Posted by hunny_Beez on Sun 3 Feb 08, 8:04 PM to hunny_Beez's blog.
I saw an advert on the telly (we are in hotels again) for a programme something along the lines of looking back at school days. This made me think back to mine.
I don't remember that much of the very early years. Just feelings of terror of not belonging. I remember being totally confused by everything that was going on and I always seemed alone.
I have better memories of junior school. By then I had a best friend Betty. She was in fact my only friend. The thing about Betty was she was one of the “popular” girls. The classrooms were made up of tables, something quite new in schools back then rather than desks. Betty sat at one of the four seat tables with the other three popular girls. I sat at a two seat table on my own. If anyone misbehaved they were put to sit there. Normally it was boys and I would go bright red and feel like I was the one in trouble.
My work was always scruffy no matter how hard I tried. We would have a spelling test each week. I would only ever get one right or even zero at times. The humiliation of having to put your hand up when the teacher went through “who got ten right” and so on until we got down to how many I had got and only me and the other class dunce put their hands up. We also had a mental arithmetic test each week. Now I was good at maths but I could not do it in my head and though I would get more than my spelling I can remember being frustrated at not being able to hold the numbers in my head long enough to work out the sum.
One very strong memory of early junior school was Geoffrey being made to sit next to me. We had to copy some work off the blackboard. Just copy it down nothing difficult. However I just could not do it. It was too hard for me and I could not understand why. I remember looking over at Geoffrey's page and being able to read what he had written but looking up at the blackboard I could not see any words just letters jumbled up. Geoffrey soon noticed me copying him and put his arm around his work to stop me looking.
As an adult I now know that I am dyslexic. Copying is a skill that many dyslexics have problems with and for me white on black is a nightmare of a colour combination almost as bad as black on white. I can also see why spelling was so hard and though I have always done well at maths I now understand that I need to write things down to work them out. Even now a very simple sum may need for me to have the visual help to work it out. The difference now is I understand this and I am not ashamed or embarrassed by it.
It was at this time that I started working on my super power of invisibility. I would sit ever so still in my chair hardly breathing hoping the teacher would not look at me. The reason why? Reading aloud in class a total nightmare for me. Reading was hard enough. I had to put my finger under the word to stop myself losing my place. I had to spell out words to work out what they said and then I would have to reread the sentence to understand what it meant. Not just a string of words to be worked out. If I had to read to the class. I would have to stand up and I would not be able to keep my place. I would then have to sound out the words I did not know but worst of all I would read simple words all wrong. So I tried with all my heart and soul to be invisible.
Playtime was not the best of times either. Now I grew up with skipping, french skipping, two balls played up against a wall (gosh), marbles and conkers.
Betty was Miss popular and so would be the centre of most of the games. I was her best friend and so I was allowed to play. However Betty was a sickly girl and had lots of time off school. If Betty was not in I would not play. Now looking back I think it was not that the other girls did not like me. I just think they did not ask and I was too shy to ask to join in, so I would wander off to a quiet corner and watch the world go by hoping no one would see me. I would practice being invisible. There was also a bit of jealousy from some of the girls at me being Betty's best friend and so sometimes I was picked on. Nothing major, just made to feel like I was not really wanted in the games even when Betty was there.
Other times Betty and I would wander off chatting as girls do. I loved these times as when it was just Betty and I, I was no longer shy. I could chat and laugh and hold my own in all we did. It was only as soon as someone else turned up I would go bright red and clam up. My problem was I would trip over my words or simply forget what I was trying to say. Often words would just not come out. I put this down to being shy but now as an adult I still trip over my words, I can stop mid sentence as I cant remember the word I need. This is something that still frustrates me and I often find myself running out of steam when talking as the effort to keep words coming is often mentally exhausting. I find debating and discussing topics difficult as I cant get my thoughts into words quick enough to keep up.
Physical Education or PE as we called it was terrible. I tried really hard. I would put my all into everything I tried. However I could not catch or throw a ball to save my life. This again is a dyslexic thing, something that in time most find they can overcome, but learning how to catch and throw was really hard. My co-ordination was also all to pot. So by the time we got to late junior school the teams were all picked and of course I was not in them. So during PE classes the teacher would give the girls in the school team all the attention and the others like me sitting on a wooden bench waiting to have a few minutes playing before being substituted to another one of the bench girls. They all now wonder why kids don't enjoy PE at school. You don't have to be a genius to know that at the age of nine or ten you are always going to be on the bench. This was something that went on into secondary school, by then I, like most of the other bench girls had stopped trying and often would make up excuses not to even get changed. What was the point if you were only going to be sitting on the bench?
School trips were a nightmare for me. I looked forward to them, mum paid the money but every time I would be ill. I now understand that the illness that was very real and at the time it was a nervous reaction to the thought of doing something different. I was desperately shy and found going anywhere new to be a real challenge. One that, if I could get out of I would, even if it was by getting sick. I did not do it consciously but it did happen over and over again.
