful memories, is no more.

Now, I suspect the school today has made use of this building rather than just leaving it there; there's no way for me to know short of actually going to visit it, and I haven't been there in person for probably more than 30 years at this point. I see from its prospectus and willingness to book out its various large "venues" to the community — something the school had always done, making it a true "community school" — that it has a "performing arts space" that may or may not make use of that old space. Hard to tell, really.

Regardless, I feel a bit sad about this. That sixth form centre opened with such positivity and excitement for the future, and it was genuinely exciting to be part of it. The facilities were good, there were comfortable common areas to relax and socialise, and we felt proud to be part of something new and wonderful. I was surprised and saddened to see that the dream for that space apparently hadn't lasted; the school now has no sixth form provision of its own at all, instead collaborating with another local school (a longstanding "rival" back when I was there, but now part of the same "educational partnership", whatever that means) to provide sixth form provision for both schools' students.

I don't know if all this is because sixth form numbers were on the decline, or the building wasn't cost-effective, or whatever. All I do know is that it's a shame, and I feel a bit sad. You really can't go back, but at least you always have those precious memories, I guess.

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#oneaday Day 313: Memories of Me: the curious intimacy of school concerts

As a Kid Who Could Do Music, I was involved in performances of various kinds from a pretty early age. I have fairly vivid memories of, as a primary school-age kid, participating in the Bedford Music Festival, at which I would play piano duets and trios with other equally young pianists from my local area who were studying under the same teacher. I remember taking the Yamaha YS-200 keyboard to my Nan and Grandad's house to put on "concerts" for them, complete with synthesised applause when I finished a piece. And, of course, when we had visitors, I was often asked to play for them on my piano at home.

It wasn't until secondary school that I really started doing a lot of public performance, though. I joined a number of the musical groups at my school, including the concert band, jazz band (known as Dance Band), orchestra and choir, and through being a member of those groups (as well as my solo performance abilities), I participated in, I think, pretty much every school concert that happened between me joining the school in Year 7 and my leaving it after Year 13.

I absolutely loved school concert night, for a whole host of reasons. Firstly, it was simply fun to perform: to take all the hard work we'd done in each group's weekly rehearsals and finally show off what we'd accomplished. I don't remember any major disasters happening at any time, either; the leaders of the various groups (also the school's main music teachers) were all pretty fastidious about ensuring we could perform things to the best of our ability, and they also seemed to make good choices of pieces that were appropriate to the overall ability level of the group as a whole.

For those who have never performed as part of a large ensemble, it's quite something. Your part might not stand out as the most important or recognisable, but every instrument playing something plays an important role in the overall texture and timbre of the piece being played. If you're playing it right, people might not notice you as an individual performer — though this does, of course, have the side effect that if you play it wrong, people will definitely notice.

For me, it was satisfying to be part of something bigger than myself. It was fascinating to see a rather tedious 3rd Clarinet part actually having some importance to a greater whole. And it was wonderful to feel a connection with the people around you, all of whom were there for a common purpose: to make music, to entertain people, and to express themselves.

I think this is a big part of the reason that I always found school concerts to be immensely romantic occasions. I've talked before about how, throughout secondary school, I fell in love with a lot of girls, and many of these flights of what were ultimately passing fancy started on the evening of a school concert. There was something curiously intimate about sitting next to someone in the middle of a large ensemble, performing with them, supporting one another. That feeling of connection was even stronger with the other members of your section, and particularly with your partner on your specific part.

And so it was that I inevitably came away from each school concert feeling like I was on cloud nine, not just for a satisfying performance that had gone down well with the supportive audience of parents and teachers; not just for the feeling that there was something in this world that I was good at, that gave me value; not just for the praise I got from my teachers, my peers and other parents, particularly when I performed solo; but because I had, through the music, enjoyed what I felt was an incredibly intimate moment of connection with another person.

I'm almost certain that my fellow 3rd Clarinet partners at various points didn't feel the same way, which is why I never attempted to "make a move" on anyone — not that I had the confidence to do that, anyway. But for that evening, that wonderful, romantic, evening when the school concert took place, I felt genuine happiness and closeness with other people, quite unlike at any other time in my life.

I kind of miss it. I haven't been a member of a musical ensemble for a very long time and my clarinets and saxophones haven't been out of their cases for many years, either. But I still have those pleasant memories; the recollection of the feelings that I felt at the time. It didn't matter that they were one-way or unrequited; to have just been there in the moment was enough, and that's what makes those memories intensely, deeply precious to me.

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#oneaday Day 312: Memories of Me: the teachers who inspired me

I've talked before about how I think my schooldays, and particularly my time in Sixth Form (which was at the same school) were among the happiest times of my life. Once I'd got over an initial bout of bullying in Year 7, of course, which was resolved by me punching my tormentor firmly in the face just as the headmaster was coming around the corner.

One of the reasons I think back so fondly on my time at school — particularly secondary school, which is what I'm going to focus on today — is because I had a lot of great teachers who inspired me, encouraged me, recognised the things I was good at and generally did a great job of making me feel like I wasn't a completely worthless human being with terrible hair, atrocious dress sense and a complete inability to socialise normally. (Retrospectively, of course, I recognise that the latter aspect — and perhaps some of the others too — stem from my autism, but I didn't know that back then.)

