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Me at 10 years old with my Mum and my Brother Robin
This blog is about my experiences of being a dyspraxic pupil at Lumb Head Primary School.Although I haven't
changed the name of the School. I have given pseudonyms to those involved. It wouldn’t be mindful to seek revenge
on something that happened 46 years ago. My purpose is to raise awareness of
dyspraxia and I have forgiven everyone
concerned . Some people are now dead and the bullies hopefully have grown out of
being bullies; more than I have grown out of my dyspraxia.
At the age of 10 my family moved
to a very middle class area in Gatley so it was near the synagogue, where the
local school was coincidentally called ‘Lumb Head' rather than Lumb Lane. I was
halfway through my final year at junior school because there was a delay in
having our new house built. Thanks to the new move I had to endure being
bullied and ostracised at both school and cheder
(Jewish Sunday School).
I had experienced bullying in my old school
but nothing like what was install for me at my new school. I was in Mrs Mozart's class, a tall thin plain looking woman who was a perfectionist and didn’t wear
a bra. My new school was a
recently built 70’s style school flat roofed building, with a pet’s corner
where I often escaped to after lunch to play with the baby guinea pigs because
I got on with them better than my teachers and peers. In spite of about one
third of the class being a year younger than me and the other third being under
achievers of my own age who later attended secondary school, the standard of
work was second year grammar school work. I could not keep up my peers I
thought I was stupid and called me a ‘mong’ I was bullied mercilessly and had
few friends. We didn’t do binary arithmetic or geometry at my old school where
I was at the bottom of my class with a curriculum designed for final year at
junior school pupils. I believed I was indeed stupid and gave up.
One friend who was called Jane was not
popular with others because she came from a large working class family and used
to be accused of stealing her peer’s property. If she nicked my stuff I
wouldn’t have noticed as I lost my stuff all the time and could afford to
replace it. She was always accepting and friendly of me and never was two-faced
or bullying. I
had one ‘friend’ called Veronica who although in my heart I knew she was not a
true friend I had too poorer self-esteem
than to have nothing to do with her as I would have had no friends neat where I
lived. She was very keen to come round to my house for coke crisps and
chocolate after school, which were given to me because my family always ate at ‘Dinner’, at 8pm when my dad came home from
work; where as my friends had their ‘Tea’ at 5pm. I rarely got invited back to
her house for food. Some other ‘friends’
did the same and one of them told me that Veronica had said that she only came
for the food and my that house stank. Veronica was a chubby fair haired girl
who tended to live in a fantasy world and tell grossly exaggerated lies about
herself and other people mainly at their expense. Once when we were seen in the street together
by another Lumb Head pupil, she tried to play a game with me so we would
pretend we were not with each other and walk on opposite sides of the street. I
got very angry with her and told her not to bother if she was so ashamed of me!
She decided to stay with me and my self-esteem was so low I actually felt grateful. Sometimes Veronica would be very
spiteful and actually initiate the name calling with others, about my childish
hand writing and the funny way I held my pen. What a ‘spaz’ I was at country
dancing and how I was just like my brother. I put up with her rather than
having no friends at all.
At the dinner table some girls refused
to sit next to because of my awful table manners and called me a pig for eating
with my mouth open and spilling food on the table. In fact I find it difficult to co-ordinate
closing my mouth and chewing at the same time which makes me feel like I’m
chocking. Once a piece of dry sponge pudding went down the wrong way and I
couldn’t help spitting it out. To my humiliation I was told off yet again by the
teacher for complaints about my table manners. I was told by Davina whom I knew
from cheder with utter contempt to
get lost and go to ‘Gatley Pigsty’, where my kind would fit in better. This was
the nick name for the rival school Gatley
Primary School. Her
friend Heather a snooty girl with a mouthfuls of braces, added that my Hero at
the time Roger Moore wouldn’t even look at me.
Although my self esteem was very low at
Lumb Head my spirit was not broken and on April Fool’s Day , I found Mrs Mozart’s whistle on her desk and blew it 10 minutes
before the morning break was over
bringing all the pupils to a
standstill before lining up to go back to their classes. I triumphantly shouted
“APRIL FOOL EVERYONE!” My stunt was taken in the context of the day and I did
not get into trouble for a change.
The type of bullying I suffered from at
Lumb Head was similar to the persecution I endured at Cheder, where in each situation I was looked down with an exclusive
and snobby demeanour by my peers for being stupid. Two particularly nasty
classmates were Phoebe a pretty rosy cheeked girl and Laura a skinny pale faced
bespectacled girl with two fair plaits. They would call me all the names they
could think of, laugh at my walk and treat me like dirt. One day they decided
to be nice to me and include me in their games. I did not trust either of them
but went along them as it was better than being tormented by them.
