High School - or Grammar School Really

Good news – my foot has fully recovered and I am now able to resume my walks. All it needed was a little rest and a bit of ice.

It’s Sunday so let’s answer some more silly questions from Sunday Stealing.

Let’s dive in.

Your high school graduation class of: 1981

1. Did you marry your high school sweetheart?

I went to a Grammar School for boys so, sadly, I didn’t have a “high school” sweetheart. I did have a girlfriend about that time but, no, I didn’t marry her.

2. Type of car?

I didn’t learn to drive until I was 23 so I didn’t have a car at school. Besides, they cost money to run and I had better things to spend my cash on.

3. What kind of job?

I worked in a newsagent at the time, doing odd jobs for the owner of the shop like serving customers, stock taking, sorting out newspapers for delivery, delivering the newspapers, collecting payments for the delivered newspapers and other menial tasks. The owner actually tried to persuade me to give up school and work for him full time. As you can guess, I didn’t take him up on his generous offer.

4. Where did you live?

I lived in Walsall, a town about ten miles north of Birmingham.

5. Were you popular in school?

Not really. Most of my mates were from outside school because I wasn’t really keen on the overall feel of the school. I had friends at school but I didn’t hang around with the so-called “popular” kids – they were arses.

6. Were you in choir/band?

I was in the school orchestra and brass band. I played a trombone.

7. Ever get suspended? 

No – but I had a lot of detentions for being an arrogant little git.

8. If you could would you go back? 

Absolutely not. I would probably return to the school to have a wander around the buildings but going back would be a bloody nightmare.

9. Still talk to the person that you went to prom with?

We didn’t have proms, although this American tradition has started happening in the UK now.

10. Did you skip School ?

Actually, I don’t think I did. Although I hated school I recognised its importance and I embraced the academic requirements with reluctant enthusiasm.

11. Go to all the football games?

I didn’t go to any of them. My school was seen as a place for academic excellence and we had to pass an exam to be admitted to it. Consequently, the sports that we played were different from other local schools, so for example, instead of playing football (that’s soccer for Americans), we played Rugby Union and cricket.

12. Favourite subjects?

I enjoyed a lot of subjects actually because, although I was a bit of a rebel, I was actually quite good at most of them. I loved Maths, Physics and Chemistry and I quite enjoyed French and German too.

13. Do you still have your yearbook?

We didn’t have a yearbook. What I did have was something we called “The Green Book” which appeared once a year and contained lots of information about the school, including a list of names of the teachers and their subjects, the kids and what classes they were in and various other bits of totally useless information. I kept the very last one I had.

14. Did you follow the "original" career path?

I think I did – sort of. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was in sixth form and preparing for university and decided that really I should do something that involved my best subject – maths. So I opted to be a computer programmer because I thought there was a future in it. I was correct and I am still working in the industry today. If I could go back, I would have chosen something else though.

15. Do you still have your class ring?

We never had a class ring. I don’t know what such a thing is.

16. Favourite teacher? 

My favourite teacher was a maths teacher who taught me throughout my school life. He even used to call me by my nickname (which was Snowy). A very pleasant man.

17. What was your style?

We all had to wear the same uniform. It was quite strict and if you failed to adhere to it, you were in big trouble.

We wore a dark grey blazer with the school badge on the pocket, with a white shirt and a horrific red, white and green tie. A grey jumper was optional (depending on the weather). We also had grey trousers and black shoes. First and second year students had to wear a terrible green, red and yellow cap when walking to and from school. Why? I have no idea and it used to get me in a lot of trouble because I refused to wear the bloody thing.

In the sixth form the dress code was relaxed ever so slightly. Instead of the horrific tie of the first five years, we wore a green tie with the school badge at the bottom. I still have my sixth form tie. We could also wear different coloured shirts as long as they were light in colour.

So basically I looked terrible and had no style whatsoever.

18. Favourite Shoes?

We just had black shoes as I said earlier. Boring black shoes.

19. Favourite thing to eat for lunch?

We had the option of eating the pig swill they served for lunch but we were also allowed to bring sandwiches too. I chose the latter because my mum always made brilliant ones.

20. Favourite band?

I listened to a lot of music during my time at school. I would say it was probably Rainbow, Nazareth, Rush, UFO, Black Sabbath or Whitesnake.

21. High School Hair?

My chemistry teacher called me “the boy with the chrysanthemum head” in front of the whole class when I was 16. Can you imagine the uproar and the humiliation I had to endure after that?

Regular readers will know that I hate my hair and between the ages of 16 and 18 it was probably the worst it has ever been. My hair is very thick and it was long. Here is a photo of me when I was about 12 – and it grew and grew after that into a bushy mess – a bit like a chrysanthemum.

The Boy with the Chrysanthemum Head

Spot the difference

22. How old when you graduated?

I was one of the oldest kids in the year so I was 18 years old, which meant that I could celebrate in the pub.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 28

Today’s song is another from the brilliant Porcupine Tree called Sentimental.

This is a rather sad song about young kids not wanting to grow old and somehow stay as young as they are but with the added feeling of having wasted their life so far.

I remember when I was a kid that I really wanted to stay young and play forever, but the overriding issue that I realised would remain was the lack of money. As far as I was concerned, with money came freedom and if I had that money I could do what I wanted.

Sadly, a thirteen year old can’t always get the money they want. My parents looked after us but we weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination. Unfortunately I went to, what was considered, the best school in Walsall, and consequently a lot of kids with rich parents also attended. The big difference was that a lot of them were pampered by their parents who gave them enough money to buy all the latest gear, whereas I missed out. I could see the unfairness of life and I think that this shaped me politically and certainly changed my outlook.

What I saw was that my own parents immensely proud of what I had achieved but some of the other kids I knew were pushed by already successful parents and really struggled to cope.

I was happy with where I was going but I didn’t like the environment I found myself in, particularly when I was at the mercy of rich kids who showed off their treasures and mocked me for not having the same wealth.

My only option was to get a job to get extra cash and it was the best thing I ever did. It was a simple job, in a newsagent but I was able to buy stuff and fight back against the more privileged kids. I worked at the newsagent from thirteen to eighteen, assisting the manager with delivering newspapers, setting up all the paper rounds, collecting money, stock taking, shelf-stacking and, towards the end, selling stuff from behind the counter.

It was all menial work but I thoroughly enjoyed the job, so much so that the manager of the shop tried to persuade me to ditch the idea of university and consider a career as a manager in the chain of shops.

Sadly that wasn’t for me and I had to disappoint him.

However, what all of this taught me was that working for money was a good thing and while it interfered with my social life a little, it meant that I did have some freedom and the ability to laugh in the faces of the pompous arseholes at school who flashed their daddy’s cash around without having earned it.

The job prepared me for a real career and when I actually started work after university, I embraced it with gusto.

