I attended Vita et Pax (Life and Peace) primary school in Southgate. On my first day I remember feeling very sad as I arrived, because my cousin Mikey who was a few years above me had walked me to school and promptly left me outside my classroom door. As I walked inside I saw all the other children being hugged and kissed goodbye by their parents. I'm not going to lie, to this day I still begrudge my parents for not taking me to my very first day of school and I swear to god I'm going to hug and kiss the hell out of my children when I take them. Anyway, I soon cheered up as I saw my friend Matthew who had been to my nursery school and my teacher announced that we were going to be watching The Lion King (my all time favourite).
I'm not sure how to say this without coming across as insanely immodest, but throughout my primary school years at Vita I was consistently top of the class at pretty much everything - especially french, music and reading. Looking back now as an extremely lazy and unmotivated student, it's hard to believe I'm the same person; my parents always proudly tell me the story of how my teacher called them in specifically to tell them in hushed tones that at four years old I had the reading age of a ten year old. I was in French club, music club, speech and drama club and reading club; I played the lead in most of the school plays and after we moved before my last year there, the headteacher told my parents I would have been chosen as Head Girl.
My first best friend at school was an Irish girl called Caitlin McIntyre; until she moved to Ireland in Year 3 we were inseparable. To be honest the only real memories I have of the time we spent together were when we were naughty, which was pretty frequent particularly in my first few months at school. We had a habit of running around the playground, picking up other people's jumpers left on benches and throwing them in the outdoor bins. We were never caught, but the headteacher once mentioned it an assembly and I still remember looking gleefully at each other and whispering 'that was us!'. My parents were also called in during my first year because we had picked up another lovely habit of filling out mouths with water from the drinking fountain and then spitting it at other children. After she left I guess I didn't really have a best friend, but I had a good group of friends and I remember always feeling popular, loved and fulfilled. Sigh, what happened?
Well, we moved out of London. When I was 10 years old my mum was offered a new job in Windsor, and a couple of weeks before my 11th birthday we moved to Ascot in Berkshire. And oh wow, was it a change and a half. Being so used to the vibrant, multicultural hustle and bustle of North London, walking down Sunninghill High Street with my mum on our first day there was a massive shock to me. The main things I remember noticing were a distinct lack of any race or ethnicity other than white people, and a lack of cinema/shopping centre/swimming pool/ all the things I had come to take for granted being within a 10 minute walk from my house.
My first day of my new school, St Francis, wasn't much better. I was bullied for my accent, bullied for having curly hair, bullied for having no friends yet (yes, on my first day), bullied for being clever and bullied because, well, I was the new girl. It's hard to explain but there was just something different about the children in London and those in Ascot. My classmates in Ascot, although the same age as the friends I had just left, were coarser, cruder, already growing a sense of what I can only describe as 'bitchiness'. They swore more, they knew more about sex (on my first day one of my male classmates shouted 'Jack wants you to suck his dick!' at me, something which I had literally never heard of before), the girls were already starting to wear make up and style their hair, the boys talked about pornography and the size of their dicks.
I think the bullying for my curly hair and being called fat within my first week strikes me as interesting now. In London I went to a pretty diverse school; there were black children, Muslim children, Greek children, fat children, thin children, disabled children... and it was literally never commented on. It wasn't even something I was particularly aware of; so coming to a new school and my appearance being immediately commented on really confused me at the time. I was like, what is your point?
Things gradually got better; I eventually made some friends, I still excelled in the first part of my year there but by the end I was being sent to the headteacher's office every other day for some rebellious act or other. I guess I was just rebelling against the situation, rebelling against being forced to become self-aware and conscious of my body at 11 years old, rebelling against growing up in such a negative environment. I really think that if I had stayed in London I would have become a completely different person.
Thursday 21 March 2013
Friday 15 March 2013
take me to the finish line, oh my heart breaks every step that i take.
I was in France on holiday with my parents; on a visit to one of the markets we used to frequent I persuaded them to buy me a new top from one of the stalls. It was cut off the shoulder, cotton and a khaki green colour with a camouflage pattern; I loved it because I thought it made me look grown up and sophisticated.