I still find new places difficult. However I now understand part of the reason why. I have special awareness problems. I am not sure if this is part of dyslexia or not. I now know that as a child in infant and junior school, part of my problem was getting used to the space I was in. I would get lost very easily. At those ages I had not learnt the techniques to overcome these problems.
I still have these problems. One of the worst ones is going into public toilets. The ones at service stations are terrible. I can go into them, go to the loo, come out of the cubical and not have a clue which way to walk. It sounds like nothing, but for a split second I am really lost and confused. I feel myself blushing and getting hot. As an adult I understand that I just have to walk one way and if it is the wrong way turn around and walk the other. I don't care if people see me and think I am mad, they mean nothing to me.
Once in America I went into a public toilet. I came out of the cubical and washed my hands. I really washed my hands, as there were two doors and I did not know which was the door out. There were three teenagers in there talking and I was hoping they would leave or that someone came in, but no. My hands, cleaner than they had ever been before and dried ever so well, I had no choice. I approached the door I thought I had come in by and opened it. It was a cupboard filled with mops and buckets. I closed the door and went out by the correct one. I could hear the girls falling about laughing. Though I did go red and got flustered I also laughed and told Hive what had happened. However think back to being that shy little girl and imagine how she would have felt.
So the break came for summer holidays we would be going to Big School in September. Betty lived too far away for us to hang out together, and back then mums and dads did not run the kids around like they do today. So the long summer of loneliness. I never played out with anyone, I had no friends outside school. I would sit on the swing at the bottom of the garden under the biggest of the apple trees and daydream for hours. I was expected to help my mum and look after my little sister.
Big school was split up into two schools. We did two years at one and then three years at the other. We were to be the last year to do this as both schools were going to take all five years from then on.
My first big school was ten miles away and so we caught the school bus. Now I lived closest to the second stop. However this was the most popular stop and I knew that there would be a big crowd of kids there. So I chose to walk to the first stop as it was a much smaller group of kids getting on the bus. It took me another ten minutes to walk there but that was better than having to be with all the other kids. It also meant I got a seat and did not have to go sit next to someone else. Someone would have to sit next to me however and I always hoped it would be a girl.
The first day and no Betty. The second day and no Betty. Then I found out that Betty's parents had split up during the summer and Betty was going to a different school. I was devastated. The new school was bad enough but worse with no Betty.
The school took in pupils from two other junior schools so there were lots of new faces, but everyone was already in groups of friends and I was alone. The other girls from the junior school I had come from all seemed to ignore me now that Betty was no longer around. This was the time I perfected my super power. I have the power to become invisible. Some lessons I liked as I was put to sit on a table with other girls and some of them were nice to me during lessons, but then went off with their friends as soon as the bell rang. Other lessons I was sitting on my own again. By then I knew I was stupid and lazy. I must have been because no matter how hard I worked my work was always a mess of red by the time it came back from marking. However this never stopped me from trying, I really did want to get something right. The only lesson I did well in was maths.
Break times were the worst. It was then that just how lonely I really was hit home. I would do my invisibility trick. I had set places I would walk and stop. It would look like I was watching the boys play football. However I would only stay for five minutes or so otherwise my invisibility power might wear off and someone might notice me. I would then do the walk right around the school yard. Then turn around and do it again. I found little cubby holes where I could slump against the wall, willing the time to go and staying as invisible as I could. Maybe if I had not been so good at being invisible I may have attracted friends but I was more fearful of attracting attention and maybe someone bullying me or even worse, feeling sorry for me.
These were two very lonely years for me. I never made friends in school and I still did not have any outside school. I was finding school work more and more frustrating as I knew what I wanted to say but I was not able to put it down on paper. My spelling and handwriting was so bad that what I did write was often illegible. I would get so much work back with SEE ME scrawled across it in red ink that it was a wonder that I did not just give up, but I never did. I also had the shame of being the dumb sister of a genius. The number of times I would get “you are HIS sister?” The total shock in their voice was unmistakable. He was also the school heart throb. I was the four eyed, slightly chubby plain girl with lank, greasy, mousey hair and sticky out ears.
Then the move to the local comprehensive came. Now the one thing about this was that my brother would not be there. He had been offered a place in a special school because he was so clever.
This school took kids from another school also and I was determined I would make friends.
The first day I looked around for anyone to talk to. I would look for anyone else that looked like they were on their own. I had decided to just go up and say hello did you go to “name of other school” and see the reaction.
So there she was a short slightly dumpy girl with a big smiley face. I went up and asked and she was really friendly. Her name was Sue and we were in some classes together. We became sort of friends. She had friends from the other school and she introduced me to them. I could have easily become part of this group, they were all nice to me but they were just not my type.