I thought I'd describe a few of them today. I don't know what happened to any of them after I left school, as I didn't stay in touch with any of them — something I kind of regret a bit, now — but I can say, with confidence, that they made a positive impact on my life in some way, and the memories I have of the time I spent learning with them are some of my most treasured.

Let's think through subject by subject.

In the English department, I had a run of excellent teachers over the course of the years of both compulsory and post-compulsory education. There was Ms Derbyshire, who reminded everyone of Victoria Wood with her general demeanour and tone, and who had a delightful sense of humour. There was Mr Bowie, who was probably the "coolest" teacher in school, who knew his stuff and managed to be knowledgeable without being a nerd. He taught me about Jeff Buckley. There was Miss Idziacysyk (I think that's how you spell it — it's been a very long time since I wrote it and Google is no help!), who took no shit but was also a really knowledgeable teacher of both English Language and English Literature. And there was Mr Lack, who was a kind and gentle soul unless you pissed him off.

In Maths, I should give particular praise to Mr Wilbraham, who had a… strange reputation to anyone who had never taken classes with him — a reputation I shan't repeat out of respect for him… and the fact we never really knew if it was true or not — but who turned out to be an excellent, friendly, supportive and good-natured teacher. I disliked Maths intensely, but I put up with it and somehow managed to remain in the top group for it throughout the entire time I was forced to take it, and the lessons with Mr Wilbraham in Year 10 and 11 were probably the closest I had to "favourite Maths lessons".

In Science, I had a lot of great teachers, too. There was Miss Bartlett, who everyone fancied because she had long blonde hair and wore quite short skirts, but who also got us involved in doing practical experiments pretty much from our first lesson in Year 7. There was Mr Allured, who had a booming voice you could hear a mile off, and a personality (and moustache) that made him feel like everyone's dad. And there was Mr Maskell, who looked like Harry Secombe and was a cheerful soul, always keen to show us his "volcano" experiments in the fume cupboard.

Music was a focus of my time at secondary school, and I had a wonderful time studying with, at various times Mrs Choy-Winters, Mr Murrall, Mr Wrigley and Miss Garrick. Each had their own specialisms, but all were incredibly supportive of me, and keen to make use of the fact that my musical skills, particularly on the piano, were significantly ahead of pretty much all of the rest of the school. I ended up doing a lot of accompanying various musical groups during my time at school; school concert nights were some of my favourite times of the year. There's probably a whole post in me just on school concerts, so I'll save any further discussion of that for then. I will just add that I have recurring mild nightmares about disappointing my Music teachers and no-one else from this list.

I managed to wangle things at GCSE so I could do Theatre Studies alongside Music instead of having to do an Art or Technology class I really didn't want to do. There was only one drama teacher at our school, known as Miss Unsworth — although the headteacher Mr Cragg occasionally taught drama lower down the school — and she was quite the character. She was definitely a "theatre person", and she taught us a lot both through our lessons and in the productions of The Wizard of Oz and Twelfth Night I took part in during my time at school.

In Modern Languages, we had the good fortune to have a native German speaker known as Herr Haubert. We used to take the piss a bit because of his somewhat stern attitude, his rather severe moustache and the fact he perpetually smelled of spearmint — for some reason, our teenage selves became convinced that this was because he was always chewing mint flavoured condoms, not actual mints or gum, which would have made more sense — but I can't deny that he was a good teacher. Immersing us in the target language right from the first lesson, I can still remember a decent amount of German that I learned in those classes. Not enough to be confident or fluent, but definitely enough to get by in an absolute emergency.

In the Humanities, or "Hums", we had several great teachers. There was Mr Watts, who was our formidable head of Sixth Form, an excellent history teacher and someone who didn't believe anyone under the age of 15 had any right to exist in his line of sight; Mr Mason, an ageing hippie who taught Geography and could bring an entire class to silence by lowering the volume of his voice rather than raising it; and Mrs Lloyd, who helped make my A-Level Sociology studies entertaining and fascinating.

I had a look back at my school's website, knowing full well that I was there a very long time ago at this point and thus was unlikely to see any familiar names, and I was proven correct. I suspect many of the people I've just mentioned have retired or perhaps even passed on by this point, which is somewhat humbling to think about. Wherever they are and whatever they're doing, though, I hope they know that they had an impact on me, and that I still think about them very fondly. It's true that your school days play a crucial role in defining who you are — and the teachers who guide you through those school days are an incredibly important part of that.

So thanks to all of the teachers of my youth, both the ones I've mentioned and the ones I've inevitably forgotten. My life may not have gone exactly as planned in numerous ways, but I always felt I had a solid foundation to build from, and it was all thanks to them.

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#oneaday Day 232: Memories of Me: Lost love

Since I deliberately cut myself off early yesterday for fear of going on for ten thousand words, I thought I'd pick up where we left off.

