An Autobiography of a Nobody

These are my first memories of school taken from my up and coming 'Autobiography of a nobody'

At home I remember being handed my plastic lunch-box (which always had a chocolate taxi bar inside) and my plimsoll bag with kit inside.
I got into a fight I think of my first day at St Peters school in Brentwood probably even before lessons began. I can't remember who started it but recall wrestling in the mud with my fists and legs flailing in the hope of connecting a blow to my opponent. I looked up and saw my older brother looking down at me. I think he just shook his head and laughed as he walked on.
I always thought school was a huge scary place with endless opportunities to get into trouble and disobey people.
I usually felt pretty sick as soon as I walked into the school foyer with the smell of plastercine, school dinners and plimsolls coming from the adjoining dinner/assembly hall.
One of these early days I arrived in the playground with a small transparent bouncy rubber ball with coloured pieces inside. I'd become quite attached to this ball and bounced it as I walked towards my classroom. Suddenly from nowhere, a fat freckled girl called Amanda Green snatched my ball and bounced it right over the fence. I stood gob smacked as she smiled and walked off. I think she must have been quite rough as she had bare feet. I wanted revenge.
The feeling of loss and devastation hit me like a steam train. I got to class, my stomach knotted with grief only to get a bollocking from the teacher for being late.
Right then, as I stood in the middle of that classroom, I felt numb, numb with pity and grief, lost. I wanted to die there and then.
Classes picked up pretty quick and I soon started to enjoy myself, not working but with messing about. I used to like sharpening my pencil then stabbing it into my classmate’s arm that sat next to me and chucking things about.
Standing in the queue at the teacher’s desk, waiting to have my blunt pencil sharpened, he was so kind as he took my pencil and smiled, little did he know why I intended to use it for.
I was in the low sets even then, the yellow table (being for kids that were either thick, slow at learning or just lazy) going to green, blue then red for kids at the top of the class.
My table did have some benefits, as one girl, Kelly use to have this trick where she dropped something under the table then ask someone to go and retrieve it. Once under the table she would flash her bits. This continued for a while. I always pretended she really had dropped something until eventually I think, I just got under the table for my daily view to which she always obliged. I sometimes wonder what happened to Kelly, and laugh as she may be doing really well in say finance or law somewhere. God knows.
I continued to ramble my way through school getting into all sorts of trouble and managed to make some friends. One of them was Zac, a well spoke boy with a gruff voice. He always came across as very confident and polite. One day I tried to gain his respect by making some absurd bet with him, with hardly any chance at all of me winning. Unsurprisingly he won and I handed over my pack of vampire snap cards. Congratulations' he said as he shook my hand. I had never heard of the word before and I certainly didn't know what it meant but handed the cards over feeling he had truly won them. Later that evening at home, my mum asked where my cards were, and on answering 'I lost them on a bet', I received such a swipe round the face.
Zac told me he was moving to Australia for a couple of years. I thought it was a ploy to get out of giving my cards back, but sure enough he went.
Snot Block
One of the punishments administered by older kids was to drag people to the 'snot block' The snot block it turned out was a brick wall with a dried lump of green snot about four or so feet up. As a punishment for something I'd done one day I was walked up to the snot block and told to put my nose against it. The kids started to bounce a football next to my head until eventually it hit my head and my face smacked into the dried snot. Not so bad I thought.
Death slide
One particularly cold winter day, there was heavy snowfall. Older kids including my older brother had carefully created a very slippery slide on the play ground by repeatedly sliding over a five metre or so patch of snow and ice. Some skilful kids slid across it easily, other crouched down into a speed slide which looked very impressive. But most couldn't stand on it for more than a second before collapsing into a heap on its lethal sheen. This went on for a while before some poor kid cracked his head open on it and a teacher came over and put stop to the fun with a boiling hot kettle of water.
Climbing frame of glory
The rules for this game were very simple. Most lunchtimes, two eager opponents would straddle each end of a vertical pole on a large climbing frame at the bottom of the playing field. When they met in the middle, each player did what ever it took and by any means possible to knock their opponent off (They had to remain on the pole). Kicking, punching, biting and pulling hair were essential tricks for survival.
I remember huge crowds of jeering kids, goading on their mates until one player emerged victorious, bedraggled usually with ripped clothes then being hauled onto someone's shoulders and paraded around as king. I think fights just used to break out afterwards from all the adrenaline. I usually sloped off at that stage.

Further postings from my memoirs will be posted in due course.