Each was silently saying goodbye to the places she loved
most. They went to all the common-rooms, from the first to the sixth, remembering
what had happened in each. They peeped into the dining-room, and then into
the different form-rooms. What fun they had had!
And what fun they were going to have! "We'll have a good look backwards,
today, then we'll set our eyes forwards," said Sally. "College
will be better fun still, Darrell - everyone says so."
(Enid Blyton, Last Term at Malory Towers, Methuen & Co, 1951,
p154)
On the evening of 30 April, 1979, towards the end of my
first year in the Sixth Form, my father collapsed suddenly at home and
died a few hours later. He was fifty years old, and a post-mortem established
that he had been suffering from heart disease for some time. His mother
had died of thrombosis and his brother had suffered a heart attack at the
same age (although after prompt medical treatment and open heart surgery,
my uncle lived for another fifteen years), so there was clearly a genetic
factor involved, probably exacerbated by my father's constant pipe smoking.
A week or two before my father died, he had pulled a young mother and child
out of their car when they had crashed into a water-filled ditch on the
marshes which bordered my home town, and the physical strain may have precipitated
the heart attack which finally killed him.
lea1
The shock of my father's death was made worse by the circumstances
in which he died. My mother was a qualified nurse,
but although she phoned our GP repeatedly and told him that my father had
had a heart attack, the doctor refused to come out, instead diagnosing
an upset stomach. (The same doctor three weeks previously had recommended
that my father buy a bottle of whisky and take a couple of days off work
when he visited the surgery complaining of a heavy chest; at no point was
my father examined.) We lived ten miles away from the nearest hospital,
neither my mother nor I could drive, and the ambulance service required
a doctor's summons before coming out. We were therefore unable to summon
help, and were left to watch my father die (thankfully my younger sister
and brother went to sleep without realising that anything was wrong). Only
afterwards did the doctor arrive to misdiagnose a pulmonary embolism, claiming
until the results of the postmortem arrived that the outcome would not
have been affected by his presence. This experience left my mother and
myself suffering from what I would later recognise as Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD).
lea2
I was initially unsure whether
I would be able to afford to return to school, but in fact our family income
was higher with state benefits than it had been previously. Given my father's
experience of unemployment, and seeking some stability, it seemed sensible
to continue with my education. I therefore returned to school two weeks
later to find all mention of my bereavement conspicuous by its absence,
with the staff treating me as if I had been off sick (the only member of
staff who subsequently discussed the situation with me was the head of
the Art department, who was extremely kind). With a few, thankfully notable
exceptions, the other pupils were uncomfortable with my grief, becoming
hostile as time went on. I was the visible reminder of a truth with which
they could not cope; that what had happened to me would one day happen
to them. Inevitably it was easier to blame me for my own inadequacies because
I did not "cheer up".
lea3
Later the school administration was extremely unsympathetic,
refusing to let me arrive a few minutes late in the mornings in order to
allow me to help my family before leaving home each day. Inevitably I became
exhausted and ill some months later, whereupon they wrote to my mother,
thoroughly upsetting her when she was already very disturbed. Still no-one
discussed what had happened with me, leaving me to relive the night of
my father's death over and over again (I later discovered that this was
a symptom of PTSD).
lea4
My feelings of isolation were increased by the fact that
I now thought of myself as an adult. My father had died just over a day
before my seventeenth birthday, and on my birthday I decided that, in the
circumstances, I would have to reach adulthood a year early. I felt that
there was now a yawning gulf between my experiences and those of my fellow
pupils, and I had no one to whom I could turn for advice, whether it was
on how to apply to University, how a non-cook could feed a family of four,
or how to fight off my father's lecherous friends, so my last four terms
at school were not happy ones.
lea5
Unsurprisingly, I did badly in my final examinations.
That I was able to continue with my education at my first choice of university
regardless was thanks to my university interviewer, David Punter, who took
the circumstances into account and judged me on my interview performance.
(I doubt that I would have been so lucky today, with the much greater pressure
on places.) The fact that I later received grief counselling and so completed
the degree successfully was also due to the much more understanding attitude
at the University.
lea6
Nothing, however, could restrain my joy at leaving school,
as our final days gradually dissolved into anarchy. The Sixth Form was
expected to give a tea party for the staff, and the drinks were duly heavily
spiked with vodka. (In retrospect, I assume that the staff were quite aware
of and happy about this; they certainly didn't complain at the time.) The
boyfriends of some of my friends, from the neighbouring boy's grammar school,
tried unsuccessfully to gatecrash the event, and later they did manage
to penetrate the school during our farewell assembly, much to the alarm
of the games teacher who found them hiding in her locker room.
lea7
On our final afternoon, there was a mass rush to the school's
windows after the grammar school's head boy - now a well-known writer -
was stripped to his underpants by his friends, tied to a chair and left
on the grass under the staff room window. The staff quickly lost interest
when they discovered that he was not entirely naked, and eventually the
boys took mercy on him and returned. To my continuing satisfaction, I ended
my school career by leaving in the same car, along with two of my friends.
lea8
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