I previously introduced you to my Halls of Residence, Hartley Grove, and my erstwhile flatmates: the perpetually absent Chloe, my neighbour-for-a-brief-period Beki, my longer-term neighbour Katie, psychology student Steph, Geography-student-who-didn't-really-care-about-Geography Sam, and scientist Chris. We talked a bit about how we'd often go down to Chamberlain Bar and remain encased in our own little bubble, too afraid to approach anyone that we hadn't been thrown together with — and absolutely, definitely not someone as intimidating as Breast Girl.

For those who have never been to university, your first week as a student is typically set aside for "Freshers' Week", which is an opportunity to get to know the campus and perhaps choose a club or two to join. We had a busy week; off the top of my head, we tried Karate-do Shotokai, ninjutsu and rifle shooting, and several of us decided to join the former for the longer term. (The rifle shooting was terrifying, but I enjoyed it. The ninjutsu trial session primarily consisted of people doing forward rolls for about an hour non-stop, which I found inexplicably amusing.)

Throughout Freshers' Week, it is sort of expected that you will spend a significant portion of your time inebriated and getting laid. I did one of those things. I had never been particularly into the idea of a one-night stand, so it is not something I did — not that I really had the confidence to pursue that sort of encounter, anyway, and as it happened, at the time I was already Quite Into someone specific who I've previously mentioned, but I will refrain from mentioning by name in this context to spare their (and my) blushes. I shall, instead, refer to them as Special Someone.

Being a socially awkward autistic person (albeit not being aware of the "autistic" bit at this point in my life) I was, of course, having great difficulty in actually declaring my feelings to this Special Someone in question, but I resolved to myself that I would tell her how I felt and ask her to the "Freshers' Ball" on the last day of Freshers' Week. Although described as a "ball", it was actually just another pissup where people tended to dress slightly nicer than the other pissups throughout the week, but it was still considered to be something of a special occasion, so I figured confessing in time for that would have some sort of special symbolism.

However, my plan did not go according to… err, plan. Special Someone ended up getting together with someone else, hereafter referred to as Other Bloke, and thus I recall embarrassingly vividly spending a fair bit of time sitting in the big window of our flat's kitchen, all dressed up nice, with the lights off, doing what can only be described as "brooding". Ostensibly I was being alone with my thoughts to process what had just happened and attempt to pick myself up a bit, but I was also secretly hoping that someone would come in and I could unload all my emotional baggage on them.

Someone did — Steph, as I recall — and I explained the situation. It transpired that everyone thought I was already together with Special Someone, as we had been spending a lot of time together, but no, it was not the case; now she was with Other Bloke, someone we knew from the flat downstairs from us, who had sort of "attached" himself to our group because he was one of the people who had ended up lumbered with a flat full of foreign students he didn't really know how to talk to. (Other Bloke ended up becoming a good friend and remains as such to this day, so again, I will refrain from naming him explicitly here, but he probably knows who he is, and anyone reading this who was There At The Time also knows who it is.)

Steph encouraged me to just sort of suck it up, these things happen, and I should probably just go and get pissed and shag a rando. She said it in a more empathetic, understanding way than that, but I got the idea. I agreed that I shouldn't let something I sort of did to myself stand in the way of enjoying what was, one week into our official time as students, the biggest social event in our calendar. So I tidied myself up a bit, downed a shot or two of vodka and set out for the Student Union. I don't remember anything else that happened that night, so it must have been all right. (I did not, to my knowledge, shag a rando.)

Within a day or two, news of my lost love had spread around the flat, and I was surprised to discover everyone rallying to my cause. Not to such a degree that they were going to split up Special Someone and Other Bloke, of course, because we were all much too nice people for that, but they helped me keep my mind off things, and we had a lot of fun expressing my frustration in a not exactly malicious way, but which was somewhat at the expense of the person everyone had decided had done me a great injustice.

Usually this involved us getting pretty drunk in the kitchen, then doing something that involved the window to his flat's kitchen, which was directly below us. The most memorable of these was when we attempted to write "DIE" in tomato ketchup on the window, discovering shortly afterwards that ketchup is not an ideal medium through which to express half-hearted death threats, particularly vertically and while battling against gravity. The attempt to pour jelly onto the gentle slope of the open window beneath us was, likewise, unsuccessful, but it did make an absolutely magnificent noise when it hit the pavement below; we were on the third floor, and that gives jelly a good amount of time to pick up speed and explode with an incredibly satisfying "splatter" noise when it impacts an immovable surface.

Time heals all wounds, as they say, and, as I have hopefully implied already, all of the above passed me by surprisingly quickly. I remained friends with both Special Someone and Other Bloke, and they remained in a relationship for a good few years after university, so there was clearly something good there for quite some time. They're no longer together and each have their own lives with their own special people now — as do I — so all's well that ends well, I guess.

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#oneaday Day 231: Memories of Me: First Days at University

A while back, I talked about how when I think back on what the happiest times of my life might have been, I am inexorably drawn to two specific and closely related periods: my time at sixth form, and my time at university. Having previously talked about the former, I'd like to talk a bit about the latter today.

As always, I have almost certainly written about this before, but I don't care. Let's face it, you're almost certainly not going back through the archives to read nearly three thousand posts just to see if I've previously said these things before, and I wouldn't expect you to. So just, y'know, indulge me, even if any of this sounds familiar.