Regular readers will know that I am now sick of the rat race but the truth is that I am not a kid anymore and, having worked in IT for over thirty years, I want a change. Whether I achieve my new goals in the years to come is questionable but at least I am happy being the age I am and looking towards the future as an old man with some pleasure – as long as I am physically able to cope of course.

But that thirteen year old kid is still in my head and occasionally surfaces.

I love that and don't ever want that to change.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 13

Today’s song is A Soapbox Opera by Supertramp, performed in the video below by co-founder of the band Roger Hodgson with a full orchestra.

The song is really about finding meaning in religion, specifically in Catholicism, which I’m sure that many Catholics struggle with.

I am a lapsed Catholic, if such a thing exists. My mother is Catholic but my father wasn’t. My mum’s parents were also Catholic, particularly my grandad who made sure that my mum, an only child, attended everything that the local church threw at them.

I don’t know for sure, but I imagine that he wasn’t very happy when my mum announced that she was going to marry a non-Catholic. From what I remember of him, he was a very strict and principled man and most if not all of his principles came from Catholicism.

My dad was a good man so I can imagine him sacrificing a lot to marry my mum. In the end, he agreed to live next door to my mum’s parents and also to get married in the Catholic church, agreeing to raise his kids as Catholics.

He left that chore to my mum who made sure that my sisters and I were immersed in Catholicism from the day we were born. We had to attend church every Sunday, every Feast Day as well as taking part in extra-curricular activities that the church organised.

We went to a Catholic infant and junior school where again we were immersed in the religion. From baptism all the way to confirmation, via first confession and Holy Communion, Catholicism was stitched into my psyche. I could and still can recite several parts of the Catholic mass in Latin, such is the manner in which they were entrenched.

I suppose I started to question my religion when I left the Catholic junior school for a non-Catholic grammar school, which claimed to be the best school in my home town of Walsall.

Why did my mum allow this?

Mainly because I passed an exam called the 11 Plus and this qualified me for a school that was sought after by most parents in my town. The school used the 11 Plus as a means to pick the most intelligent kids. If I had failed the exam I would have had to attend a Catholic secondary school.

As I got older, I stopped going to church, much to my mum’s dismay. My grandparents both died before any of this happened and I imagine that my grandad would have intervened.

Nowadays, I only mention that I am Catholic when asked or when I decide to mention it in a blog post such as this.

I do wonder what my grandad thinks of all this.

If Catholicism is to be believed than my grandad will be watching from afar and shaking his head in disbelief at my lifestyle choices, particularly as I no longer go to church and openly question religious beliefs.

He may be impressed that I have actually seen Pope John –Paul II in the flesh when he visited Liverpool in 1982. In fact, that was the last time I openly defended Catholicism. A good friend of mine began mocking me when I returned from seeing the Pope drive past in his Popemobile.

At the time, I felt like I had merely seen one of the most famous people in the world. However, my friend asked, in a mocking manner, whether I felt “spiritually uplifted” having seen God’s representative on Earth in the flesh.

Actually, that’s not true. I didn’t specifically defend Catholicism; I defended religion in general. What I actually saw as the Pope drove by was a lot of happy people. I told my friend that belief in a religious system can help people come to terms with all of the nasty things that happen in life. Some people did feel spiritually uplifted by seeing the Pope and these are the same people who will feel the same when they go to church every Sunday.

And it doesn’t matter what your religion is.

Yes, there are nutters out there who use religion as an excuse to create havoc and catastrophe but these people are the minority. Sadly, they get the most publicity. You only have to look back in history and you can see examples of the abuse of most religions to control people and cause harm.

Yet at the same time, I see people who are happy and content solely because of their religion. I am talking about Catholicism, Christianity in general, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism etc. etc.

I do not regard Scientology as a religion by the way.

A prime example of what I mean is when Mrs PM’s grandfather died. He and his wife were “born again Christians” and had converted to that religion about twenty years before. Mrs PM and I immediately went to visit her grandmother. I walked into her house and immediately hugged her and said

“I’m really sorry about Tom.”

She looked up at me and said, with a smile:

“It’s okay, Dave. He’s with the Lord now.”

Her religion helped her overcome her grief because, in her eyes, her husband was now in Heaven waiting for her in Paradise.

Yes, I am sceptical about this, but in that moment, her words confirmed the point that I had made to my mocking friend.

Religion provides comfort and belief and for that reason I won’t dismiss it - though I still hope God has a sense of humour and can forgive the times I’ve mocked religion in the past.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 11

There is one British band carrying the torch for Progressive Rock into the future and are bringing the genre to the masses. That band is Muse and today’s song is one of their classics. It is called Survival and was the official anthem for the London 2012 Olympics.

It’s a great song that illustrates the drive to achieve a sporting triumph and characterises the desire to keep on striving to reach your goals.

When I was a young lad, I used to watch sport and dream of achieving similar goals. I was hindered slightly because my eyesight is so poor that there are certain sports I could only dream of attempting.

Take football for example – or if you are American, I mean “soccer” ( I will try not to rant about the sport that you guys call “football” because, don’t forget, I am endeavouring to be positive in 2017 and not antagonise anybody – besides, you have enough on your plate with Donald Trump!).

To play football, you need good eyesight and I can barely see the other players on my own team let alone the bloody ball. I did try playing football in my spectacles a couple of times, but each time I ended up in pain. One time, the ball hit me full in the face and the frame of my glasses pierced the skin above my eye giving me a nasty cut more reminiscent of boxing.

I tried repeatedly to play without them but failed. One time, the goalkeeper cleared the ball in my direction and I ran forward to where I thought it would end up. My fellow team mates yelled at me – all I could hear was my name being called. Sadly, I thought they were expecting a pass the moment that I plucked the ball from the air, like a professional footballer would do; the truth is that they were yelling for another reason. I looked up into the sky and the ball hit me full in the face almost breaking my nose. I fell in a heap on the floor and the opposition players almost collapsed in laughter.

Another game I tried was rugby, which is more like American Football – but much more violent and with no added protection.

I regarded rugby as legalised bullying and in order to thrive you needed to have good eyesight (fail!), be big (fail!) and be strong (fail!).

I was fast, and could run when the ball somehow found its way into my hands but sadly my other flaws let me down and I ended up breathing mud having been flattened by angry meatheads twice my size and weight.

Cricket was another choice and I could play with my glasses on. The problem was that the ball is constructed in Hell and is a small hard missile hurled at you at ridiculous speeds and, if it makes contact, can cause huge pain.

Athletically, I was okay. I was quite fast and excelled in 100m, 200m, long jump and triple jump. My stamina was also high thanks to trying out cross country running so I was a very competent distance runner, doing well at 1500m and 5000m.

