has
me falling and never arriving,
because
I didn't "take advantage".
My
fault again. Sorry.
The
school year in summary - was I there?
Debating
society - I didn't, no argument.
The
cricket XI - where? Stumped me.
Rugby
squad - packed away and rucked.
The
glittering speech-day prizes?
I
saw them shinning in the shop window,
nose
against the pane (pain?) where we did not shop.
Overseas
visits exploratory described - I never went.
So
many. Funny that I never went on any?
Abroad?
We did not go abroad,
my
family, tear-lisped amidst the slag tips.
News
of city society - I walked past.
But
recent history was ingrained on my knees
and
under my fingernails.
Detritus
on an industrial scale.
Nihil
Sine Labore:
"Nothing
Without Work"
was
the Dynevor school motto.
Well
my dad voted Labour,
and
he worked as a labourer,
hard
to pay for my school uniform.
Well
it got him, and me, nowhere.
I
failed of course - they all told me.
Meritocracy
ticked the clock of the days,
when,
on arrival, I was placed in class C.
Seems
I merited that – see?
But
my contemporaries in class
went
on to university, preordained
by
family aspirations. To their merit.
What
was our tradition at home?
No
opinion, working class, try your best
to
pass on a pass in class. Uh?
Prefects'
photograph perfect - no space for me,
just
a disciplined nudge along the corridors.
Forever
marching to the tune of:
see
if you can keep your head above water
and
get the answers right. If you do then ...
But
I was never told why the answers mattered.
Only
the fun of maths and science aroused.
Stone
walled, the chalk master’s gowns gliding
along
the corridors of woodblock floors
and
doors of looking in on lessons rowed in desks
gouged
of years and oils of brows in blackboard
lines
from books of all that was ever taught
to
the boys soon to be the men that they knew
they
would be in the society of the 'morrow.
I
didn’t.
The
four houses - what, why, where, and when, were they?
Where
we competed in sport, or in the Eisteddfod, standing
self-conscious
in group recitation, irritatingly alliterated.
There
were poems in the school magazine,
and
amid the anonymity of words, and with legerdemain,
I
impressed upon the they, that I had spoken.
But
what right did I have to hold the school magazine?
It
was "theirs" not mine, you see.
I
did not see beyond the school badge.
Heavy
upon me.
Passed
the eleven plus I did.
No
secondary modern with the failed kids.
No
roughing up in the school of life for me.
Just
my cap thrown on top of the cricket nets
and
bruised right palm from the fives courts.
Gym
came, swimming whet again my inability,
and
games up the Gange's playing fields
trampled
any head-up thoughts I dared.
Stratified
in the mud of also ran.
Stay
there and wait.
Sour
grapes? Well they do hang low.
The
glittering prizes were hanging too high for me.
Form
C reiterated that it was not to be.
Winners
are from another world.
Light
years away from me.
Educated
beyond understanding.
Such
a shame.
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