The next day, proudly sporting my new top, we went to the supermarket, and I wandered off to look at the make up aisle. As I was browsing, I felt a hand patting my bum and I turned around smiling, assuming it was my mother. I remember exactly how it felt for my smile to instantly fade as I was faced with a middle aged man, leaning in towards me, stinking of booze. As I reeled back, he kept his hands groping my bum and thighs and whispered something in French that I didn't understand. All I managed to do was stutter 'Je suis Anglaise' and run off to find my parents.
When I told my mum about it, she laughed at me. She told me, in so many words, it happened because I had wanted to wear a top that made me look older than I was, and that my tits were growing too fast. I was nine years old.
Part of me often thinks that this might be the main reason I find it so fucking difficult to like or appreciate my mother.
The next day, proudly sporting my new top, we went to the supermarket, and I wandered off to look at the make up aisle. As I was browsing, I felt a hand patting my bum and I turned around smiling, assuming it was my mother. I remember exactly how it felt for my smile to instantly fade as I was faced with a middle aged man, leaning in towards me, stinking of booze. As I reeled back, he kept his hands groping my bum and thighs and whispered something in French that I didn't understand. All I managed to do was stutter 'Je suis Anglaise' and run off to find my parents.
When I told my mum about it, she laughed at me. She told me, in so many words, it happened because I had wanted to wear a top that made me look older than I was, and that my tits were growing too fast. I was nine years old.
Part of me often thinks that this might be the main reason I find it so fucking difficult to like or appreciate my mother.
Friday 1 March 2013
Write My Life: The Early Years
I was born on Friday 29th November 1991 at Chase Farm Hospital in North London, all screaming kicking 6 and a half pounds of me. These are the things I know about my birth: because I had both jaundice and was REALLY FRIGGIN' COLD (it was November and I was born at 4:30am after the hospital heating had been switched off all night) I was a slightly green-ish colour, yum; I was very long and very thin (always an attractive look for a baby), and I spent the first few hours of my life in one of those incubators to warm up because of aforementioned freezing conditions.
I suppose I have two earliest memories, I'm not sure which came first but in both I must have been about 3 or 4 years old. The first was a time we got burgled; it was the middle of the night and two policemen walked into my bedroom. They asked me where mummy and daddy's room was, and I pointed upstairs. I remember feeling as if it was all a terrible nightmare at the time, but the next day feeling very proud that I had in some way 'helped to solve a crime'.
The second earliest memory I have was also at night. I should probably point out now that something which pretty much defined my early childhood is the fact that I could lucidly dream (i.e. have dreams where I knew I was dreaming and could control it in some way). These were often nightmares and often extremely vivid; it came to a point where I even taught myself tricks to wake myself up when in a nightmare. I still remember most of the nightmares I had as a young child, probably even more so than things that happened in reality (I might do another blog post about these dreams in more detail later). Anyway, so I used to get this recurring nightmare where I'd be chased by a huge wolf, usually in some woods. I'd realise I was dreaming and wake myself up, and find myself in my bed at home. The second I then realised something wasn't right, I see the wolf crouching in the corner of my bedroom. I scream, he pounces, I wake up.
It was after I'd had one of these dreams, and I must have been screaming whilst awake because my dad came into my bedroom to see what was wrong. He then proceeded to lie down next to me and hush me to sleep, and when I woke up the next morning he had fallen asleep there. My dad was never (and still isn't) the most affectionate of parents; I can count the number of times he's hugged me on one hand. He was also very strict when I was younger and I was very afraid of him, and so I think this has stuck with me because it's one of the only times I felt genuinely safe around my dad, and loved.
I only remember a few bits and pieces about my time at nursery school, and in retrospect they all pretty much point to me being very rebellious, jealous and sexually confused, so YAY HERE GOES.
1. My best friend was a boy called Antony; he had brown curly hair and always wore a dark green jumper, and I was very jealous of him because he was a boy and I was a girl.
2. My other best friend was a girl called Scarlett. She had very long hair and I was jealous of her because she had a plastic lion king play set. Once I went round her house and I stole the little plastic Scar lion, and then for months afterwards every time I heard a police siren I was convinced they were coming to get me for stealing it.
