Never Let the Saucepan Boil Dry Chapter Five: Fighting on the Beaches, Part 1

Mum dropped me at the Gallowgate campus for my first day in September, 1994. It was a set of ugly, practical buildings near Marischal College, not the building at Deeside where I retook my Highers twice. I took Psychology, Sociology, Politics and Philosophy as core subjects, with English Literature as a shorter course, later on. I had good hopes of doing well: there were no exams in it, for one thing. It was a demanding, full-time course, the closest to university life since the summer school the year before. It was recognised as such by Aberdeen University, where those successful in Psychology in their HNC could progress straight to the same subject in second year at the University. I also had an SAAS grant for the first time. I felt I had a new dignity and purpose.

    I hoped to gain entry to university on a full-time basis the following year, and put in applications early. This time, rather than the simple bold REJECT from all and sundry, I got four offers for English and Philosophy, from Dundee, Glasgow, Stirling and Aberdeen. I attended open days for the two latter. At Aberdeen, a Professor of Philosophy looked at my notes. ‘I suppose school wasn’t hard enough for you,’ he said kindly.

     Despite knowing how good Aberdeen was, I opted for the unfamiliar with Stirling for my first choice. I was sold on a notion of having to be ‘normal’ and doing what other students did, namely going away from home, even when there were excellent local facilities. Stirling also seemed more flexible than most with their arrangement of taking subjects by semesters, making them easier to change when needed. On my way to visiting their campus, I got more than slightly lost. I listened to U2’s The Joshua Tree on my personal stereo, and appreciated the irony as the track listing progressed from ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ to ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ to ‘With Or Without You’ and ‘Running to Stand Still’. I found that communication between their English and Philosophy departments was not the best. It seemed they expected students to travel on separate days to visit different departments. I had found Aberdeen far more reasonable and generous to deal with, and there was not the same issue with getting lost in unfamiliar places.

     I went to visit Donald and Cathy in St Cyrus over the long September weekend. They seemed happy there, if taking time to adjust in church.

     The term progressed, and I was committed to the work as never before. I did not attend what proved to be the last in a long tradition of young people’s evenings to welcome new students in September, now held in the church rather than the manse since 1992, in order to get my work done.

     I was pleasantly surprised to find I did well in Psychology, the subject I knew least of before beginning the course, though my practical experiment (involving memory) the next term was deemed unsatisfactory. In October 1994 I found I was participating in an experiment myself. A man named Mr B, an educational psychologist, came to the house, and got me to do a variety of tests, some theoretical, some practical. The former were mostly easy, some of the latter surprisingly difficult. ‘You do know what this is?’ he said in a tone of some incredulity when I struggled to complete a model of wooden pieces. It turned out to be an elephant: the trunk and tail were confusingly similar, out of context. In conversation, he was highly critical of my commitment to the church, and of my social prospects in it. He appeared to regard his own opinions as fact. This came over strongly in his follow-up letter, where he gave the results of this IQ test and remarked on my writing ability as a ‘liberating’ thing compared to the ‘repression’ of my background (in letting my feelings out). I thought him somewhat Freudian, and over-the-top with it. The results appeared to show a high score for the theoretical tests, and a lower one for the practical elements. I had had a long history of seeing different healthcare professionals over the years, and while still not clear as to why he in particular should have turned up then, I thought no more of it.

     My hard work was already meeting with success by Christmas. The subjects were challenging, stimulating and interesting in themselves: all the things the Highers were not. In January 1995, I woke up with conjunctivitis and had to go to the eye hospital. My period of wearing contact lenses came to an abrupt end, after three and a half years.

     I was gradually aware of a degree of stress that did not come from anywhere very obvious. It spread like hairline cracks from September on. We went on holiday in Rannoch Moor at Easter 1995, where as well as going on walks with my everlasting music, I enjoyed watching Babylon 5 and Superman. I remained committed to the work, and a place at Stirling or Aberdeen seemed a real possibility. By July 1995, I was aware of feeling regularly depressed. It was not the first time I had felt like this, but this time there was no irrational, angry primary teacher or defeats in exams. My prospects seemed good, and I genuinely liked my HNC. I also applied for and got a place on a related HND at Aberdeen College for the following year. By now, I had learned the value of safety nets.

     I attended my GP, and he prescribed medication for the first time. I had got behind on my HNC towards the end, and to complete everything to schedule required one last spectacular battle. I started work in the afternoon of a Tuesday in early July, worked all night non-stop and then most of the next day, going down to the College to submit all my material after 3 pm. It was my Battle of Waterloo, and I intended to be on the winning side. Kira the dog was curious at the disruption in my routine, surprised to see me there so long. She turned over and snored, her legs in the air.    