As my time in sixth form came to a close, I was excited but also terrified to go to university. I was going to a university far away from everyone I had ever known, and I didn't know how or if I was going to be able to cope with that. My mind filled with all manner of irrational anxieties, often emphasising things that I really didn't need to think about — like if I should take the opportunity to rebrand myself with a cool nickname when introducing myself to people — but as the big day ticked ever closer, I started to feel a little more at ease about things.

I spent my first year at university, as do many people, in a Halls of Residence. For those who have never been to university, this is basically like an old people's home, but for students. You have your own room plus some communal areas; the exact facilities and how much you are "waited on" (if at all) varies quite a bit from halls to halls, even within the same university. The halls I was going into, known as Hartley Grove, were self-catered, because both my parents and I agreed that it would probably be a good idea to learn how to be self-sufficient in a reasonably safe environment, and they were a new build, meaning (I think) our year was the first to stay in them.

And they were nice! Our rooms were a decent size, and they were en-suite, meaning we each had our own shower and toilet, which was nice. There was enough room for what little stuff I had to my name at that point in my life, a nice desk with space for my computer and hi-fi, room to put a small television to play games consoles on and a relatively cavernous wardrobe to store clothes in. It didn't take long for my room to feel like "home".

I started university in a slightly strange way compared to some of my peers in that I went there a week early to attend a "pre-term" orchestral course with the university symphony orchestra. Over the course of a week, we learned how to play movements from two symphonies — the first movement of Beethoven's 7th and the last movement of Shostakovich's 5th, as I recall — with the intention of performing them both for an audience of our tearful parents at the end of said week.

Because this course was prior to the regular term starting, those of us in halls (which was most of us) weren't able to immediately move all our stuff in to our new homes for the next year, so we had to travel light and take up residence in what was probably the grottiest halls in all of Southampton: a crusty old tower block known as Stoneham which, although shit, we all came to regard with some fondness by the end of the week. (It has since been knocked down; I'm not entirely sure when, but I was a bit sad to learn it's no longer there.)

Basically what we'd do was spend the day in Stoneham's large dining hall area rehearsing, then clear out, have dinner and then be free to do whatever in the evening. Sometimes we'd hang out, sometimes we'd investigate the local nightlife that was easily accessible within walking distance (not much) or a bus ride away — though of course, very few of us knew Southampton well enough at this point to know where was worth going, and where would get you stabbed.

Initially, I found my worst fears coming true as I wasn't sure how to approach new people and make friends with them. But, to my credit, one of my proudest moments as a human being came when I finally plucked up the courage to talk to someone in the lift that was taking us up to our rooms. Her name was Cat, and she was kind enough to give me the time of day. I don't know if she recognised I was struggling, but she became a close friend surprisingly quickly, and I was extremely glad that I at least had someone I could "rely on" during that initial week.

Through Cat, I met several other people — she was a lot more affable than me, but most folks were happy to include me in conversations if I sort of tagged along — and they all became good friends, too. It helped that most of us were going to go on to study music at Southampton for the next three years — though I was doing a split English and Music degree — so we had something in common. But it was still interesting to note how different we all were from one another.

The pre-term course came and went; our performance of both symphony movements went really well, and I ended up having a great time. By the time the course was over, we were able to move into our "forever homes" (for the next year, anyway) — it was still a few days earlier than most, but it gave us a chance to get properly settled, and to minimise the number of trips our parents had to make with cars full of crap.

My flat in Hartley Grove had six rooms. I was the first to arrive by several days, as expected, so by the time my flatmates started arriving, I was already quite comfortable and settled — to such a degree that when one particular flatmate named Chloe came in for the first time, she was greeted by me cooking a bacon sandwich in my dressing gown. She confided to me later that she thought I was a mature student and not, in fact, an idiotic 18 year old whose entire cooking repertoire consisted of bacon sandwiches and toast.

My flat eventually filled to capacity. I was in room number A333. To one side of me at the end of the corridor was the aforementioned Chloe; my other neighbour was the frankly gorgeous Beki, who sadly dropped out partway through her first year. Our mutual friend Katie replaced her in short order; previously, she had lived in another flat with foreign students that weren't particularly sociable, so she was glad to be among friends at last.

Further down the corridor on my side was Chris, a science student who we initially assumed to be one of the most stereotypical science nerds imaginable, but who came to be a close friend and confidant to all of us. On the opposite side was Sam, who had, for some reason, been the subject of a newspaper article about him "not studying Geography due to any burning love for the subject", and who became one of my best friends during my time at university and beyond, and Steph, a psychology student who, again, formed an important part of our overall "group".

The majority of the time, it was me, Chris, Sam and Steph in the flat. Beki left after not very long, as previously noted, and Chloe was an absolute socialite, to such a degree that she barely slept in her own room and often brought strange and interesting men back to our flat. Our collective favourite of these was probably "Raf", a charming and pretty chilled out gent who, it occurs to me now, I really don't know anything else about.