I went on a school trip to a holiday
camp in Rothesay. It took hours to get there by train and ferry and to my
delight some of the bullies who though they were my superior were violently
seasick and in tears because they felt so ill. The Holiday
camp was a typical 1950s style complex reminiscent of Hi Di Hi without the Yellowcoats,
complete with chalets, a shower/ toilet block and communal hall/dining room
playing fields and playground with swings. To our mutual horror I was placed in
a chalet with Davinia and Heather two other very snooty pupils. Heather had
escaped the seasickness but got her retribution when some schoolboys were
playing cricket and she got accidentally hit on the head with a cricket ball.
She was mildly concussed but was much better after a nights sleep.
Every night we had a Scottish high tea
of sandwiches and dropped scones. On our last night we had a school concert to
entertain the other campers. I had one fan a 90 year-old Scotsman who asked Mr
Plumb a notoriously bad tempered final year teacher, if I would sing for him as
he thought I was cute. I did not understand what this elderly man saw in me
because I was stupid, fat ugly mess who couldn’t sing in tune, but was
flattered at the same time.
Phoebe and Laura were still being
friendly towards me until during a game of rounders, I kept going to the back
of the queue so I did not have to get humiliated at rounders. Seeing this was a
holiday I wondered why joining in was compulsory with something I hated doing. I
did not want to let my team down since my clumsiness was taken personally of my
side lost, they would be better off I didn’t join in. I was in a no win
situation, Phoebe and Laura on the way back home suddenly turned in me a smeared
a full ashtray on my clothes for being a spoilsport for not joining in with the
rounders. After this incident they began their bullying again. When the school
film of the holiday was shown to my mortification every time I was in it I had
my thumb in my mouth, but shame did not cure this habit. I did not stop sucking
my thumb until I was in my late 20s.
This was the first time I had come
across children of Pakistani and Indian origin. Some of the children were
openly racist to them and to me because my skin in brown and I was Jewish although
there were more Jewish pupils than at at my previous school. Yet again Christianity
was the dominating culture and multiculturisisim and black history was ignored. Although I was unaware at the time during a
project about Africa, Mrs Mozart read out a very racist colonial poem
which dehumanised native African tribes by
describing them as savages instead of being positive about African culture. Did
she expect them to be delighted that white colonialists were stealing their land?
I had painted a holiday poster with an African elephant on it, it nearly made it
to the display in the assembly hall until Mrs Mozart noticed that I had spelt Africa wrong which to this day I still can’t spell and
now gets auto-corrected by my spell checker.
One of the few pieces of work that I
remembered ever getting displayed was a story about parallel lines. Although
parallel and line were in love they were side by side and were never able to
meet each other. Although I enjoyed creative writing and the content was quite
imaginative Mrs Mozart frequently paid more attention to the appearance and
spelling of my written work than its content.
One day I was summoned to Mr Troy’s
office. He was a balding man with a plum in his mouth and a superior attitude. Fully expecting to be in trouble for some misdemeanour that wasn’t my
fault. I was surprised to find the snow scene painting Mrs Mozart had entered
for the Daily Mail Art competition had won a major prize, a huge box of watercolour
and poster paints, especially as my work was not considered good enough to
display in the hall. This was the only time I got praise from Mr Troy and all
the other teachers. To my embarrassment I couldn’t remember my home phone
number of my new house and only my Dads surgery which almost spoilt the glory
of the moment when I told my parents about my achievement. Being awarded this prize and only one other
pupil in the school winning a small prize raised my self esteem enormously; I
believed I was a talented artist. I fully expected to win a prize again when I
entered a school paint-a -monster competition, until a boy looked disappointed
at my standard of painting . My delusions of
grandeur were quashed when I didn’t win a thing!
Although I was doing my best she once told me that
when I was older I would take more pride in my written work, when I was doing my
best. My handwriting was not wobbly and I could keep on the line because I had established
my right hand as the dominant one. It was still very large and childish looking
with lots of crossing out. I eventually devised my own way of joining up my
letters and realised that if I wrote smaller this resembled my peer’s writing
more. It looked fairly reasonable when I took my time, providing I used sugar
paper to lean on and used the right type of pen, but I did get pressure blisters on my
fingers from gripping my pen too hard.
During a school concert about the Wild
West, I was stopped by Mr Plumb from playing the tambourine because I was out
of rhythm and spoiling the whole show. This made me feel unworthy when all I
wanted was the approval of my peers and teachers. I was humiliated and felt out
of my depth when my Dad excepted me to sit the entrance exam the top Grammar
school. My Troy
the headmaster ,
advised him that I was not suitable. I felt yet again that I was a constant
disappointment to my parents. I failed my 11 plus and ended up in the remedial
class 1 basic at Cheadle Kingsway Secondary School for Girls. Now that’s another
story for my next few blogs.
