Wednesday, 25 May 2016

Surviving in a Non Dyspraxic World at a Girls Secondary Modern School 2

Part 2 -   Scrapping & being Bullied

The Purpose of this blog is to promote The Dyspraxia Foundation E book' "Dyspraxic Adults Surviving in a NonDyspraxic World" self help book for dyspraxic adults. All proceeds go to the Dyspraxia Foundation adult support groups. Available on Amazon for £9.99
This  blog is part 2 of what it was like at Cheadle Kingsway Secondary School for Girls, Teacher and pupils names have been changed but the name of the school hasn'tSome of the funnier bits have become material for my stand Up Comedy.

Cheadle Kingsway School before its makeover


Scrap! Scrap! Scrap!
I made the naïve mistake of telling Veronica from my previous school that I couldn’t tie my shoe laces. A few days later June a friendly girl who was fond of boys and obsessed with the Osmonds, asked me to tie her laces for her because she hated the touch of canvas. I knew Veronica had told her about my difficulty and June was trying to show me up.  I fully expected to make a fool of myself but calmly tied her shoelaces. I had not realised I had mastered this and had been wearing slip on shoes for a couple of years; June must have thought that Veronica was making up one of her lies.

There was a class distinction in the styles of bulling.  Working class girls preferred physical violence and respected you if you won a fight; whereas middle class girls preferred psychological abuse. However there was not a class distinction in name calling. In the first three years of school I was a constant target for fighting.  A red haired Australian girl named Stella, picked on me thinking I was an easy target and wouldn’t fight back. She called me a fat woggy cretin and had been goading me all lunchtime! I lost my cool and flattened her so her sister Colleen came along to defend her and after one punch to her face she was crying because she had been to the dentist earlier in the day.

 When I moved  into a different class to Veronica  she soon drooped my like a hot potato and began deliberately throwing insults so it would be my idea to fallout with her. In front of what looked like the whole school, she called me a useless, mongy, specky-four–eyed spastic, who was fat and ugly and had no friends. She challenged me to meet up with my ‘friends’ at lunchtime so that the whole school could see that no-one liked me, and she would bring her many friends along to show how popular she was.

I was hoping this was one of her fantasies and did not take up her challenge and had forgotten about her outburst, she brought a whole crowd of girls who looked like blue bottles buzzing with anticipation at my humiliation, because they had took her side. The whole event backfired on her, when the roar of ‘SCRAP! SCRAP! SCRAP!’ resounded across the playground. I could tell she didn’t want to fight with me because I had list my temper with her previously and she was coward. But before we knew it we were pushed together. A red mist came over me because of all the years of humiliating me and the way she had treated me in the past. I really laid into her, digging my nails into her badly scratching her arms and face. She ran away in tears and everyone cheered at my victory. She later tried to turn my assault on her to her advantage by trying to imply that I was inhuman for making such a vicious attack.

Another girl Dora who couldn’t stand the sight of me, grabbed hold of my hair because I was accused of losing June’s skiing socks that had mysteriously disappeared from the wardrobe of the Her Farter(sic) hotel bedroom, during a school skiing trip that I had spent most of my time falling on my backside. I refused to give June the £1 she was asking to replace them to raise money to fund a going to an Osmond concert. I suspected she had taken the socks herself and was trying it on especially as the socks were old and darned and not even worth 25p. Dora he best friend a short stocky girl with very fine mousy blond pageboy haircut grabbed my hair which was wiry and curly so it sprang back when it is pulled, poor Dora on the other hand hair was not as resilient so when I retaliated by grabbing her hair a huge clump fell out  creating a toupee on the floor,  leaving a bald patch, so she ran off crying. Although I was only defending myself I felt really mean as I did not intend for Dora to lose her hair. I quite liked Dora and did not know why she hated me so much.  The incident gave fuel to Veronica to reinforce the rumour that I was a wild animal who didn’t know her own strength. Mrs Barlow a trendy teacher who had had her hair streaked questioned me as to why I got into so many scraps, I was defensive because I thought she was blaming me and did not know where to start explaining why I was picked on so much. Surprisingly I never got disciplined or suspended for fighting although Mrs Law would have loved it.

The school bully Carrie was always picking on me and making anti-Semitic remarks and she was friend of Veronica looking for revenge. She was a better fighter than me because she was quicker on her feet than me and very cunning. She had the tactics of a boxer giving out hard slaps and punches dodging my uncoordinated attempts to hit her back, and running away so I couldn’t hit her back. Everyone was terrified of her. I realised that she was a very troubled and unhappy girl with low self-esteem I hated to think what was going on in her head and what must have been happening at home to make her so evil and vicious. She was very rude and aggressive towards the teacher’s and made me look like an amateur at disrupting classes.  A few years ago she actually contacted me on Friends Reunited and apologised and said that she was an unwanted child as her Mum gave birth to her late in life. This was why she was allowed to get away with murder as her parents didn’t care and let her do what she liked. She was happily married and living in Japan and would make sure she showed that she loved her children.
Next Post is the Final Part of  what it was like for me a Kingsway

No comments:

Post a Comment