David, Goliath, the bastards and the saviours

Dear NMJ has alerted her readers to a very interesting post by Caroline at INSEARCHOFADAM about bullying.

In all honesty, life at the moment is a real curate's egg --- good in parts. On the one hand I have the children who are all excited about Christmas and the joy of buying their presents and anticipating their faces in a few days time when they open them. I have the luck that two people have ordered sock monkeys which I enjoy making when I have the energy and I feel blessed and rather honoured to think that people who have seen my strange creations on this blog should want to own one for themselves. It's busy as ever at Christmas but it's all good.

On the other hand there is a lot going on in my head about 'the illness' --- the bloody illness from which you can never escape.

Now, at the moment, the way I feel generally is not terrible...it's just my usual state with the odd bit of nausea, headache, tiredness etc. thrown in: the gay abandon and pick 'n mix, selection box symptoms in the day of a life of PWME....but..... what's really getting to me is this bloody insurance business and the constant nagging pressure of being coerced into seeing a psychiatrist when I don't want to, don't agree with all the nonsense that the Insurance people spew out about my need to see him and all the phone calls, emails and letters that go into fighting Goliath. It's there all the time and it's beginning to drain me.

Reading Caroline's post last night signalled to me what this nagging feeling is all about and why it drains me so much: I feel I'm being bullied. I am being bullied. And though it's something I rarely talk about

because I'm 51,

because I have responsibilities,

because I have better things to do,

better things to think and talk about,

because it's in the past,

because I should be OVER IT BY NOW

is that I spent the whole of my secondary education being bullied and the feeling has never really gone away.

I can identify with everything Caroline says about the echoes of the past always ringing in your ears somewhere. There is always a part of me that is on the alert, waiting to be ambushed, waiting to be abused, denigrated, humiliated. I never really think what I've done is good enough, never really believe the good things will last. I do now feel I deserve the good things when they come ---- and it took me years to come round to that, but I still don't trust them just as I have taken years to trust people in RL.

Caroline is pleased she has achieved the goals she reached out for so as to prove her bullies wrong. NMJ, who was not bullied but who witnessed her kid brother being bullied, would like to form a Society for Kicking in the Heads of Bullies.

Me, I'm past wanting to kick in their heads. It's all too long ago. Part of me has given up the fight and just wishes it had all never happened, wish I could still talk to the other person who was bullied with me....the only person who really knew what it was all about. But that's too late too: that person was dead of a heart attack at 39, three weeks before our 40th birthdays --we were born one day apart.

The insurance fiasco is just another reminder of my past; the past I am always trying to escape but never will. I wonder if those bullies have any idea or any memory now of what they did. Do they realise how much their taunts still linger? When I see one of them on TV telling me about whether it will rain tomorrow or the sun will shine does he imagine me watching him and feeling a glimmer of hatred as the old film projects it's frames onto the back of my retina and I feel the fear and anger all over again. Bet not.

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And then, on the other hand, there is light in this darkness ----- for who should come forth with a candle, bidding it to shine with a pure clear light but my blogging chum Kahless who awards me with a Best Blogging Buddies Award.

Couldn't have come at a better time, my dear. Thank you once again. Gives me real faith that there is still kindness in the world and strength to carry on fighting

Walking back to Happiness

Recently, I was browsing the Web and came across the site for an arts organisation in Essex. As I looked through the various posts and articles I was intrigued to notice that they were running a project at the school where my father was Headmaster when I was a child. The school holds many happy memories for me, partly because I loved my Dad and partly because when I went to work with him I was always spoilt by all the pupils.


In those days the school was set in a great big Victorian Mansion. In the late 60s this was demolished in favour of a flat-roofed structure which was supposed to have all the latest mod cons but it was never the same because it lacked any character. The old house had a huge staircase that descended into the main hall and all the classrooms had once been grand living rooms or bedrooms and had huge doors with big brass handles. The entrance had a lovely door with stained glass and coloured tiles on the floor. As soon as you walked in the whole place smelt of polish and paper and lovely cooking coming from the kitchens. The old caretaker's dog, Rusty, would come to greet you; the only dog I wasn't afraid of as a child.

Outside, the old stables had been turned into more classrooms and there was a diminutive and intimidating old spinster teacher who had somehow managed to persuade the LEA to let her continue to teach past her retirement age. She was very eccentric and lived with her father who was very, very old. At dinner time she would be in the kitchens asking if the leftovers were needed -- which of course they weren't. Quick as a flash, she'd produce a carrier bag and sweep anything she thought looked tasty straight into the bag.

'That'll do for Pa's tea.....'

The school, a Special school for children with moderate learning disabilities, was in a very poor and deprived part of Essex. Many of the children and their families were well known to Social Services and many would come to school in winter with worn out shoes and no coat. There weren't many opportunities for them at home though there was often good deal of love.

My father always thought that all children, but especially children with learning disabilities, learnt best through experience rather than just through books and pictures. There were lots of trips to places of interest: galleries, factories, the nearby docks, London, an annual week at the seaside in Dovercourt and lots of opportunities for acquiring practical skills at school. There were vegetable patches and rabbits and chickens in the grounds and an old car that the boys (only the boys....this was the early 60s !) could take apart and put together again. There was a meadow in the grounds and they'd tear round, learning to drive. There was a lovely old walled garden with the fig trees. One summer holiday staff and builders dug away and installed a swimming pool for the children and every time I hear Helen Shapiro singing 'Walking Back to Happiness' I'm transported to my 4 year old self sitting on the edge of things, watching and munching on sponge cake, gazing at the bumble bees and hanging round Rusty the dog's neck.