3. We used to have dress-up time once a week with a huge box of costumes to choose from, and my favourite by far was the Spiderman one. I remember even then feeling different from the other girls, because all the girls would choose princess dresses and it was the boys who chose superhero costumes. I've also just remembered how my parents would always try to make me wear dresses, and I once refused to go to a classmate's birthday party unless I was allowed to wear my old jeans and lion t-shirt.
4. We had a nursey teacher called Debbie and she was tall and thin and wore her hair in a very short boy cut. All the children (including me, I'm ashamed to say), used to giggle at her and always ask her if she was a man or a woman. But secretly I held a weird fascination with her; I used to think about her all the time and even named one of my teddy bears after her.
5. I used to be deliberately naughty right before tidy up time so that I'd get to sit in the naughty chair instead of having to tidy up hehehehehe.
So I think that's pretty much all I remember before starting primary school, other than my dreams/ nightmares which as I said, I'll probably write about in a separate post.
I suppose I have two earliest memories, I'm not sure which came first but in both I must have been about 3 or 4 years old. The first was a time we got burgled; it was the middle of the night and two policemen walked into my bedroom. They asked me where mummy and daddy's room was, and I pointed upstairs. I remember feeling as if it was all a terrible nightmare at the time, but the next day feeling very proud that I had in some way 'helped to solve a crime'.
The second earliest memory I have was also at night. I should probably point out now that something which pretty much defined my early childhood is the fact that I could lucidly dream (i.e. have dreams where I knew I was dreaming and could control it in some way). These were often nightmares and often extremely vivid; it came to a point where I even taught myself tricks to wake myself up when in a nightmare. I still remember most of the nightmares I had as a young child, probably even more so than things that happened in reality (I might do another blog post about these dreams in more detail later). Anyway, so I used to get this recurring nightmare where I'd be chased by a huge wolf, usually in some woods. I'd realise I was dreaming and wake myself up, and find myself in my bed at home. The second I then realised something wasn't right, I see the wolf crouching in the corner of my bedroom. I scream, he pounces, I wake up.
It was after I'd had one of these dreams, and I must have been screaming whilst awake because my dad came into my bedroom to see what was wrong. He then proceeded to lie down next to me and hush me to sleep, and when I woke up the next morning he had fallen asleep there. My dad was never (and still isn't) the most affectionate of parents; I can count the number of times he's hugged me on one hand. He was also very strict when I was younger and I was very afraid of him, and so I think this has stuck with me because it's one of the only times I felt genuinely safe around my dad, and loved.
I only remember a few bits and pieces about my time at nursery school, and in retrospect they all pretty much point to me being very rebellious, jealous and sexually confused, so YAY HERE GOES.
1. My best friend was a boy called Antony; he had brown curly hair and always wore a dark green jumper, and I was very jealous of him because he was a boy and I was a girl.
2. My other best friend was a girl called Scarlett. She had very long hair and I was jealous of her because she had a plastic lion king play set. Once I went round her house and I stole the little plastic Scar lion, and then for months afterwards every time I heard a police siren I was convinced they were coming to get me for stealing it.
3. We used to have dress-up time once a week with a huge box of costumes to choose from, and my favourite by far was the Spiderman one. I remember even then feeling different from the other girls, because all the girls would choose princess dresses and it was the boys who chose superhero costumes. I've also just remembered how my parents would always try to make me wear dresses, and I once refused to go to a classmate's birthday party unless I was allowed to wear my old jeans and lion t-shirt.
4. We had a nursey teacher called Debbie and she was tall and thin and wore her hair in a very short boy cut. All the children (including me, I'm ashamed to say), used to giggle at her and always ask her if she was a man or a woman. But secretly I held a weird fascination with her; I used to think about her all the time and even named one of my teddy bears after her.
5. I used to be deliberately naughty right before tidy up time so that I'd get to sit in the naughty chair instead of having to tidy up hehehehehe.
So I think that's pretty much all I remember before starting primary school, other than my dreams/ nightmares which as I said, I'll probably write about in a separate post.
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