Day 13: The story of your life in 250 words. Exactly.

The story of my life in 250 words precisely... can be read here.

But whilst I have your attention, and I have 250 entirely fresh words to kill, I thought I might go into a little more detail about some of the early days...

I liked school. I went to Leverton Junior, a fairly crappy primary school in Essex. It was quite rough in many ways; low-aspiration, low-income, low-expectation - but I did fine. My family were always a bit out of place there. In Waltham Abbey, and within school... We always did homework, attended parents’ evenings, read at home and didn’t have a satellite dish. No wonder we were outcasts; I didn’t think about it ‘til now but mummy always said she felt we didn’t fit in, and it’s only now I realise why.

But it was fine. I liked being the clever one. 

Then I went to Roding Valley, a large Essex comprehensive. Not a good school according to league tables, but I loved it. I finally found people who were a bit like me, who I could relate to, and who are still my closest friends, 22 years later. Actually, we all ended up in Brighton together. Roding was great – a real mixture of people, and some proper Essex characters.  Half of my form were pregnant by the time we did GCSEs.

The female half, presumably.

But I thrived. Academically, yes -  but more importantly I became confident and sociable; I wasn’t at primary school, though hadn’t realised at the time. Having a real group of friends made a massive difference, and despite the league tables – if you worked hard you were totally able to achieve there. 

Not many people I know remember it with any fondness, but I loved it.

There you go, 250 words precisely.

To be fair, would you socialise with this?