The field events were a challenge. I opted out of trying to throw a hammer, discus or javelin in case I impaled the sports teacher, although at the time I wouldn’t have been too sad because he was a sadistic rugby player (and a complete bastard) who hated me for some reason.

My sports teacher

I’ve tried a few sports over the years such as tennis, swimming, table tennis, badminton and hockey but my love was always football and I carried on playing five-a-side well into my late 30’s before finally giving up and joining a gym to keep fit.

Now, in my mid-50’s the only sport that I can excel in is walking – and I love to do that alone with my iPod as a soundtrack.

I would dearly have loved to have been a professional footballer but God had other ideas; you can’t play football if your eyesight is worse than Mr Magoo’s.

If all of the rumours about the afterlife are true and one day I end up facing judgement I plan to ask the following questions:

Why the bad eyesight? 

What did I do wrong?

And before you ask, yes I did try contact lenses and I almost threw up over the optician’s suit.

That would have been most unpleasant.

A Chemistry Catastrophe

I still remember the look of incredulity on his face.

“You are a complete and utter moron!”

he said, staring at me as if I had just dropped a rare Ming Dynasty vase.

To be totally honest, I had a look of sheer disbelief at my own incompetence. I looked around the room and saw twenty other faces also staring at me, except their reaction was completely different; there were all struggling not to laugh out loud.

Five minutes earlier I was preparing to perform a titration to find the concentration of an acid for my A-Level chemistry course. I had done this quite a few times already and even the most gormless muppet usually managed to complete the task without pain.

The experiment requires a glass tube, called a burette, which has a tap at the end, to be clamped vertically to a stand above a conical flask, similar to this:

This guy is much better than I was

The burettes were all clamped to the wall of the lab in tight metal clips and had to be very carefully removed.

I managed that.

I walked back to my workplace and opened the clamp on the stand to grip the burette vertically. Stupidly (and I still don’t know how I did this), I let go of the burette before the clamp had locked its rubber jaws onto the glass.

The burette obeyed the law of gravity and dropped onto the bench, shattering into several hundred pieces.

The chemistry teacher shouted from across the room.

“What have I told you all about clamping burettes?” he snarled. And then to me: “Get a brush and clean that up and then get another tube!”

I did as I was told. I grabbed a dustpan and brush and gathered up the tiny fragments of glass before walking across to acquire my second burette. I carefully prised the glass tube from the wall as I had done many times before and walked back to my workplace.

On the way, one of my so-called mates, lifted up a plastic bottle filled with distilled water and aimed it at my face. He didn’t actually squirt me, but I protected myself anyway out of instinct.

Sadly, I forgot about the burette in my hand and my evasive manoeuvres, while protecting me, had a devastating effect on the glass tube. I smashed it against the workbench and it shattered into a couple of hundred pieces, rather like its predecessor.

I closed my eyes in shame and when I dared to look up I discovered the chemistry teacher marching towards me, his face evolving into that of an apoplectic demon.

“In all my days, I have never seen one student break TWO burettes in the space of two minutes. Clean that up and get another – and this time BE CAREFUL!!”

I thought he was actually going to hit me. Thankfully, at my old school, when we entered the sixth form, students were treated as adults (even though we weren’t really) and the teacher restrained himself from any form of punishment.

All I could do was squeak the words, “I’m sorry, sir.”

I was genuinely embarrassed.

I cleaned up my second lot of glass and shuffled over to the burette wall again, amidst sniggering.

I grabbed the middle of the third burette.

Something came over me. Perhaps it was panic. Perhaps I was just flustered. Maybe I was frustrated at my own clumsiness.

I'll never know.

Rather  than carefully extracting the tube from its haven, I simply pulled the tube.

Burette number three snapped in two places.

The top third was still clamped to the wall.

The bottom third fell to the floor and shattered.

The final third was in my hand.

I turned around slowly and stared into the eyes of the teacher who was speechless for around twenty seconds. His mouth fell open in utter disbelief before he uttered the words:

 “You are a complete and utter moron!”

I had no defence. I couldn’t think of anything to say other than:

“I’ll get the dustpan and brush.”

Those words were the catalyst and laughter erupted from the mouths of the rest of the class like tiny sonic tsunamis.

I cleaned up the mess for the third time and when I had finished, the teacher had extracted a fourth burette and set it up at my workplace. As I approached, he simply said:

“For God’s sake try not to break this one!”

I didn’t and managed to complete the experiment without any more burette casualties.

It didn’t stop the teacher from saying:

“Try not to shatter any more burettes, Mr Mancunian. They cost a lot of money you know.” 

repeatedly for every titration I had to do. On the occasion of my very last titration, he actually smiled at me as he spoke the words.

I have quite a few tales from the chemistry laboratory that I may regale you with in later posts, some of which are quite a lot more spectacular than a little breaking glass.

In many ways this, and many other examples of my prowess at practical chemistry, go to prove that while I was actually good at the subject, I was really rather clumsy and careless when it came down to handling dangerous substances.

At one point I honestly fancied a career based on chemistry.

Thinking about it, it’s probably a good idea that I didn't pursue that particular plan.

School Daze (Part Three) - Shapes of Things

I often wondered whether I fully exploited the subjects I did at school. To be honest, unless you really know what you want to do, deciding your career based on subject matter at an age where raging hormones and, in my case, rebellious confusion can make you decide on the path of life for the next 50 or so years is quite daunting.

I know that I had little clue about what I wanted to do and if I could go back I would change it all. Sadly, between the ages of 11 and 18 I made my choice based on the subjects I was good at, rather than the subjects that were more of a challenge.

I thought, for a laugh, and for a bit of nostalgia and to give you an idea of the person I was and how my schooling shaped me into this grumpy old pseudo Mancunian IT geek in his early 50s, who hates his career and yearns to be a travel writer.

Let me guide you through the various subjects I had to endure and how I coped.

Art

I was useless at art.

I suffered this for two years before I could safely kick it into touch. Surely the teacher must have had a bit of a clue about my ineptitude when he asked me to draw a bowl of fruit and found himself staring in shock at an alien nightmare. Mind you, my efforts could probably have been seized by pseudo –intellectual art critics as an abstract masterpiece.

My attempts at pottery were equally appalling and resulted in clay being thrown at the walls and other kids, not because I was a rapscallion; I just couldn’t control the bloody stuff as it flew in all directions. And you should have seen the result.

Woodwork

I am rubbish when it comes to DIY and I blame my woodwork teacher. He was a man who tried to encourage me with dulcet words as I destroyed half a tree trying to turn wood into something useful. I have never been able to mould wood since and I have no intention of ever trying again. Everything I constructed either fell apart or ended up in the bin. Another subject dumped after two years of wasted effort .

French

French was compulsory for five years and I had several run-ins with a rather maniacal French teacher who had the ability to make kids cry with a mixture of stern authority and menacing threat. My problem was that I could see through his façade and actually used to laugh at his attempts to belittle me in front of the class.