We enjoyed socialising as a flat, particularly if said socialisation involved going to Chamberlain Bar, our nearest drinking establishment. Hartley Grove didn't have its own bar, but Chamberlain was attached to one of the other nearby halls, so it was open for all of us to make use of, and we did. Several of us even spent a few nights working there; we didn't get paid in anything other than beer tokens, but it was a good experience.

Chamberlain Bar was pretty shit, but it was ours. All of us from the flat had a certain degree of awkwardness to us, so we didn't really interact with people from outside our group much, and took to referring to other people by nicknames based on their most prominent characteristics. The one that sticks in my mind was a young lady known only to us as Breast Girl; a conventionally attractive and moderately well-endowed first year who seemed to hang out at Chamberlain Bar almost as much as us. We never exchanged a single word, though I believe Steph, at one point, learned what her actual name was.

Chamberlain Bar occasionally held special events. Two of these stick in my mind: firstly, a '70s night, where we all went around the local charity shops and party stores to find the most hideous clothing and wigs we could; and secondly, a "Hawaiian" night, where all they did was turn the heating up full, and where our flat were the only people who came in fancy dress.

Chamberlain Bar's specialism was shit cocktails. The two we spent the most time drinking were the Juicy Lucy (pint glass containing a shot of vodka, a shot of blue curacao, a double shot of Taboo, then topped up with equal parts lemonade and orange juice) and the Passion Wagon (a shot of Passoa topped up with a bottle of Reef, possibly the laziest cocktail ever invented). I don't know exactly where Juicy Lucy originated, but we got the impression it was a "Southampton" thing; notoriously shit but popular watering hole Clowns and its companion nightclub Jesters would serve them by the 4-pint jug for less than a tenner, making them a great way to get absolutely off your fucking face for not very much money.

So yeah. You can hopefully see how all this was a good time. I will hold that there for now, since I've rambled on for nearly 2,000 words and I haven't even started talking about my actual time at university yet, let alone some of the funnier happenings that transpired during just that first year.

I really miss those magical first few weeks, though, and would give anything to feel that way again. But with each passing day, they feel further and further away to an exponential degree. At least I'll always have the good memories of them.

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#oneaday Day 209: Memories of Me: Primary School

Sometimes I wonder what pieces of actually helpful information go in one ear and out the other in favour of the long-term storage of memories I don't really need to (or in some cases want to) hold on to.

Chief among these are some memories of primary school that I just can't get rid of. Most people I know can't remember a lot about their primary school days, and for sure, there are doubtless many, many days at primary school that I cannot remember. But these particular instances — or perhaps just general vibes rather than specific memories — have stuck in my head over the long term, and they're not going anywhere.

"Lazy work. Very poor."

I learned quite early on that despite not being particularly terrible at it, I absolutely hated maths lessons. And so it was that in either Class 1 or Class 2 — definitely the Infants half of the school, either way, so I would have been no older than maybe 6 or 7 — that I had two, to me, utterly shameful pages in my maths exercise book.

On the left of the spread, a maths lesson where I had completed one (1) sum in the entire lesson. This has been marked as "Lazy work." On the right, a separate lesson where I had completed three (3) sums in the entire lesson, two of which I had got wrong. This, in turn, was marked "Very poor."

I was upset by this spread of pages, even though I knew both comments were completely and utterly deserved. I don't remember why I had such outstandingly bad performance in these two lessons in particular — as I say, I wasn't particularly bad at maths, overall, and was always in the "top group" for it — but that negative feedback shamed me into trying a bit harder in subsequent sessions. I don't recall having any work in my exercise books ever being so shameful ever again. So… I guess it sort of worked, despite making me feel like shit?

Lunchtime fury

I don't know why (or rather, I've forgotten why) but in my later years at the primary school I went to, I spent a lot of my lunchtimes being furious and taking out my aggression on one of the "dinner ladies", actually a volunteer who would keep an eye on the kids in the playground at lunchtime.

I vividly recall deliberately getting furious about something in front of her and trying to provoke her, on multiple occasions, but not why. I would kick over the bin, I would yell at her, I would, inevitably, get in trouble. I feel like I was trying to achieve something or make a point, but that point is long lost, leaving me with just memories of ill-focused fury.

Perhaps it was a defence mechanism of sorts. I got bullied a lot at primary school, particularly by the older kids when I was still in the Infants classes, so perhaps I thought if I was extra annoying to the dinner lady, I would be taken into a sort of "protection", despite being "in trouble" myself. Retrospectively, that seems like the most logical conclusion, but I can't be sure that was ever the reason at this point.

Pissing myself in P.E.

For some reason, having to go to the toilet during lesson time at school has always been the ultimate taboo. In secondary school, it's discouraged because it's often assumed that those who "escape" lessons, ostensibly to go to the toilet, will take the opportunity to skive off, go for a smoke or otherwise do something they shouldn't be doing. In primary school, it is perhaps a little less justifiable.

And so it was that I commenced a school P.E. lesson in my '80s shorts, urgently needing the toilet and being told I couldn't go. This was an inaccurate assessment of the situation, because I could, in fact, "go", and did so right there on the playground. Oddly enough, I don't remember being mocked or anything for it; I just remember being curiously fascinated by how pissing with clothes on could still result in piss going everywhere, not just "wetting your pants", as the vernacular had it.