It sounds strange that even though I had been lonely all through the past two years of school that I would not welcome any form of friendship. These girls were very immature for their age and as I had not had many friends of my own age, I had spent far too much time with adults or looking after my little sister. I was very mature for my age. It's a terrible thing to say but they bored me and I soon found myself yet again alone in school.
This was the first time that school split the kids up depending on their abilities. I was a difficult one to place as I should have been in the lowest set for English, however I should have been in the top set for maths. These were the only subjects that were taken into consideration. I ended up in the third of six classes, not including the special needs class. This meant that for most lessons I would be with the same group. The group I was in was mostly from the other school, not the one I had gone to. There was a strong group of five girls who had always hung out together and though I did not sit next to them in class they did talk to me sometimes. They were a nice group of girls and seemed very much like the kind of group I would have loved to have been part of. They were never unkind to me and when we did group work in class they would include me. I will always be grateful to these girls as they were the start of my picking up my confidence.
The lessons we did not take in our ability group we took with our registrations group. These were lessons like religious education RE, careers and the dreaded PE. My registration group was a strange mixture. It was as if they took one from each of the groups that hung out together and put them in one. It was towards the end of my first year in comprehensive school that I made a friend. A real friend, not just someone who was nice to me in class. It came from a strange source.
Carol, was one of the popular girls that Betty had sat with back in junior school. She had grown into a real stunner and was one of the most desirable girls for the boys. We were both in the same registration group and it was when we would sit on the radiator waiting to go into class that we started talking. We got on really well. She was like me, mature for her age and most of the boys who hung around her got on her nerves.
She was dizzy when it came to lessons. She was in the bottom set and was happy to be there. He ambition was to leave school and go work in the factory with her mum, as the money was good and the work easy.
She was friends with Laura. Laura lived close to Carol and they got the bus to school in the mornings. The ironic thing is that they both lived close to where Betty had once lived. Carol and I became friends with Laura. Laura was dizzy with a capital D. She was scatty and fun. She had a very round face and big boobs. she wore just a bit to much make up and had long blonde hair. She looked like a china doll and was almost as popular with the boys as Carol.
There was then Hayley and BeLaura. They were Laura's friends from the previous school and they were inseparable. They would hang out with Carol, Laura and myself but they spent more time together, just the two of them.
Over the summer holidays I would hangout with Carol and Laura when I was not helping my mum or looking after my sister. As I now had friends and wanted to go out and this brought a strain to my home life. I was no longer the permanent babysitter and mums help
I am not sure at what point my mum started running the local corner shop. However by the time I was friends with the girls, I was expected to work in the shop also. I would be expected to work for an hour before school and a hour or two after school or if I did not work in the shop, I was expected to look after my sister and cook the family meal. I was also expected to work in the shop for a few hours on a Saturday and Sunday morning. I never got paid and my brother never worked in there and yet I just did it as it was expected. Its strange looking back, I know my kids would not have accepted what I did.
So I had friends. When we went back to school Janice turned up. She had lived most of her life in Canada, but had gone to school here for a few years when she was younger. That is how she knew Laura. Janice was tall with very long dark hair and her Canadian accent made her seem even more interesting. She was of course another one the boys all went after. She fitted in wonderfully. To be honest looking back I think it was Janice who I got on with best of all.
The final two years of school were the best for me in terms of friendship. I had my own friends. A little gang and this gang included two boys. Fun boys, not once trying to get off with Carol, Laura or Janice. Leslie and Richard used to make us laugh and we all hung out together. To a lesser extent Hayley and BeLaura would come along. I liked both of them however they had not matured as much as the others and sometimes would be lost in our talk or would start doing silly, giggly things that we would all look down on. However they were friends and I valued them very much.
One very sad thing that marred the last two years at school was the death of Hayley. Laura's family were going on a canal boat holiday and she was allowed to take a friend along. Much to my delight she asked me. However I did not like her dad and I made an excuse not to go. Janice was asked next but her parents said she was not allowed time off school, Janice was clever and doing well at school. So Laura asked Hayley. I don't think she asked Carol because her Dad did not like her.
While on the holiday Laura and Hayley where crossing a main road when two motorbikes came into view. This was no problem as it was a large open road with plenty of space, however one of the young lads decided to show off to the young girls and tried to go in between them as they crossed. He miss judged it and both he and Hayley were killed.
My class work was a real mixture. Some lessons like Maths and Computer Science I was doing really well in, but others I did so badly in I dropped out of the subject all together.
I would work really hard on the subjects I was taking, doing work over and over to try to get it legible. More often than not it would not work. I did however start to get more confidence in my abilities. I think this was a mixture of me gaining social confidence though my friends and from working in the shop.