Despite this, he was a very good teacher who immediately sussed out who the class villains were and made them all sit directly in front of him at the front. Nobody answered back – including me – yet I struggled to stifle guffaws when he started on a poor victim. Consequently he would pick on me – yet all I did was laugh.

“What is so funny?” he would ask, growling.

“You are,”  I said truthfully.

I would of course end up having to see him after class for a stern telling off and detention (or jug as we used to call it) – but I simply couldn’t help it.

 I was actually very good at languages and I still remember a lot of French thanks to this rather eccentric teacher. French is one of those subjects I regret not mastering; I would dearly love to be able to speak French fluently.

History

I found history totally boring and in the three years I had to suffer it, I had to endure tedious facts and, eventually, I found that it was drifting towards politics, a subject I despised even then.

My history teacher was an absent-minded old man who actually wrote a book about the history of my school, a rather grand grammar school in Walsall.

We just used to joke about him, saying that his knowledge was so deep because he was old enough to experience it personally.  These days I find myself being drawn towards history again and I sort of regret not being enthusiastic about it at school, choosing instead to draw moustaches on pictures of Henry VIII's wives.

Geography

For someone who wants to travel, this should have been a key subject for me.

It wasn’t.

I have the glorious distinction of coming bottom of my entire year in my final year of studying the subject. I was not going to continue, I figured, so I would do absolutely no work in the subject.

It worked; I simply couldn’t answer any of the questions or write any meaningful essays.

I didn’t care. To be honest, I don’t really care now because travelling for work and pleasure I am learning it all again – this time in a fun way.

Music

Here is a major regret. I really should have learned to play a guitar and/or piano and paid absolute attention to musical theory.

My music teacher was another eccentric maniac whose mannerisms and warped enthusiasm helped to fuel my rebellious nature.

Unlike the French teacher he wasn’t funny – he was just an obnoxious arsehole. And because I was also an obnoxious arsehole, we clashed in magnificent fashion.

When I gave up the trombone he was angry unlike the man who actually taught me how to play the instrument, a jazz trombonist whose skill with this brass monstrosity was amazing - he was very disappointed.

 Looking back, I feel ashamed that I had let my trombone teacher down – and maybe I could have been as good as he was had I pursued it.

I really should have chosen a guitar!

English Language

My English teacher didn’t like me.

I seemed to be able to wind him up just by being in the same room as he was – and this had nothing to do with any ill feeling on my part. During free writing lessons, I wrote weird stories about the Bermuda Triangle, space travel and monsters. He criticised them saying that my warped imagination was leading me completely astray.

Consequently I was forced to write about stuff I hated and my lack of enthusiasm must have shown through. In retrospect, perhaps I should have listened to him more and at least attempted to prove him wrong. Sadly, when my rebellious nature finally did manifest itself we drifted even further apart – which was a problem because he also taught me English Literature.

English Literature

Forcing me to read Shakespeare and Thomas Hardy was a mistake in my opinion. I hated them. I also despised poetry and my abhorrence showed itself in the essays I had to write criticising them. When I say criticising, I don’t mean pouring scorn on them; I mean giving a critical analysis of the work in question.

Sadly my true feelings often came through.

It was only when we had the opportunity to choose our own books that I somehow clawed myself back from the abyss of failure. H.G.Wells, Jules Verne and George Orwell saved me. My passion was evident, even to a teacher who regarded me with contempt and he had to acknowledge that the essays I wrote about authors I liked were actually quite good – a brave admission from the man, in my opinion, despite our differences.

Finally

There’s more to come so I will continue opening a door to the past in my next post rather than droning on about other subjects.

In the meantime, dear reader:

Did you enjoy any of the subjects I have mentioned above? 

Have you any regrets about school?

And just how cheeky or obnoxious were you to your teachers? 

No Laughing In Heaven

Let me take you back to 1981.

I was in my final year at school and A-Levels were approaching like a speeding train. I had mad hair, so mad in fact that my form teacher, a certain Mr N, decided to humiliate me in class by saying the following in front of a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds:

“Mr Mancunian...” – actually he had no idea that I was going to end up in Manchester – but just go with it.

“Mr Mancunian. Before you come to school please, in the name of God, stick your head in a bucket of water.”

After the inevitable riotous laughter had died down (it took about 20 minutes). He continued:

“Do you know, Mr Mancunian, you remind me of a boy at my old school. He had copious amounts of unmanageable hair. Do you know what we used to call him?”

This was like comedy gold to each and every member of my class – apart from me.

“They used to call him The Boy with the Chrysanthemum Head.”

I think that some kids in my class are still laughing even now.

What on earth was he thinking?

Anyway, that’s just setting the scene.

Back in 1981, we were typical 17 year old lads with all of the pitfalls associated with that particular point in life. I was a mad-haired, rebellious, arrogant, hormone-enraged arse, surrounded by similar people with varying degrees of self-importance and mane madness (it was just a little past the 1970’s after all).

I went to a grammar school and it was, kind of, meant to be for the brightest boys in Walsall. In the sixth form, conversations veered between total immature, hormone-driven stupidity and all manner of intellectual subject matter, embracing just about everything else in between.

One such topic for discussion was religion.

In 1980, I noticed an alarming explosion in the number of born again Christians in my school year and as more of my friends succumbed, I found myself having to defend myself for being a Roman Catholic.

One particularly arrogant mate of mine said:

“I told my pastor that you aren’t a true Christian because you are Catholic. He told me I shouldn’t try to ridicule you; I should try to convert you.”

The fact that I was a lapsed Catholic and had given up going to church two years earlier was irrelevant. My rebellious streak urged me – no – ordered  me to fight my corner.

And then Ian Gillan released a song. This song actually made it into the UK charts. And it stirred up a hornet’s nest, causing several major arguments and several friends to fall out with each other.

It’s called No Laughing In Heaven and, to a born again Christian, the lyrics are totally offensive. I, and many others, found the lyrics amusing.

Here it is – with lyrics. You may not like the song – but stick with it.




 Did we argue about the lyrical content of the song? Of course.

Did we fall out about the song? Absolutely.

I think I started the ball rolling with:

“Surely you find it funny. A man changes his lifestyle so that he can go to Heaven and spend eternity partying, only to find that Heaven is like a perpetual church service and that Hell is the place where the party is. Don’t you understand irony?”

And my final pièce de résistance:

“Hasn’t God got a sense of humour?”

You can imagine the reaction. Those who liked the song or couldn’t see anything wrong with it were lambasted mercilessly.

“You really WILL spend the remainder of your existence burning in Hell,” they said.

And of course I reacted with:

“I’m Catholic – I’ll spend some time in Purgatory and then get my pass from St Peter.”

