The floating from primary to secondary school is always, it is said, a turbulent voyage. It didn't help that the secondary school was an all-boys' school - aggro upon a hellish vessel of unease. To be plunged into unfamiliar and possibly hostile environments sets the mind aquiver. Defence mechanisms are hastily contrived amidst a thunderstorm of dead-arms and dead-legs: namely, pulsar cannons, mini-time-machines, shuriken throwers, portable spiked ball-maces, electronic visors, foldaway plasma weaponry, sprongiformic bozo, flying mechanisms, anti-gravity automatic nunchakus, self-deploying titanium cubicles, briefcase-convertible shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, collapsible music-stand plus 'trumpet of disintegration' combo, CAC (Compressed Air Canisters) disguised as inhalers, roll-on corrosive/irritant wax in push-up tubes ('replace cap after use'), microscopic flame-throwers, time-inhibiting grenades, laser-guided insults; all the cutting edge technologies. Nod Gods too.
I drew this coloured map at the time to remind myself which areas of the school were particularly dangerous bully-wise. Red signifies extreme danger of torment, pink shows lesser torment, orange equals tension, yellow is mild twitchiness, whilst green is safe (click for a larger image). Note the library and I.T. rooms are safe; a fact that quickly propelled me to become a librarian and an 'I.T. monitor', where all breaktimes and lunchtimes would later be spent.
I was in the form '1R'. 'R' is short for Rhodes - ruthless businessman, bungler, exploiter of Africa, and generic fascist Cecil Rhodes, that is. This fact seems sickening the more I think about it.
The first morning assembly at this school was shocking. In the massive hall, everyone was directed to sing the hymn 'Praise Him', whereupon the booming grand piano shook my composure to pieces! At primary school there was only a modest upright piano, so I hadn't anticipated the overwhelming bombast of a grand piano. And why was the pianist (balding Mr. Humphries) playing it so bloody loud?! Was it due to his frustration at his own baldness? Surely he would've considered the fragility of the newcomers' senses... but no. Immediately afterwards, everyone started murmuring some half-understandable creepiness; "thy kingdom come, thy will be done". Certain fellow first years somehow knew the words to this odd chant, but to me it was truly alien - like stuff you'd expect a sinister cult to indulge in. It was called 'The Lord's Prayer' and was uttered at the close of every assembly, yet it did nothing to quell the hellishness and ceaseless violence among the pupils for the rest of the day. The staff were also highly authoritarian in a Victorian manner that simply wouldn't be allowed nowadays. Another shock to the system involved P.E. and Games lessons where humiliation, shower-naked ultra-vulnerability, claustrophobia and clothing displacement calculated to cause distress were all part and parcel. All these things were conducive to destroying all calm and rankling the nerves.
On my first few weeks at the secondary school I noticed that as one approached the school confines, the pavements would become increasingly flecked with a mysterious jelly-like substance. In the morning some spots would be bubbling and foamy, as if sent up from the earth's core itself, however, the jelly blobs were not hot to touch. I have always been interested in geology, fossils and insects, etc., and this discovery fascinated me. A friend of mine said this substance was definitely organic, possibly secreted by snails or slugs, although none had trails that suggested so. If these globules had fallen from the high heavens, on impact they would surely have spread much further with evidence of streaking. These theories were quickly discounted. It wasn't cuckoo spit because it contained no 'cuckoo'. The mystery was solved a few weeks later when I heard older boys walking ahead of me loudly generating mucus and spitting it on the ground with avant-garde noises. Disappointing. Why on earth were they doing this?! Was it just 'for show'? Territorial? Was the 'universal spirit' literally trying to drown their worthless souls in their own bile? Was it something to do with 'sex' perhaps?
One day I was walking across 'The Cage' with a friend (see 'Tennis Court' on map) to get to a lesson, when some older boys - for no reason - collided with us deliberately. I was treated to a kick which I deflected with my briefcase, but my unfortunate friend received a varnish of throat phlegm-jelly to the neck. A most unwelcome baptism (I too would soon be privy to many a sputal wash, fortuitously fortifying my immune system in the process and grounding me for an adulthood to be spent diving in bins for sustenance). Gut-churning. My friend was closer to tears than I was, so I tried to comfort him and distract him from the present hell by singing the catchy theme to the Club Biscuit advert: "if you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our Club". Incidentally, it is interesting to note that when I perambulate near schools nowadays, I never see as much spittle as I did back then - it must've been a 1990s thing - or something in the food in those days perhaps.
Another instance of torment is particularly notable. In the Bastille toilets (see 'Junior Toilets' on the map) I was engaged at a urinal in the act of passing fluid, when a particularly loathsome freckled fatty named Ian Parsons (who was in the same form as me) walked in and announced his intention to attempt to divide his pissing sequentially into every urinal. I expected that he'd probably wait until I had finished, but sadly he began whilst I was still stationed at the urinal. He passed behind me and said "there's piss on your blazer now," which really upset me. I zipped up and walked over to the mirror to see if there was any dampness visible, but none could be seen. Then, in the corner of my eye, I perchanced to glimpse a Nod God! The Nod God smiled sympathetically and was a sweetly-comic creature. It disappeared immediately, but it buoyed my spirits considerably. All sentient and kind, it was. Bizarrely, this Nod God had teeth - an unusual thing since I had not given any of my Nod God doodlings teeth, in fact, I had settled on their toothless nature - using their hardened gums to mash food. I have never told anyone about this vision in the Bastille toilets, but it was clear that the Nod Gods were trying to help me through this difficult time. Tangentially, it seems extremely discordant that this part of the school should be named after an 18th century Parisian prison. The name 'Bastille' also has unpleasant militaristic dimensions.
This comforting vision of a Nod God in the toilets was just the beginning... Soon they would start giving me pep talks and encouragement. Amazingly enough, they would even teleport me out of harm's way!
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