     I then went with Aunt Liz to join my parents at Glenbuchat for a few days. I heard within a month that I had passed everything on my HNC, barring the practical part of Psychology. The Canadians came over again. Dad was ill with depression himself, and had time off work. We were supplied by different speakers, including Paul Wraight, my school friend David’s father. My depression was not widely known of in the church, by comparison with Dad. I was still determined to go away to Stirling, completely underestimating how that would affect me. It was part of the same package: trying to be a Norm. I got my confirmation of my HNC result in August, with much rejoicing. I was to become a fully-fledged undergraduate. I had good times with Matt and company. I went up to Thurso to see Uncle Fraser in his new charge for a few days, and filled in my application for accommodation at Stirling’s Halls of Residence there. I was to go in September. My offer became unconditional, and it was all finalised.

     We went down to Stirling, and I was installed in Andrew Stewart Hall, known as ASH. There were homely touches, such as my books, a safeguard against the dark that still threatened me. I attended  the campus GP, and got involved in the Christian Union and Hall Bible study, which helped, where I met Keith, a fellow Doctor Who fan. I returned triumphant to Aberdeen for my 21st birthday. A very low-key celebration, but held with the people that mattered most. I had a meal out with cousins. ‘A grown-up card now you’re a real student!’ wrote Cathy, sending one with a picture of a snail.

     I managed an all-nighter on an essay on the Gertrude Stein story, ‘As A Wife Has a Cow: a Love Story’ for English, gaining a B+. I watched the grey squirrels scamper across the campus at dawn. By October, I came off  my medication, abruptly and too early. I also took Philosophy and Religious Studies. English was the most engaging and interesting. I took my copy of ‘Inky Foot’ with my prize-winning story with me, and showed it around. I did not find the basic situation of a room in ASH easy, despite the authorities claiming to deal with it. The sub warden was commonly up till 3 am, so was not there to deal with the noise as supposed, nor available at any time to discuss it. In the absence of a TV, I got audiotapes of Steven Pacey (an actor who appeared in the sci-fi show ‘Blake’s 7’) reading Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Return of the Native’. He adopted a distinctive broad Devonshire accent. I acquired posters of Star Wars, Doctor Who, Blake’s 7 and a Volkswagen Beetle, painted in lurid psychedelic colours. My end of semester exams came, taken the tennis hall in December. I had already arranged to leave, and joyfully cleared out my things from ASH when Mum and Dad came down to take me home. They met Keith then too. It did leave me with a practical difficulty of where to stay on returning in February. I went to stay briefly with Keith in January, amid the broadcast of the new Doctor Who radio play ‘The Ghosts of N-Space’, starring former Doctor Jon Pertwee. There was also news of Paul McGann’s TV Movie, which seemed too good to be true.

     I settled on an address in Bridge of Allan, which is closer to Stirling University than the much older city of Stirling. Mrs Humble my landlady worked in the university’s admin department, and sometimes gave me a lift in. My room to one side of the house was quiet and restful, everything my room in ASH was not, but I gradually found I missed the company. My attendance at CU faltered, and I no longer went to the ASH Hall Bible study. I still went back to ASH to see Keith. I made use of Stirling’s semester system to drop Philosophy, a subject so alive at Aberdeen which had proved deadly dull at Stirling, for History. There was still not a lot of work to fill the time. Each subject had two lectures and one tutorial, totalling only nine hours per week of formal study. English moved into Drama, where I wrote on The Importance of Being Earnest and Oedipus Rex.

     March was the turning-point. I remember walking into the Chaplaincy with Keith on Wednesday 13th March to hear details of the aftermath of the Dunblane massacre. I did not respond at once to this event, but went numb. The local church I went to was affected. I began a downward spiral that became more and more marked for the rest of the semester. Isolated. I struggled to complete coursework in Religious Studies. I felt myself drifting, unable to focus on long-term plans. I attended my GP, and went back on medication. It did not help this time. I was grateful to make it to the end of the semester. I did not enjoy the exams. I moved all my things out of Mrs Humble’s, not sure if I would be returning, this time. I knew I needed time to recover. A break of four months stretched ahead. I was quite unwell when I left. I continued my regime of medication, and struggled to find purpose, find hope.