Since my schooldays, I’ve mellowed a lot though I am still curious about religion and why a born again Christian would regard me as heathen, despite my being a Catholic and despite having spent the first sixteen years of my life praying in church, confessing my sins to a priest and taking communion.

One of the problems is that you simply cannot argue with some of these people. I enjoy having a discussion with anybody, particularly if I am curious about the subject. I find it difficult to talk to evangelical Christians because their argument is always something along the lines of:

 “It’s God’s will.”

And the discussion terminates at that point.

I watched a comedy routine from Reginald D. Hunter and he pointed out this exact thing. He said something along the lines of:

“When a Christian says “It’s God’s Will” that really means “I’m done thinking”.”

There’s many a true word spoken in jest, so the saying goes.

If you are a born again Christian, dear reader, please be aware that I am not here to mock you or your beliefs. I am genuinely interested in why you have the views you have and will gladly and willingly have a chat about it and why you think I am going to be Satan’s plaything for eternity just for trying to have an open mind about these things.

I have a scientific mind and I would dearly love to see proof that God really does exist and that he has a sense of humour – and probably most importantly, if he can divulge what will happen to me when I shuffle off this mortal coil:

(a) Spend eternity in a vast empty void of emptiness … or

(b) Be condemned to eternity in Hell for writing this post and laughing at “No Laughing In Heaven” …or

(c) Be punished in Purgatory, alongside Ian Gillan.

Knowing my luck, it will be (b) – and I will be chained to Piers Morgan and forced to eat rhubarb while listening to opera and Shakespeare for the rest of time.

Skool Daze (Part Two) - The Trombone

I can play the trombone. Don’t laugh – it’s true.

When I say “can play” I really mean “used to be able to play”. I can hear the question you are about to ask, dear reader:

“Why on Earth would a man who sings the praises of heavy metal play a trombone?”

It’s all the entire fault of my father.

When I arrived in my first year at the grammar school we were all told that we had to go and see the music teacher – individually. My name was called out and off I went.

I arrived at the door to the music room and knocked.

“Enter,” yelled a posh voice.

I walked in and stood facing a man who scared the shit out of me. The music room was just like any other classroom in the school apart from one or two things that gave its purpose away.

In the corner at the right hand side of the room, stood an open cupboard that was stacked full of vinyl records. At the back of the class behind the desks, there were a number of music stands. Other cupboards lined the room and they were closed. At the front of the room next to the teacher’s desk was a piano and behind that two blackboards; the first was a conventional blackboard but the second had several staves coloured in dark orange, where the teacher or pupils could actually write music. And in the corner at the front of the room was a top of the range music centre.

I was terrified and stood there gawping at the room like a raving rabbit caught in headlights.

“Name?” asked the madman in front of me, whom I shall refer to as Mr Ragbag (not his real name obviously but it does incorporate his nickname).

I told him, squeaking like a mouse held captive by a mad moggy.

“Right – I want you to sing for me. I want you to sing a scale.”

“A what?” I blurted.

“A musical scale you stupid boy. And call me SIR!!!”

He demonstrated what he wanted by singing himself and then looking at me expectantly.

A tiny dribble of urine escaped and my hand instinctively reached for my crotch.

“LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH LAH!” I sang. I was proud of myself, despite the fact that I had stumbled part way down the road towards pissing my pants. I thought I sounded fine. Mr Ragbag gave his damning verdict.

“You sound like a parrot being strangled, boy,” he said putting a big red cross in a book next to my name. “You won’t be singing in the choir.”

“Phew!” I thought.

“What musical instrument would you like to learn?” he added.

“Dunno!” I jabbered.

“I DON’T KNOW, SIR!!!” he shouted. “Think about it and come back tomorrow. Now get out.”

If I knew then what I know now, I would immediately have told Mr Ragbag that I wanted to be a rock guitarist.

“I want to be an axe-wielding psychotic metal God, deafening people with my insane riffs! I want to be like Jimi Hendrix and set fire to my guitar before smashing it all up. I want to be a rebel and write songs about death, destruction and girls.”

Sadly, I didn’t say that at all; if I had my life could have been so different.

Instead, I just walked out hoping that I really hadn't peed my trousers.

I never liked Mr Ragbag and he didn’t like me either. That first encounter paved the way for our future relationship; a very rocky one at best.

I went home and spoke to my dad about the encounter and asked for his advice.

Sadly, my dad didn’t envisage me as a mad guitarist and now he had the opportunity to mould me into something that he thought I should be.

“Play a trombone – like Glenn Miller,” he said, pride pouring out of his big smiling face.

“Okay,” I said, without thinking. I returned to Mr Ragbag the next day and told him that I wanted to play the trombone.

I was assigned an external music teacher who specialised in brass instruments. He visited the school every Friday and music lessons were arranged to coincide with real lessons but organised so that different lessons were missed every week.

I remember that first lesson well. There were several smaller music rooms, full of a variety of musical instruments, with just enough room for three people to sit down and make arses of themselves with musical instruments.

I actually liked my trombone teacher and he liked me. He always encouraged me, telling me that I was a good student. On the first day, he shook my hand – yes, a teacher who shook my hand - and called me Dave. I loved it. All of the other teachers called me by my surname or “BOY!!!”.

I shall call my trombone teacher Mr Miller (after Glenn Miller – again not his real name). Mr Miller was a fully trained trombonist who was almost a virtuoso. Outside of school, he played in a jazz group and was an absolute maestro.

“Sit down, Dave,” he said on that first day. “Have you seen a trombone before?”

“Only on telly,” I blurted. I didn’t even call him “Sir,” a crime punishable by detention.

“That’s okay, “ he said. “Let’s sort one out for you.”

He moved a few instruments aside and hauled out a box that was as big as I was. He opened it up and inside was a shiny new trombone, which he extracted and put together for me.

“That’s yours,” he said smiling.

Over the next five years or so, Mr Miller helped to turn me into someone who could read music and, more importantly, actually make a big brass instrument with a slide sound something like a musical instrument.

I actually became quite good, so good in fact that I played in the school brass group, the school orchestra and briefly in the jazz group.

Unfortunately the school orchestra was run by Mr Ragbag and he took great pleasure in bellowing at people who didn’t play in the style he wanted. When I first saw Mr Ragbag’s attempts at conducting, I almost wet my pants again – this time, laughing. He bellowed at me in front of the entire orchestra, much to the amusement of everybody else, and then carried on conducting like he had a ferret in his trousers, forcing me to make even more mistakes as I struggled to stifle my chuckles. I didn’t last long in the school orchestra.

The jazz group was run by Mr Miller but it was far too whacky for me. The music put in front of me made no sense and it was as if everybody in the entire group was playing a different tune. I have never liked jazz and I guess that is where my hatred of the genre began.

