School Days: On Losses and Sprouts.

I was head prefect at my high school, and one snowy day the six of us were standing in the school yard when a snowball landed in our midst. A group of maybe twenty or thirty of the rougher element had decided to challenge us in a snowball fight, and soon a full battle ensued. Being hopelessly outnumbered, I organised my ‘men’ to discharge our weapons in a concentrated volley, reasoning that such an onslaught would be more difficult to avoid than shots fired at random. It was only partially successful. The ruffians’ army eventually decided to charge us, apparently intending to mix it with rather more than snowballs. My five companions fled, but I had to stand my ground, didn’t I? Of course I did – purely out of fear of losing face. And that’s why I was glad when I was grabbed from behind and pulled out of harm’s way.

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I remember a friend of mine being exceedingly glum one day when the object of his affection – nay, fixation would be more accurate – was observed studiously avoiding him. It seemed to me that her failure to reciprocate his advances had a lot to do with his hairstyle, the set of his ears and the shape of his nose. And he wasn’t very good looking either. I didn’t have the heart to tell him, just muttered something crass about the sea and bigger fish.

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And then there was the time when one of the girls was sick in the classroom. I watched fascinated as a whole sprout rolled under my desk. Well, if you will go swallowing whole sprouts…

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Wednesday afternoons featured both rugby training and orchestra rehearsal, and I was the only one in the school who did both. Can you believe that? It’s true, and you can’t be in two places at once. The teachers decided: music. I lost my place in the rugby team, and I swear it would have changed my life for the worse if I hadn’t been allowed to alternate and regain my place in the team the following year.

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As well as being head prefect, I was also Head Boy in my final year, and one of my duties was to present the Chairman of the Education Committee with a painted portrait of himself. The English mistress had written the speech, and it included the phrase ‘…a portrait executed in the school art room.’ Even at that age I realised that ‘executed’ was a bit pretentious, and so I asked her to change it to simply ‘painted.’ She was very small and very fierce, and so I lost.

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When it came to the Big Exam at the end of it all, I found I’d been awarded a Grade 7 for History. Grade 7 was a fail, which surprised me because I’d answered the same five questions in the same way that I’d answered them in the mock and been awarded a Grade 1. I pointed this out to the Head of History and asked him to have the result reviewed. He declined on the grounds that ‘they never make mistakes.’ And so I lost again.