The Log

At primary school one day, we were inexplicably provided with a large log, ostensibly as something to play on and around. And The Log was, for quite a long time, a really cool place to play.

The more daring kids would climb atop it and run along it, but for many, the greatest appeal was "making piggy dust", which involved getting a twig and scraping away at the wood to create sawdust. Over time, we carved the shit out of that damn log, making it so it had natural platforms and footholds along the way; the poor thing lost all its external bark as part of this process — and, I recall, the teachers and dinner ladies often made half-hearted attempts to discourage us from "making piggy dust".

I don't know what ultimately happened to The Log. I'm pretty sure it remained in its place at the edge of the playground for the entire time I was at primary school, but it, unsurprisingly, was no longer there the last time I happened to pay a visit to the school in question.

It

Most of you reading doubtless have variations on Tag (or "It", as we called it) that you played in the playground. The ones I can recall are thus:

It: One person is "It". They have to tag someone else, who then becomes "It". Sometimes the semicircular areas at the ends of the netball court on the playground were considered "homey", where you couldn't be tagged, sometimes they were not.
Bulldog: One person starts as "It". When they tag someone, that person also becomes "It". The game continues until everyone is "It". "Homey" was more commonly in use in Bulldog than in It.
Chains: As Bulldog, but all the Its had to hold hands, making an increasingly long human chain the longer the game went on. This game inevitably turned dangerous, leading to it being discouraged by most teachers and dinner ladies who were on duty.
Top Gun: The rules for this one were ill-defined, but it was mostly It, but instead of tagging you had to repeatedly punch someone in the arm. (That was you "hitting them with your machine guns").

To determine who was "It" to begin with in any of these games, some variant of "Foot In" was used. For the unfamiliar, this involved someone yelling "FOOT IN FOR BULLDOG!" or whatever we were playing, and everyone who wanted to play standing in a circle with one foot in the middle. Then, whoever started shouting "FOOT IN FOR [whatever]" would perform one of the following rhymes, pointing to each foot in turn according to an accepted rhythm that wasn't necessarily matched to the syllables or words:

"Ibble obble black bobble, ibble obble out." (Whoever was declared "Out" would not be it and would remove their foot from the circle. The process would then repeat until everyone except one person was "Out", and that person would become "It".)
"Ip dip dog dip, you are not it." (Officially this was supposed to be "ip dip dog shit" to better rhyme with "It", but we knew better than to swear in earshot of teachers and dinner ladies. As with "ibble obble black bobble", this resulted in a gradual elimination of people until you were left with one "It".)
"Ip dip dog dip, you are it." (A surprise variation that usually occurred when the caller calculated the least popular member of the group would end up as "It" if they said the rhyme this way. Almost always resulted in arguments.)

Learning the word "Shit"

One time in Class 2, we were doing some… form of class work. I forget what. I was in Blue Group, which was a group of the most "able" kids, and we were being taught by Mrs Powell, who wasn't our regular teacher but who would often cover things when Mrs Robson, our usual teacher, was not present. This was one of those days.

I think we were doing some sort of English exercise. Like I say, I don't remember exactly what. What I do remember is Natalie Forster, the only girl in Blue Group, spelling out "S – H – I – T" to herself while writing something down. Having never heard the word before (I was like 6 and my exposure to even PG movies had been somewhat limited) I promptly said the unfamiliar word out loud.

"Shit?" I enquired, confused. I thought she was trying to spell "ship" but had gotten it wrong somehow. I genuinely didn't know it was a swear word at the time. But the rest of Blue Group did. "Ummmmm!" came the inevitable cry of kids around you about to tell tales on you. One of Blue Group — it may even have been Natalie Forster herself — reported my inadvertent transgression to Mrs Powell, who yelled at me.

"I certainly hope you did not say that, Peter Davison," she bellowed, loud enough for the whole class to be looking at me. "Or I shall have to wash your mouth out with soap and water!"

Ah, public shaming and threats of physical abuse. They don't make 'em like they used to.

Bundle

One kid would shout "BUNDLE!" and jump on another kid. Then everyone else would jump on him. (It was always a "him", as girls never got involved in Bundles.) The result was a large and painful pile of boys. There was no game here, it was just something we did. This is one of those things that I understand was quite common, but I have no idea how the concept is transmitted from one schoolyard to another. I don't remember being explicitly "taught" it, it was just something that one day we knew we had to do whenever someone shouted "BUNDLE!"

Dizzyland

This was a game of sorts that involved putting both arms out to your sides, shouting "DIZZYLAND!" while giggling, then spinning around as much as you could for as long as you could without falling over. Bumping into each other was encouraged. Theoretically whoever stayed standing the longest was the "winner", but I don't recall it ever really getting to that point, as we were usually gently discouraged from doing this by teachers and dinner ladies on duty.

Bumper Cars

Fold your arms. Then run as hard as possible at another person. Ideally they will have folded their arms also, so you "bounce" off each other, but there was often a certain amount of catching people by surprise involved. There was no real "game" here, again, it was just something we did for a while. Eventually, someone would get bored, and Bumper Cars would cease.

