School – Start as you mean to go on.
Unusually I turned up at Secondary School looking immaculate. My mum had decked me out with brand new uniform – blazer, cap, shirt, tie, long socks and shoes. It was topped off with a hair-cut. I was neat, clean, tidy and pressed. All my creases were the right kind of creases. It couldn’t last.
My form room was the Technical drawing room. This was set out to do technical drawing. People needed sharp pencils for technical drawing. Mr Cox, our kind form teacher, had thoughtfully put out pieces of wood with sandpaper glued on them. You could bring your pencil to a diamond sharp point on the sandpaper. These pieces of wood were hung from nails.
I squeezed round the back of some boys to take my place and caught my blazer on the nail. It ripped a triangle out of the shoulder that hung down in a flap. Even I had to admit that it wasn’t the most stylish of arrangements.
Later that morning I had art. I liked art. Unfortunately there were not enough rooms so we had to do our art up on the stage behind the curtains. It wasn’t ideal. We had to bring everything that was required across from the art-room.
I was chosen to be one of the people to carry the materials back.
A little group of us went over to collect the paper, paint and brushes. I received the task of carrying trays of paint. We were to use Tempera Powder Paint. The powder had been poured out into baking trays. They were the sort that you cooked Yorkshire puddings in. There were big indentations full of powder.
I carried ten of these trays, one on top of the other.
Our little retinue carried our materials out of the art-block and up the road to the hall. We went in through the side door. I was very careful to negotiate the perils of the swing door. I did not want to spill any powder. Unfortunately I was so fixated on the door that I did not take account of the doormat. Inside the door was a sunken well with a bristly mat in it. I was not used to sunken mat wells. I tripped over it.
The trays of paint went flying up in the air. Then they clattered down. The powder paint formed a personal dust cloud that completely encompassed me. Then it settled.
The great clattering noise brought the whole class out.
I stood up and was completely covered with dust from head to foot. I looked a bit like a ghost. Then I started to cry. As the tears ran down my cheeks they created rivulets of rainbows.
My first day at school was quite eventful.
I cannot remember what my mum’s face was like when she set eyes on me. I was no longer the smart young man she had sent off. I was now a dirty, crumpled wreck with torn clothes and grime.
But hey – always start as you mean to go on.
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I thought that was great.
I was accident prone!
I don’t mean to be rude, but I could just see you in that story you told it was so vivid. That picture of me was Christmas, Jonathan caught me. Sorry about the books, I was reading and enjoying then when the pain gets worse for some reason I seem to give up on the books, I will return (it was really interesting) and I will do a review and talk with you. I won’t let you down.
I know. I was a scruffy little imp.
I look forward to that.
I’ll try and read some tonight.
I’ll look forward to discussing that one when you’ve finished it. There are things I wanted to ask.
I am intrigued.
Nothing extraordinary.
I’ll look forward to it.
Right you are. When you’ve finished. I can wait.
How are the sales going, did well on the Cruise?
Dribbling along. Until I get a publishing deal and some publicity I do not think they will do anything.
Is it that hard to get a publishing deal?
Almost impossible
Why?
Thousands of people writing and a dwindling audience. I talked to one editor who told me he received 2-3000 books from people like me a year and published one every two years. I worked out that all I had to do was write six thousand books and I was bound to get published.
I had no idea it was as tough as that.
That’s the reality. It is not how good you are. It is who you know.
Hence so much rubbish printed. I prefer to read old books (and yours) at the moment none.
It is all celebrity stuff.
I detest that word Celebrity and those people, the World is obsessed. I don’t like these people who take these damn “so called selfies” of themselves, what is wrong with them.
It’s a superficial culture for people with shallow lives. We live in a world full of wonders and worries and they just want to concern themselves with a few overpaid idiots.
How and why have we become like this so shallow is that the culture, I would rather live in the past.
I think we have been manipulated by the establishment. They do not want us to think and question.
People do not want to use their brains, not all of course but those morons who have to watch these rubbish programmes and read the magazines and oh you know what I am saying.
I think it is like a drug. They get caught up in shallow crap. They train themselves not to think. Perhaps it comes out of feeling so powerless to do anything about it. We are caught in a huge machine that is relentlessly ripping up the planet for the benefit of a tiny minority and there is no way of stopping it. Most people want to ignore what is going on. It is as if they want to live in a world of fairytales.