Despite my failings in the orchestra and the jazz group, I was a star in the brass group. We played decent tunes and it was relatively easy. Mr Ragbag wasn’t involved at all and again Mr Miller took control. The brass group gave me my first and possibly only shot at fame. We played in school concerts and also in Walsall Town Hall. On one occasion, had to stand up during a rendition of “The Floral Dance” and play a solo. I was terrified but somehow I muddled through.

Sadly, my relationship with the trombone hit rocky ground and by the time I was an arrogant fifteen year old, I had decided to give it up. I didn’t bother to tell Mr Ragbag; I just stopped going to lessons. After a month of skipping lessons, Mr Ragbag finally lost his temper with me and I recall the day vividly.

I was in an English lesson when the door burst open and in walked a very irate Mr Ragbag.

“Can I help you, Mr Ragbag?” asked the English teacher.

“Where’s Plastic Mancunian?” he bellowed, looking wildly around the room. Of course, the rest of the class was chuckling with excitement at the prospect of my public humiliation.

I shrank in my chair but it didn’t help. He spotted me.

In those days I had long bushy blond hair and looked like a member of the Hair Bear Bunch.

Mr Ragbag strode purposefully towards my desk, reached out and grabbed my hair, hauling me out of my seat and dragging me towards the door. He uttered a sentence that made my life hell for the next month. My so-called school friends were merciless.

Why? Because of what Mr Ragbag said to me.

“I’M GOING TO SCREW YOU!!” he yelled, dragging me out of the door. When we were outside the classroom, he let rip, telling me in no uncertain terms what he thought of me. I tried to intervene but was yelled down.

He was livid. He grabbed me by my arm and led me to Mr Miller who was waiting for me.

“I forgot,” I told Mr Miller. He clearly didn’t believe me and the look of disappointment on his face told me everything I needed to know. He didn’t yell at me; he just carried on with the lesson, leaving me feeling ashamed.

However, my heart wasn’t in it and I gave up a few weeks later, citing the pressure of O-levels as an excuse. It was a lie.

I didn’t tell Mr Ragbag; I chose instead to tell Mr Miller and I hoped that my apparent desire to progress academically made him feel better.

It didn’t. He told me that it was a shame and that I should continue.

“You are a good trombonist,” he said. “It’s a real shame you want to give up. If you change your mind, you know where I am on Fridays.”

I felt really bad that I had let him down and I handed over the trombone one final time.

I haven’t picked one up since.

Mind you, recently I have been tempted to have another go, for old times’ sake. I imagine that I would probably sound dreadful but it would be good for a laugh.

And just watch this clip below. My dad was a huge fan of Glenn Miller – I could possibly have played in this band.



My dad would have loved that.

Skool Daze

I was having a chat with a couple of work colleagues the other week about the subjects we all did at school and I started to think more about school days. The picture above is me aged twelve. Just look at that bloody hair!!!

I’ve already mentioned a couple of my exploits as a child at school but I’ve never really written anything about the school itself.

At junior school, I was regarded as quite a clever kid. I was one of the stars of my year and I excelled in everything I did. Ultimately I took an exam called the 11-plus, along with all of my fellow pupils, and I passed easily. At the time I didn’t think anything of it. I certainly didn’t consider the reward for this achievement.

My father had been told that I was good enough to apply to the local grammar school in Walsall. It was a boy’s only school (there was an equivalent girl’s only school) and it was considered a privilege to go there. Most parents wanted their kids to enrol but in order to qualify, they had to pass the 11-plus. Since I had sailed through that exam I was accepted without question. Some of my mates didn’t quite do well enough and one or two had to take a further entrance exam.

Unfortunately, amongst the kids of Walsall, my school was considered a school for toffs or rich kids; we were mocked mercilessly by them. To be fair, most of the kids in my year did come from more privileged backgrounds.

Sadly I didn’t. My father worked in a factory and my mother didn’t work at all. We didn’t even own a car.

And this is where I had a huge problem.

I lived within spitting distance of the local comprehensive school which meant that when I walked to school I had to pass kids from the two comprehensive schools every single day. But it was worse than that, dear reader, because on the way to school I had to pass yet another comprehensive school. The journey to and from school took about half an hour and it wasn’t pleasant.

First of all, I was forced to wear a school cap in my first two years. It was a bizarre school rule to say the least and obviously something that was traditional. Such customs were irrelevant for my eleven year old self; all I thought about was a safe and trouble free journey – I rarely got one.

No other school in the borough of Walsall had a similar stupid rule about caps, meaning that I stood out like sore thumb. It was even worse than that, dear reader, because as far as I know, I was the only kid in the entire first year who lived in my area and consequently I was alone in my journey home. You can imagine what happened.

“Look – it’s a TOFF!” a voice would cry and then before I knew it I would be surrounded by kids from one of the other two schools. My cap was their target.

I had to try to fight them off or run away from them. I wasn’t always successful. That bloody cap was run over by a buses and cars, stuffed into dustbins and hurled around all the time.

I actually stopped wearing it for a while until I was caught by a teacher who just happened to be passing. This cretin stopped his car and screamed my name.

“Where’s your cap?” he said.

“I forgot it,” I replied thinking of the worst excuse possible.

“Detention, lad!” he said before driving off.

I was bloody annoyed I can tell you. The school’s idea was that wearing a cap would show that you were from a great school and that “you should be proud to wear it”. I wasn’t – I hated it.

I’m convinced that this episode was the beginning of the anarchic streak within me. I actually had an argument with the teacher who had stopped.

“You don’t have to walk back through a bunch of kids whose idea of a joke is to steal my cap,” I argued. “That’s why I don’t wear the fracking thing.”

“Don’t argue with me boy and how dare you use language like that!” he snarled. “Every time I see you on your way to or from the school without your cap you will get a detention.”

“That’s not bloody fair,” I cried. “My parents don’t own a car so I can’t get a lift. Everybody else leaves school, gets into a car and I’m willing to bet the cap comes straight off. It’s not fair.”

My arguments fell on deaf ears and the idea of rebelling against these stupid and idiotic rules was born. I became a rebel because of that bloody cap.

I managed to get away with not wearing it most of the time and only got caught a handful of times – each time I got a detention and sometimes I argued myself into yet another one.

Thankfully, when I reached the third year, the cap became optional. I ceremoniously burnt the bloody thing at the bottom of the garden by hurling it onto my dad’s bonfire.

It wasn’t just the cap the got me into trouble on the journey to and from school. One day a week I had trombone lessons and I had to carry the bloody thing for half an hour each way, sometimes with my sports bag and briefcase (yes that’s right – I had a bloody briefcase while other kids had Adidas sports bags or no bags at all).

Sometimes I looked like a pack mule.

The kids from other schools absolutely loved trying to steal my stuff. Thankfully, I used the trombone case and whatever else I was carrying as a weapon and swung them around hoping to make contact. It was sometimes like running the gauntlet, I can tell you.