Mr. Edwards

Teacher of Class 3 (years 3 and 4) at my primary school when I was there was Mr. Edwards, a rather hippie-like individual with a mullet and a moustache. I remember him being a good teacher who was always pretty calm about things, and we used to have a nice regular "Circle Time", where he'd get out his guitar and we'd sing stuff like Worried Man Blues together.

I don't remember a lot about lessons under Mr. Edwards, but I remember his class having a thoroughly nice vibe to it all.

Mrs. Barratt

Mrs. Barratt was in charge of Class 4 (years 5 and 6) at my primary school, and everyone who was not in those classes was terrified of her. She was a severe older lady who drove a Mercedes and spoke posh, like. She had a reputation for cracking down on troublemakers with an iron fist, so most people were afraid of ever crossing her. In fact, I remember coming to the close of my time with Mr. Edwards and being genuinely scared of joining Class 4 the following school year; I desperately wanted there to be a shift round of which teachers did which classes (as there had been a couple of times while I went through the years) and Mrs. Barratt to avoid our cohort altogether, but it was not to be.

Happily, Mrs. Barratt turned out to be one of the absolute best teachers. She was clever, she was funny, she encouraged everyone to do their best. She absolutely didn't take any shit from anyone, but it was rare anyone in her class gave her shit, because they respected rather than feared her.

I attribute at least some of my love of learning and writing to Mrs. Barratt, because she would set us interesting research tasks for a bit of light homework to bring in the next day, and in carrying out those assignments I learned a lot about topics I otherwise wouldn't have known anything about. I also vividly remember somehow incorporating "antidisestablishmentarianism" and "floccinaucinihilipilification" into the Daily Spellings lessons (and spelling them correctly), which got me some credit.

Mrs. Barratt's class is also the first time I remember doing a lot of things, with two of the chief ones being making cakes and science experiments. We wouldn't actually bake the cakes ourselves, but we'd do all the prep work, mixing and putting into tins and suchlike in class, then they'd be baked in the school's oven in the staff room for us to take home at the end of the day.

As for the science experiments, the one that sticks in my mind is one where we'd put an empty tin on a little electric camping stove and put cling film over the top, and we'd see the cling film "bulge" out as a visible demonstration of how hot air rises. I don't think we actually performed this one ourselves, as I suspect we wouldn't have been trusted with camping stoves at the age of like 10, but I do remember being so struck by the stern warnings that "if you don't take this off soon enough, it will explode" that I incorporated "exploding can-stove-cling-film" traps into some of the first ever custom HeroQuest quests I created for myself, not realising that "explode" meant "the cling film will pop" rather than "action movie-style explosion with fire and smoke".

So it's fair to say my time at primary school was… mixed at best. I have some good memories and some awful ones. Certain aspects of the experience helped shape who I am today, for better and worse. But regardless of all that, it seems these memories are there to stay, for one reason or another.

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#oneaday Day 190: My most confusing relationship

I think sufficient years have probably elapsed since this was a thing that I can probably talk about it without repercussions. If, on the off-chance, the subject of today's post happens to read this… uh, sorry? But you really confused me foe a while, and I think I want to talk about that.

I am, to put it politely, not someone who has had a lot of luck with women over the years. It's probably more accurate to say that I was not someone who had a lot of luck with women over the years, given that I am happily married, but hopefully you get what I mean. There were not many notches on my bedpost before I settled down.

Probably my most confusing relationship began during my first year at university. I had joined the university Theatre Group, and, while I felt quite awkward around a lot of its members still, I had enjoyed being part of a production of "The Scottish Play", and my involvement with the group only grew after that first year.

It was around Christmas time in my first year at university. The Theatre Group had hosted a nice meal down at a restaurant on the Southampton waterfront that doesn't exist any more, and somehow — I genuinely cannot remember how — I had become engaged in conversation with a young woman I hadn't encountered prior to thar evening. I shall spare her real name for the sake of privacy, so let's call her X.

As I say, I don't remember the exact circumstances of how we got talking, but I do remember that the evening concluded with me walking her back to her halls of residence, having a good snog and exchanging phone numbers. It was nice. Although in the intervening years, I have attempted to recall where her halls of residence were — they weren't one of the more "well known" ones in Southampton — and am not entirely sure they exist any more, or indeed if they ever did.

Regardless, I thought that was a pretty swell way to end an evening, and as such we made arrangements to see one another again. With Christmas coming up, I also bought her a small gift — in retrospect, probably too much too soon — which took the form of a small cuddly gorilla because, I believe, she had at some point indicated that such things were cute.

Not long after providing said gift, I was unceremoniously dumped via text, and I thought that was that. Except it wasn't. What it actually was I don't really know, aside from the fact that it really was jolly confusing for… probably three or four years in total.

We took a trip to London together and went to see an art film called Intimacy which had a lot of naked cocks in it, and we held hands throughout the film. She came to the house I was renting on several occasions, and we shared a fair few moments of intimacy, though something always felt a little awkward and off a out them — probably my fault for feeling disbelief that anyone would ever want to do such things with me. And we texted a lot.

