Tommy Brown's Schooldays

Apparently, Tommy had been a hateful child, he'd overheard his mother say so many years later, during one of her careless conversations. He hadn't known of course, hadn't realised that he was considered hateful and had he known at the time, he would have challenged the statement, because he challenged most things. Surely, hateful meant full of hate and that was totally untrue, he didn't hate anything or anyone. He could be difficult at times, mischievous, disruptive even, but never hateful. It was only in adulthood that he realised that the problem had been as much his mother's as his.

His relationship with her had been fractious, a constant running sore, especially through his teenage years. His father's building business had run into financial difficulties when he was eight years old and the damaging repercussions slowly marinated their lives in an astringent, a styptic applied to everything soft and warm and organic. They moved house several times, each being improved and sold on and as a consequence, he had a disruptive non- relationship with three different primary schools in just two and a half years. The move to secondary school at age eleven became a lifeline.

It was shiny and new and comprehensively equipped, a beacon of post war recovery and municipal pride. It was opened with ceremony by Aldermen and gentlemen and someone Brillcream bright who had been chairman of the National Union of Teachers since 1947; and they sang All People That On Earth Do Dwell. It was spectacular and Tommy imprinted with it instantly, doting through the next six years of his life there with unshakeable allegiance. It was exactly what both he and the school needed; investment, reassurance and devotion.

An impressive dark blue and grey uniform united them, with cap and tie and a badge on the blazer with an embroidered barbican. It was equitable and egalitarian and it transmogrified council houses or mansion houses into school houses named after the national Saints. It was a level playing field on which they muddied their knees and bloodied their noses and discovered pleasure in endeavour and achievement. All it lacked was a motto, so they invented their own: Nil Desporandum.. with the Latin translation...don't let the bastards grind you down. They were a guild, a fraternity, an elasticated band of brothers that would stretch their friendship across time.

The staff at the school were eclectic and often exceptional, a compendium of individuals outstanding in their own disciplines, some with infinite patience and others less well endowed. Tommy learned to pick a path through the blackboard jungle, avoiding the man eaters by sheltering under the more gentle shade, away from the oppressive heat of places like the physics and chemistry labs. He took to maths and english and music and found that the more he gave of himself the more he received in return. He took a week-end job with the local butcher, making deliveries on the shop bike and saved to finance his school trips, avoiding the inevitable skirmishes with his mother. He thrived there and he began to live his life there, away from home and the ritual confrontation. 

The school and its staff and his gloriously mixed bag of classmates became a microcosm of everything the world had to offer. They took educational trips to the Lake District and York, Haddon Hall and Hadrian's Wall and even ventured abroad to Switzerland, travelling across Europe by rail, sleeping fitfully on the luggage racks. They scaled mountains and gazed out at giant glaciers and were intoxicated by what the world had in store for them and when they returned, Tommy Brown saw his world differently. 

Back home, in the corridors of his surrogacy, Tommy Brown threw himself wholeheartedly into everything on offer. Sports and languages and arts and music, but especially music. He sang Balthazar in Menotti's, Amal and the Night Visitors and played the Haydn Trumpet Concerto at Summer concerts. He travelled to Bristol and London to National Schools Brass Band festivals and performed solos at Speech Days and on every occasion, he searched in vain for a familiar face in the audience. 

He gained Duke of Edinburgh awards in bronze, silver and gold, culminating in a trip to Buckingham Palace and was successful in attaining all the grades necessary for a place in further education. Tommy and his classmates had completed their six year odyssey, climbing the mountains together from a base camp equipped with everything they could ever need. And finally, when the dreaded last day of the final term arrived, he stood on the sixth form balcony in the main hall traumatised by the finality of it all; he was leaving home. They sang, Lord Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing, and he shed uncontrollable tears in front of his friends; and they all understood.