Computer Science was my favourite subject. It was a very small class of just six. Four boys, another girl and me. The other five were all in the top sets for everything taking handfuls of O'levels. I on the other had was taking a very small handful of CSE's Yet I was by far the best at programming. I knew my written work was not as good as theirs but they never put me down for it. I remember the other girl showing great surprise when I told her this was the only O level I was doing. She had seen me in a subject I understood and not one that relied so much on spelling and handwriting.
The more my confidence grew the more I would join in with class discussions. It was during these times that I started to question my abilities. I started realising what I was saying was interesting and valid to the discussions. I started wondering why my written work was so poor and yet I knew the subjects so well. I had never heard of dyslexia, never mind knew what it was. If I had known then and been given just the slightest help and encouragement I am sure I would have done so much better. Maybe I would not have got more exams, but maybe I would have not spent so much time frustrated and confused by my inability to read and write like others.
The only time a teacher actually took a bit of notice of me in a positive way was in my first year of high school. He was an English teacher known as Davey. He had taught my brother so knew the family genius. He gave set homework every week and woe betide anyone who did not do it. He called me to his desk on day while everyone was working and asked me very kindly if I had missed any long periods of schooling when I was little. I was still desperately shy and blushed bright red and said no. He told me that my spelling was very poor for my age, like I needed telling. However he did go on to tell me that some of my work was very good in particular my poems. He gave me a little book of spelling and asked me to work through it as it may help me. I tried so hard. I would learn five words, I would know them off my heart only to find an hour later I had no idea how to spell them.
I was 15 and me and the girls used to go ice skating. It was here I met my first boyfriend. The others had all had boyfriends, they were so popular with the boys they could take their pick. I was not popular at all, but when Ice Skating I did meet an older boy.
That was it. I had found my place in life. He introduced me to sex, not just vanilla but full on BDSM. By the time I took my exams I was a very different person. I was still desperately shy, I still struggled with new places and new things, but I had a boyfriend and I was leaving school, the one place that I never felt I fitted into.
So my school days were not the best days of my life. They were some of the worst days. I would so like to go back to school and find the teacher who had written SEE ME in red ink all over my work and tell them I now have a first class honours degree and that I was not stupid or lazy. What stops me? Well I am still shy.
| 3 Feb 08, 8:36 PM WaterDragon UK(LN), 6 yrs  |
I found a lot of echoes of my school days in your past. My written work was awful, and still is, I too was usually the lonely child in the corner. I also got an education despite the school system, though in my day there were no remedial classes, and no one had ever heard of dyslexia, I was just a kack handed dunce. Well done for writing this, I am not sure I could do anywhere as good a job of my school history, it's mostly blanked. Hugs, Irene.
Yet Dom as I am _
Still I crave the wind from your sub wings | |
| 3 Feb 08, 9:00 PM lucky_1 7 yrs |
Send us! Go on, you know you want to Lovely blog hunny, (who is as bright as a button!) lots of love xxx I'm in my own world. It's Ok, they know me here. | |
| 3 Feb 08, 9:20 PM caprycorn 8 yrs |
Shy be buggered. You're a gem is what you are. And it's very sweet to see you shine. xxx My imaginary friend thinks that you have a problem | |
| 3 Feb 08, 9:37 PM Da_Pix UK, 6 yrs  |
Thank you, that was lovely, and also very sad and brave. If it means anything to you - I was always the outcast too, for reasons I will never know. Shyness, probably. Rather hide than be laughed. I used to do the break time routine too.... Eat alone, go to classes alone, sit alone in class etc. I like you and think of you as a friend - Doesn't matter that i don't see you often - I know you're out there and it's nice to just 'know'. I want most of that, some of that, a bit of that, 3/4's of that, & none of that. I hope you read that carefully, cos it will all change tomorrow. | |
| 4 Feb 08, 8:39 AM sub_princess 7 yrs |
Having read your weblogs, how you write from the heart and also the pleasure of meeting you both, i wanted to say how much admire you and your achievements, and not just academically.
i'm on my third year now at uni, i don't have dyslexia, but as a mature student with family responsibilities it's been really tough and i'm ready for the end. So you have excelled yourself, well done spxx
Nothing changes if i don't let it begin with me. So i'm trying to change and i'm starting now. | |
| 4 Feb 08, 7:15 PM Sweetiejar UK(S), 11 yrs |
Shy or not...you are one of the nicest most honest and genuine people I know. I am very proud to call you my friend. I went to about 6 Junior Schools and I went to 5 Senior Schools. An absolute nightmare, I never fitted in and I never had friends. Imagine going from one of the best Boarding Schools to a comp whose catchment area covered 2 of the roughest council estates in town. That was fun, I only had to open my mouth for the name calling to start and it never stopped the entire time I was there. Fortunately that wasnt long....but then I moved on to another comp. Life can be a bastard sometimes. Sweetiejar |