The other problem I had was my background. My father was fiercely proud that his son had managed to get a place in the best school in Walsall because, at the time, it was considered quite an achievement. He worked in a factory in Darlaston and I was one of the only kids in my year whose dad wasn’t a businessman or some similar profession.

Consequently I ended up on the receiving end of a lot of abuse from certain arseholes in my year. Some of the posh kids considered me to be a pauper and called me names like “El Cheapo”. I gave it back, I can tell you, but it hurt my feelings, especially because my parents were so proud of me.

In the end I developed a thick skin and tolerated it, occasionally lashing out when the abuse got too much (as I did here). And because I regarded some of the school rules as totally stupid, I also gained a reputation for being an impudent child, arguing with teachers, taking the piss out of teachers and even calling them names to their faces while questioning their intelligence.

In summary, dear reader, I don’t really look back at my schooldays with too much affection at all.

I liked some of the teachers (they weren’t all arses) and I liked a lot of the kids; my problem was that those I didn’t like made it quite difficult sometimes and turned me into the rebellious arsehole I am today.

I simply do not believe that stupid rules have to be obeyed just because they are there.

Nevertheless, ultimately, I have to be grateful because the school made sure that the kids were driven and pushed academically. Without that grammar school I would never have gone to university and I wouldn’t be where I am today.

And I thank the school and the teachers for that – even though the buggers made me wear a bloody cap.

The Bully

Picture the scene.

A thirteen year old boy enters a classroom and walks to his desk. He opens his bag and pulls out a bag of his favourite crisps. He is about to open them to enjoy a tasty savoury snack when into the room walks Lewis, a boy who is the same age.

Lewis used to be the boy’s friend but not any more.

Due to a massive growth spurt, Lewis has grown to the incredible height of six feet tall; he is taller than most of the kids and he knows it. His height intimidates others and he has used this to his advantage. Lewis regards himself as superior to everybody else, including his former friend. He sees the boy about to tuck into his crisps.

Lewis marches over, grabs the crisps, throws them onto the floor and jumps on them. The other kids in the class laugh and Lewis relishes the attention. His action has proved once again that he is the cock of the class, if not the entire year. Nobody messes with Lewis, particularly this little runt who once was his friend.

Lewis is a bully who believes that he is untouchable. He can do whatever he pleases to whomever he chooses. Lewis is the king. Lewis is the best.

But this is no ordinary day, dear reader, because the boy has had enough. He was looking forward to his bag of crisps and this has happened before. Something begins to erupt inside him, something that is similar to the effect that causes Bruce Banner to turn green.

The boy is angry.

The boy is livid.

The red mist descends.

“You fracking bastard,” screams the boy and before he realises what he is doing, he has leapt up from his seat. Such is his anger that there are tears of rage in his eyes.

Lewis turns to the boy, considering briefly how best to hurt him.

He considers just a split second too long.

The boy, enraged by this latest episode of being tormented by his former friend, looks up into the eyes of Lewis. Lewis is so tall and so tough.

Common sense is swept aside; fear is swept aside. The boy acts, driven by something deep and primeval.

The boy punches Lewis in the stomach as hard as he can.

Lewis barely has time to register what has happened before every breath is swept out of his body in a massive whoosh. He falls to his knees, gasping. The boy takes advantage of the situation and pushes the now defenceless Lewis into the nearest desk.

Lewis is lost in a clatter of furniture.

Everybody else in the class stares at the boy, aghast at this strange turn of events.

Realising what he has done, the boy is suddenly gripped with fear.

The bully is gasping and struggling to stand up.

The rest of the class are stunned.

The boy comes to his senses and the consequences of his actions become evident. However, rather than running, the boy calmly walks out of the room and into the corridor, shaking with the remnants of rage, but also recognition of the ramifications of his actions.

As he walks away, Lewis bursts out of the room.

“I’m gonna kill you, you little prick!”

The boy runs.

Lewis chases him and eventually corners the boy.

The boy decides to stand his ground; he has no choice. He sees a sports bag and picks it up.

“Come on then, “ shouts the boy, defiantly.

Lewis lunges forward as the boy swings the bag. It makes contact, hitting Lewis in the face and knocking him sideways. Other boys come running, screaming for blood.

“FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!”

The boy’s strength is sapping and he drops the bag.

Lewis sees his chance and attacks the boy.

The resulting tussle is over fairly quickly. The boys ends up in heap on the floor and his glasses are in the corner, fortunately not broken.

The boy is beaten yet despite the defeat he screams in defiance.

"I’ve had enough of you, Lewis. Do that again and there will be more of the same!"

Lewis laughs nervously, still gasping and rubbing a red mark that has appeared on the side of his face where the bag struck him. Another red mark has appeared on his mouth where the boy managed to connect with a blindly lashed out punch.

The other kids stare at Lewis and then at the boy.

The physical victory belongs to Lewis. The moral victory belongs to the boy.

The boy stands up and walks past Lewis pushing him as he does so. The taste of defeat is bitter, the rage is still present – but the satisfaction of hurting the bully, not once but four times is immensely satisfying.

He smiles knowing that things will never be the same again.

That boy, dear reader, was me.

And Lewis never did anything else to me again.

Looking back though, Lewis did do me a massive favour because he made me realise that bullies can be defeated.

And that has been my philosophy ever since.

Beaten Up In The Name Of Sport

If somebody said to you:

“I want you to go onto the pitch and spend the next eighty minutes being pounded, mauled, savaged, mangled, battered and generally knocked about. Now GET GOING!!”

I can guess that you would probably say “No way, you psychotic arse!”

You would be justified in saying this or something stronger.

Sadly, for me, I had no choice; I had to obey.

At the age of 11, I started on my first day at Walsall’s only grammar school, a school with an immense reputation for excellence and scholarly achievement. My parents were proud as I had managed to earn a place using my intelligence, i.e. I passed my 11+ exam with flying colours. I had reached a pinnacle of achievement and I joined the ranks of the elite – or so I thought.

I came from a working class background, where kids swore (in some cases it was their first word). My mum didn’t work and my dad worked in a factory. We struggled on and we coped. I had somehow emerged from the working class shadows and was on my up. From an early age, I yearned to be a footballer; my dad took me to my first match at Fellows Park, Walsall to watch what would become my beloved Walsall FC. I was hooked. At junior school, I was elated to make the football team briefly, even though I was so short sighted that I could barely see the ball. I loved football.

Imagine my horror when I discovered, after all my hard work in the exam, that my new grammar school played rugby and only rugby. There was no football. Any round balls that made it into the school were mutated into eggs with maximum prejudice.

I had no choice! Rugby was going to be my sport whether I like it or not. And I didn’t like it one little bit. I was gutted. I wanted to leave and go to the local comprehensive school. My dad told me in no uncertain terms what I should do. I stayed at the grammar school.