I don't remember much of what we talked about, but we did text one another a lot. Initially, because I was quite confused about the nature of our relationship and not quite sure if I should push things, I wasn't quite sure how to act. But over time, I came to feel like I was enjoying these messages — if secretly dreading any time someone would ask "who've you been texting all evening?" and not really having a coherent answer.

There have been times over the years where I wonder what might have been there. There have been times where I have wondered if I missed a great opportunity. And there have been times when I think back on that whole situation and still have absolutely no idea what to make of it all.

So here's to you, X. Our time together may have confused the fuck out of me — and indirectly taught me that communicating clearly is probably the best basis for a solid relationship, even if it can be difficult at times — but I certainly think back on it fondly.

As the fat disgusting mess I am today, I think I'd probably be ashamed to show you what became of me, but 20 years ago? You certainly made life interesting for quite some time, to be sure.

#oneaday Day 164: Random access memories

It's peculiar exactly what memories your brain — or, well, more accurately, my brain — chooses to hold onto. One would think that your most "sticky" memories would be those that were defining influences on you; those which played a key role in shaping you into the person you are today. But I find that very difficult to believe when I contemplate some of my most vivid memories from years gone by.

For example, I vividly remember one lunchtime at primary school, my friend Matthew and I went to the rear of the school fields and did shoulderstands because we thought it would make us more likely to fart. I will freely admit that as a 43 year old man I still find farting far more amusing than I probably should, but I'm not sure that specific memory played a particularly developmental role in appreciating toilet humour. I haven't done a shoulderstand for probably more than 30 years and I doubt I could right now.

I have several other primary school memories, and unfortunately not all of them are particularly positive ones.

I remember playing one lunchtime with a girl I was friends with; we were doing some sort of "pretend play" involving swordfighting using sticks, and my mother happened to walk by the back of the field during lunchtime (it was a public right of way) and saw this play, misinterpreting it as me hitting the girl in question with a stick. I got in trouble for that, despite me knowing very well that I was perfectly innocent.

I remember one P.E. lesson at primary school — very early, infants level, class 1 or 2 — where I really needed to go to the toilet, but I wasn't allowed, and I ended up pissing myself in the playground. Rather than being embarrassed, I found it oddly fascinating how the piss would actually come out through my shorts.

Another P.E. lesson from the same "infants" period, so year 1 or 2, I somehow managed to shit myself without realising it. I didn't notice until I got home and my mother asked why there was a brown stain on my arse. Genuinely not knowing that I'd actually shat myself, I suggested that I must have fallen in some mud at some point. The contents of my pants a little later revealed this to not be the case, though to my mother's eternal credit, she simply made a comment along the lines of "it must have been some very strong mud to go all the way through your pants". To this day, I genuinely don't know how I shat myself without realising it.

Another time at school, again in the infants period, I felt sick during storytime, and yakked all over the floor. Once again, I found myself oddly contemplative about the experience rather than particularly embarrassed.

None of these experiences are what I'd necessarily call "formative". I mean, yes, I have low self-esteem and I'm sure none of those particular events helped in the development of that particular personality trait, but I don't think any of them were the root cause of it. Why do I hold on to those memories? They're not particularly "precious" or anything, though at a pinch I might suggest that I hold onto them because recounting them as an adult is at least slightly amusing.

There are others from later years, too. I've recounted the tale of "not remembering how to make friends" on my first day at secondary school numerous times.

Then there was the time I overheard someone I thought was my friend taking the piss out of me while sitting behind me in the county concert band, and when I jokingly confronted them about it, not wanting to believe that they'd actually been being mean, and them not exactly denying it.

There was the one time I did step out of my comfort zone and introduced myself to someone at university.

The time I sat, all dressed up and ready to go out, brooding in the window of my hall of residence kitchen, hoping someone would find me and I could unleash the hormonal sadness I was feeling because the girl I liked had got with a guy from downstairs.

That one Halloween I felt an incredible sense of self-confidence and liberation after completely hiding my entire body and face. Another Halloween where I dressed up as a monk and ended up not being entirely sure if I'd scored with a girl or not, since she had taken me back to her house, let me in and given me her phone number, then just sort of vanished.

That one evening in grotty student nightclub Kaos where a random bloke asked me if I'd ever done ecstasy, then almost immediately afterwards I scored with a veritable Amazon of a woman (my friend Owen called her "Xena", but her actual name was Beki) and the same bloke shook me by the hand, giving me a knowing wink and a smile, saying "yeah, mate, you'd definitely enjoy ecstasy". (I've never done ecstasy.)

I could go on. There are myriad little snippets of my life that are lodged away in my long-term storage that I don't really know why. I feel like these are the things that will flash before my eyes before I die, and I doubt I'll be any clearer on the reason why they're there at that point, either. Hopefully I won't have to think about that for a while, yet.

I don't really have a conclusion to these musings. I just think it's interesting all the useless memories our brains seem to hold on to. If there is a reason for it, I don't know what it is. Perhaps all those memories did shape me in some way and helped turn me into the gibbering wreck of a human being I am today. In which case… aren't I better off forgetting all of them?

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