In the 1960s there were generally far more opportunities for work and most pupils were able to get a job: working in a factory, driving a van, working in a shop, hairdressers, manual work. None of these 'career options' may sound very exciting but they were bona fide jobs with some prospects, rather than some form of activity created as part of a scheme. The pupils had the possibility of being accepted as part of the work force and part of society.

Nowadays there seems to be a kind of tokenesque feel to the opportunities available to similar young people. They can go on to a Resource Centre or go to College and then to work experience but, in the end, many of these 'jobs' are just part of some scheme that only lasts for a finite period and never leads to a lifetime of work. The world has moved on and the sorts of jobs that those pupils could do either don't exist or are more technical and need greater expertise. Standards for even the simplest tasks can be ridiculously high and so the sort of folk who attend Special schools don't have an opportunity to take their place in real society --- their days consisting of Centres, sessions, projects, collecting trolleys round Asda's car park to make Walmart feel better about itself and show it's caring, socially aware face. Many of my father's pupils just went on to be part of the crowd --earning a crust like anyone else.

In later years, it was not unheard of for us to be walking together as a family and a cry to be heard from behind us

' Mr D !!!!.............'

and there would be an ex-pupil, gaggle of children and spouse wanting to chat to my Dad about the 'good old days'. We never lived anywhere near the school --about 15 miles away -- but these impromptu meeting could happen anywhere from Essex to Wales and even, once, on a day trip to France in the middle of Boulogne.

...'Mr. D.!!!!!!'

As often happens, life turns in strange ways. Our first child was born with an array of disabilities and has moderate learning disabilities himself. Happily, he's doing well and attends a Special School not unlike my father's. Whenever we attend my son's Xmas concert there's always a lump in my throat as I remember the Xmas concerts at my Dad's school with all the littlest children dressed as angels; tinsel halos, holding candles and standing on those grand stairs in the Hall with my Dad playing the piano.

In my eyes, and in those of many pupils who knew him, my Dad was a funny, kind and concerned man. He died nearly 9 years ago and I still miss him dearly. He had Alzheimer's and one of the last proper conversations we were ever able to have was 4 weeks after my son was born. The irony of our son having disabilities didn't escape us and I looked forward to having Dad's advice as we raised our first child. It was not to be as he rapidly sank into decline. Eventually he was more disabled than my son.

Now my son is nearly a teenager and strong and healthy; doing all the things that other boys his age do. He has a disability and he goes to a good school but I know that his upbringing at home has also been touched by everything I learnt through my father; watching and taking in all the concern and warmth with which he tended those children so long ago

Another Chapter

Time moves so quickly sometimes. It only seems yesterday that our daughter was born. She'll actually be 9 in two weeks time.

This morning heralded the momentous occasion of her very first time away from home: her class are off for a three day adventure trip and she's so excited she could almost burst. Saying goodbye was hard. She was fine but some of the other children and parents were very shaky. The shakiest was the little 'roughty toughty' boy of the class who clung onto his teddy and onto his Mum and who was desperate not to leave.The other quaking wreck was a very tough looking Dad who was in tears as his daughter got on the coach. We've watched all these children grow together since some of them were at nursery together so there was a real feeling of solidarity in the face of loss --and it was a kind of loss: the start of cutting the ties, the beginning of a loss of innocence, dependence. All good stuff but difficult --- as change often is.

This trip marks the next stage in our daughter's life: first time away from home; new school in September (we have a three tier system here). Gradually you can feel her slipping away and you know you have to let her go and encourage her to fly. I hope when the reality dawns that we aren't there tonight to tuck her in and kiss her goodnight that she copes with any yearning ache for her Mum and Dad.

All this reminds me of my first time away. I was not much older than she is now and our school invited children to go on an 'educational cruise' to Norway and Sweden for 10 days. No opportunity for Mum and Dad to come and retrieve you if it all went badly wrong and you couldn't cope. No mobiles in 1967 ---- just an old troop ship that had been converted into a sort of floating school, manned by cooks from Ceylon who spoke no English and made lemonade from yellow powder and jugs of water. Always there was a strange smell of oranges and boiling potatoes from the kitchen. In the 'ballroom' there was a beaten up old upright piano with some child hammering away at 'Chopsticks' or a boy with a withered arm whose party piece was 'Roses of Picardie' sung in a piercing nasal tone. Even now I can't hear that song without a longing for home.

The cruise was fine. I can still remember the boy who used to howl every night for his Mum, his 'sissa' and banana sandwiches; the two girls from another school who always came to the disco ( Monkees, Beatles, Procul Harem, Spencer Davis, Lulu) in identical outfits --- different every occasion; the Force 8 gale on the last day and on the way home. It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time and the smell of oranges and potatoes mixed with the whiff of 100 children vomiting into the salty air. ('Have this glass of water and a Carr's biscuit,dear. You'll feel much better')

But I also remember the warm

welcome the people of Bergen and

Oslo gave us --these little 10 year olds invading their shops. Even then, 20 years after, they still mentioned the war and seemed to have soft spot for the English. I remember the amazing sculpture park in Oslo and the church in Bergen.

I hope my little girl copes with this important stage in her life and, 40 years on,remembers what fun she had.