I enjoyed watching rugby, particularly the Five Nations (as it was then) and I cheered England until I was hoarse. But play rugby? No chance!!

Why?

Well let me tell you. People say that football is a sport for gentlemen played by thugs and rugby is a sport for thugs played by gentlemen.

I say that rugby is a sport for thugs played by thugs.

I still remember that fateful day when I stood in the September rain in the autumn of 1974 with the other poor wretches staring at the mud bath that was to become my worst nightmare over the years.

The PE teacher, himself an amateur rugby player for Walsall, was a giant compared to me. He was also a total sadist. And he didn’t like me. Why? Because I was a cheeky little git.

In that first lesson, he tried to teach us the basics of the brutal game. His words went in one ear and out of the other. Over the weeks, he taught us how to tackle, how to run, the basic rules and tactics. It wasn’t long before he uttered the words that chilled me to the very marrow of my bones:

“Right – we’re going to play a game.”

I was small for my age, a “late developer” my embarrassed parents told friends. Not only was I short – I was as thin as an anorexic rake. Whenever I walked past railings, people said “Now you see him; now you don’t”.

You can imagine that rugby was never going to be the best sport for me.

I looked around at my school friends and saw the first signs of change. The bigger lads began to mutate into Mr Hyde. Knowing grins spread across their sadistic faces. One or two pairs of eyes settled on me.

Before I go on, I have to tell you something. I was a cheeky little bugger at school. I would not allow teachers to get the better of me and I certainly didn’t allow the big lads to bully me; I always tried my best to get the better of them by humiliating them by exposing them as buffoons, which was quite easy really. I certainly couldn’t take them on in a fight – that way would have been madness. At times I was a real arsehole at school.

As I’ve said, my sadistic PE teacher didn’t like me either (mainly because on more than one occasion I accused him of being a meathead). When he picked the teams, he had already decided which players that were going to be in the elite “First XV” – and I wasn’t one of them.

Sadly, that meant that I ended up in the “Second XV” or “Third XV”, i.e. the “also rans”. Worse, the sadistic PE teacher wanted them to bond as a team – so he pitched them against the rest.

I did have one thing going for me; I was fast – in fact I was one of the fastest kids in the year, despite my height.

I was also fearless (for “fearless” read “stupid”). I found myself facing the “First XV” when the whistle was blown and within seconds I would invite pain, goading the biggest kids on the other team with taunts like:

“OY! FATSO!!! I’m surprised you’re not sinking in the mud with that fat arse of yours! Hippos like mud and you look so at home in it, you fat arsehole!”

What, in the name of all that was holy, was I thinking? The “fat” kids weren’t fat at all. They were bruisers and they were fast. They had muscles where I didn’t think muscles existed. Even their muscles had muscles.

As you can see, I was a supercilious little shit with a big mouth and, because of my arrogance I thought I could outrun them all.

I was wrong.

In the early days I used to catch the ball and get rid of it immediately but then I became cocky and kept it, my insane ego telling me that I could outrun these fat lumps, score a try and get the glory. That was my biggest mistake.

Picture the scene.

Straight from the scrum, one of my team mates has the ball and throws it along the line as we advance. The bulky bruisers advance. The ball is passed to me.

Through blurred eyes, I can vaguely see the post ahead. Looming in front of me are three or four bruisers, most of whom I have verbally abused in the past week or called “FATSO” in a moment of madness at the start of the game. But I am fearless; I am fast and I can outrun these lumbering hippopotami with ease.

One minute I am running; the next I am not. One of the hippos has caught me and lifted me up in the air. I am travelling backwards at a rate of knots and at the same time, my head is hurtling towards a deep puddle of thick, viscous mud. I crash to the ground with the full weight of a hippo on top of me. I am still clutching the ball, somehow. Several things cross my mind:

(1) That bloody hurt.

(2) That really bloody hurt.

(3) That really, really, really, really bloody hurt.

(4) Bloody hell, I can’t breathe.

(5) I must get rid of the ball before another hippo arrives.

(6) My face is a little too close to that puddle of mud.

(7) I wish I hadn’t called the hippo “Fatso!”

(8) Oh shit! Here comes another hippo.

Before I know it, the other hippo has leapt on top of me, and the first hippo, incensed at my suggestion that he may be a little overweight, has grabbed my long hair and rammed my face into the puddle of mud.

I hear the words:

“That’ll teach you to call me Fatso, you little shit!”

Let me tell you one thing. Breathing and swallowing mud is not a pleasant experience, particularly when you in agony and being sat on by at least two huge bruisers. When the hippos finally get off, I am lying in the mud, soaking wet, filthy and my face is covered in mud. I spit out a pint of liquid mud and pull half a pound of turf out of my teeth.

I hear the PE teacher shouting at me:

“Get up and get back into position!”

I stand up and look around. Before I know it, somebody has passed the ball to me again.

“Oh no!!”

I am too slow. One of the hippos flattens me again and once more I drink a cocktail of mud, turf and filthy water.

And there are still 70 minutes to play.

Every game of rugby I took part in was the same. I walked off the pitch battered, bruised and broken. The bullies couldn’t lay into me normally but did so “legally” on the rugby pitch, incensed by my piss-taking.

On one occasion I was actually tackled so hard that I was almost knocked unconscious. Thankfully, the sadistic PE teacher took pity on me and sent me staggering back to the changing room.

For five years I endured this ritual torture.

I hated every last second of it.

When I reached the sixth form, I had the opportunity to drop the sport (if you want to call it a sport). Mind you, I had filled out a little bit then and also grown. I was actually taller than some of the hippos so I reckon, had I continued playing rugby, I might have been able to exact my revenge.

I chose a more sedate pursuit – kickboxing!

Not really!

Some people look back at past traumatic experiences and say “it wasn’t so bad.”

To those people I say this:

Play rugby for five years. Find a sadistic PE teacher who hates you, add a pinch of arrogance and foolhardy piss-taking of the biggest lads in the year, be clever and tell the PE teacher that “rugby is a game for brainless meatheads”, stand in front of your nemeses on a rugby pitch and call them all “fat useless oafs” and, after you have quite literally been dragged through the mud and beaten for 80 minutes, tell me that “it wasn’t so bad”.

Mind you, I guess I deserved everything I got.

As much as I hated playing the game, I still like to watch rugby, particularly the Six Nations. I love to cheer England especially when they kick a bit of Aussie arse. I will be watching and cheering during the next World Cup, that’s for sure.

But to those hippos that so ruthlessly made me drink mud as a child, I have just this to say:

“OY FATTY!!! I am still faster than you, you mal-coordinated lump of blubber. The only reason they put you in the scrum is because they haven’t built the crane yet that could lift your fat arse off the pitch!”

I have changed – honest.