1989 – Was still being bullied when I changed school… Went to Hemel Hempstead ‘not really a Grammar, but was once and hasn’t really changed’ School, where I promptly managed to die my uniform pink by depositing a max-pax blackcurrant down my front at lunchtime. About as popular as a poo in a stew I took to lurking in the library and the computer rooms, thus began my love-affair with Acorn Computers. I also had a rocking IT teacher (Mrs Morgan) who didn’t mind this weird little kid who liked to play with computers all the time. I had a BBC Micro at home and started to learn to programme properly (Mmm, structured Basic). Most of my life was based outside school; I had my friend Brian, and that plus computers filled my time.
1990ish to 1994ish – Again, we’re into ropey memory terratory. I got a mountain bike, after getting bullied about having a BMX still (it was way too small for me anyway). It was a yellow and white second hand 15 gear (Shimani), made by some company I can’t remember the name of. It had no identifying marks on it, ‘cept near the chain. I rode virtually everywhere. School *sucked*; there were a few people who talked to me, mostly a kid called Ben who was also a bullied outcast. I was getting verbal and physical abuse in school, I planned my route home to avoid most people, but one person’s parents used to let their kids try and push me off my bike as they *drove* past. Finally, in the second or third year I hid behind the sofa crying hoping my mum’d go to straight to work and not notice. She did. My dad came home, and they both went to the school to deal with the bullying. The physical stuff mostly stopped but no-one really talked to me (which sucked) – I was also the ‘computer room prefect’ at lunchtime. Most lunchtimes, but Mrs Morgan didn’t let me do that *every* day.
I remember kicking the table with the server on, to coax it back into working (Yay for “Station 254 not listening”)…. and eating cakes on the way home with Ben (the cake shop shut at 4pm, so at half 3, just after school shut, the cakes were all discounted to about 10p each, and yes, I did put on some weight for a while). I built a go-cart with my dad – an insane contraption of pram-wheels, a leather bound steering wheel, and increasing numbers of lights/a radio/and madness. I played with this to far greater age than is reasonable, ‘cos it was *such* a laugh. One of those things where it got dangerous and that’s what made it fun.
I also got into electronics, helping my dad build an EDSI interface for the beeb; a sound sampler, and my GCSE project which was an assembler patch to the game E-type plus a dashboard (from a Cortina, ironically), which was all wired up so the game displayed the speed info on the dash (and flashed the warning lights when the car stalled :-) ). This doubled as my IT project (god, was I lazy or what).
Started suffering from depression, and bought Rebecca, my Morris Minor, in which I proceeded to spend an *awful lot of time*. It was a quiet place I could just sit and think…. miles away from anyone. Did a few jobs on the car before realising how much welding was actually needed.
I should also, maybe mention, pinning a kid to the wall by his neck after he’d been bulling me for a *long* time (specifically, 45 minutes of throwing a football at my head *in a german class*). Finally, I decided to fight back. Not really deliberately. Red mist kind of thing. Anyway, the bullying *stopped* (he was fine, incidentally, still an arsehole, just a bit of a shaken arsehole). I’ve kinda learned to handle my temper a lot better since then, and uh, have never pinned anyone to a wall since… ;-)
I finally made another friend in the 5th year of school (which, I reckon, must have been 1994). Trundled though my GCSEs (I got bored in one exam and made a pack of cars out of the spare paper, and then started playing patience, much to the amusement of one of the invigilators).
1994-1996 – My A-levels, for some reason, I decided to stay in the place I was already in. I guess better the devil you know. Still small, thin, but now with the added bonus of being an indie-kid. My friend got me into music, something for which I’m eternally grateful, and I became an utter music snob. If it wasn’t indie or 60s then it sucked. I started drinking a *lot*. Usually, when I went out, I’d drink a naggin of Vodka plus more. One night I raced a friend of Brian’s through a 70cl bottle of vodka, and then we went to the Cinema. I remember the trailers; then running out of the theatre to throw up. It was Clueless we went to see; I’ve seen bits of it since, and remember none of them….!
I also did other stuff which I don’t plan to discuss in public ;-)
Got my driving licence, and proceeded to thrash my mum’s 1-litre Peugot all over hertfordshire. Nearly hitting a tree & another car at various points.
Ben got his Landy, a really nasty D-Reg SWB landrover with electrics from hell; flash the headlamps and all the fuses would blow. The radio-cassette liked to chew tapes; the engine’d just *stop* for no particular reason. We went all over the place in it.
On the way to the Leeds (‘Heineken’) Music Festival, Ben and I slept on the roof of the van in the car-park of a service station; our friends all cramped up inside; and we *terrified* a group of German tourists who were pondering what the cloth tubes on top of the landy were… We growled and wriggled about for a bit before sticking our heads out of our respective sleepingbags :-)
That landy also almost got us killed by *stopping* in the fast lane of a dual carriage way in the path of an on-coming lorry. Merp.
I just remember ben trying and trying and trying the engine and it suddenly deciding that maybe it didn’t want to die and us being flung across the other carriage way at some speed by the bloody thing.
My life revolved around going to parties with Martin (who was not, incidentally, my boyfriend – we just generally got invited as a pair) and getting so blind drunk I wouldn’t remember who or what I was… I had a few ‘issues’. I held my first birthday party since I was 6 (my 18th) – and got so drunk I….don’t remember it. Apparently it was good. Screwed up my A-Levels and didn’t get in to uni to do medicine.
1996 – Went to Birmingham University to ‘study’ Biochemistry. Hated every living second of the course. Tried to switch to Comp Sci. Failed. Decided to finish the course and just do something else afterwards. Got put in a flat with the greatest people; met the best group of friends any girl could ask for. Still didn’t bloody come out. There’s so many stories about uni… Switching the doors round in the flat so that my flatmates couldn’t lock their doors (they just lifted off their hinges see, so while one of ’em was in the kitchen and the other was out I, well, swapped ’em. Switched their posters over…. and voila). Would have worked *really* well, ‘cept for me killing myself laughing when the swearing started.
Then there was the um, cardboard woman. But we won’t go into that. Suffice to say I was called some very rude names. And the giant aquarium (with papier mache fish, suspended from the ceiling, down the length of our corridor).
1999 – Came out of Uni with a poor 3rd (*just*), and moved back home with my parents. Started to go progressively more nuts. Came out to my friends, got my first girlfriend, Hannah. Came out to my parents in a very tearful evening, when they told me they’d guessed when I was fucking 4 years old. Couldn’t they have *told* me?! Apparently they thought it might ‘go away’, but they were actually really cool about it when I finally *did* tell them! Got my first car, a Yugo 45a, for the princely sum of 110 quid. Tried, and tried, and tried to get a job in IT. Eventually ended up working for a private girl’s school as a Network Admin. Crashed my Yugo on mud in december…. Went and looked angelic and told sob-stories to second hand car places; and ended up with a rather fun Mark 1 1.5 litre golf, which lead to my driving getting *way* faster.