     Paul McGann’s TV Movie was broadcast the Monday after I returned. It was so wonderful to have it back, but going to series depended on the American response, and it seemed possible that Americanising it might deprive it of some of its very appeal Stateside.

     I had an episode where I went out and binned my earlier juvenile stories, typed carefully over the summer of 1994. I wandered into my parents’ bedroom around 1 am, sat down and told them. ‘The stories are a part of you,’ said Dad, who went around the corner and helped me fish them out. At 2 am that morning, he took me out for a walk on the beach and an order of chips. I was surprised and grateful, whether or not I acknowledged it at the time.

     That was the blackest summer of my life. Many days, I reached a point where things seemed hopeless, even though I had achieved a lot in my year at Stirling. I have had hayfever allergies for many years, and do not greatly like long sunny days and high temperatures the way most people claim to. The time of year, in itself, did nothing for me. Mum started work in the Blythswood charity shop, as its manager. I can only praise the care they showed me, while I fought to find purpose and a way forward. I also saw a psychiatrist, a rampant egotist who mocked the efforts of my GP, and who ultimately did nothing for me. Despite Mum’s commitment to the shop, she offered to help at times that suited me. ‘I’m willing to watch Dr Who videos with you.’ They showed me true love and kindness, and did not force me into anything.

     At such a dark time, I felt ‘occupied’ by depression, like continental Europe in World War Two. They flew sortie after sortie, a pair of willing Spitfire pilots. The darkness still loomed, ominous and overwhelming. Day after day I made it through another night, and time moved on slowly. My church attendance was uneven. For the first time, I could feel nothing of God’s purpose. It was as if my faith had gone. I still acknowledged God as my Saviour and wanted to function as a Christian, but could not feel any of it. I felt hollow, but resolved to fight it. ‘You ask what our policy is. I say our policy is to fight by land, sea and air, with all the strength that God can give us,’ said Winston Churchill.  

     I had to resit my exam in Religious Studies in August. I made plans to return to Stirling in September, though I knew some extra provisions would have to be made, to make it at all viable. I also had to find different lodgings. I went with Mrs Frame, again in Bridge of Allan. I arranged to come home every weekend, to be sure of support. As Keith remarked in the chaplaincy, ‘This guy spends more time away than he does here.’ Sometimes this was no more than three days a week at Stirling (Monday-Wednesday), given how brief the formal schedule was now: six taught hours a week. I had dropped Religious Studies, and now only took English and History. I also had a bike, to get from Mrs Frame’s to the university and back. Her house comprised part of a former schoolhouse, and Robert Louis Stevenson had written a poem about her garden.

     English that semester was about poetry, and I discovered the delights of Emily Dickinson. Already I knew my grades were not good enough to be permitted to do Honours. I thought of being a librarian, but was not sure it was right for me. It also seemed I needed an Honours degree to do postgrad training. I had applied to the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen’s undergraduate programme in librarianship in 1995, but had been rejected. I no longer went to church, having stopped in August. I had tried various antidepressants right through the summer, and been patient with the assorted side-effects, to no benefit at my worst times. I might has well have been eating liquorice. I enjoyed learning, but was struggling by October/November. It is likely my recovery (if I was having one) was too early in its progress. The season was beautiful. I relished a grandfather clock in Mrs Frame’s resembled the Master’s Tardis. My concentration remained poor. My landlady encouraged me to keep going to Christmas. A red VW Beetle that apparently belonged to Mrs Frame’s daughter was covered in snow in the garden. It had clearly not been driven for some time.  I knew my prospects at Stirling were crumbling, like a Gothic folly with unstable foundations.

     In November, Mum finally revealed the purpose of Mr Booth’s visit some two years earlier. She asked if I had ever heard of Asperger’s Syndrome. I had heard of autism before, and had not thought it particularly applied to me. She explained that Asperger’s is a form of high-functioning autism, that a classmate of Irene’s had been assessed by Mr Booth as having it, and he had been examining me to see if I had it. It appeared he thought I did have some traits, but did not merit a full diagnosis, and had advised my parents against telling me what his visit had been for. From the first I heard of it, it felt that a great weight had been lifted. So many things were not now my fault: my poor co-ordination, my getting lost, my sensory issues, apparently slow reactions in communication, whether these were of an everyday kind, or romantic in nature. I had felt so stupid for having them before, and that life as a Norm should not include these things. I had been trying fervently to pour myself into a mould I could never fit. My studies at Stirling were still very much in decline, though. It was too late to save them, and just as well. The history tutor in particular was more concerned for my essay than my health.