Back To School

Both my children are busy revising for their exams. My daughter has her A-levels this year and my son takes his GCSEs. I feel sorry for them as their Easter hols won’t be much fun with the amount of work they have to do.

It has made me think back to my school days. I studied English, French and Economics for my A-levels and the only reason I took Economics was because it was taught by Mr Delaney!

He was also one of the games teachers and was often wandering around in his shorts. And he had a little dark-green MG sports car. He was so good-looking - all the girls thought so. He was a dark-haired version of David Soul in his “Starsky and Hutch” days. When I was in the fifth form, he winked at me once as I was heading back to the girls’ changing rooms after PE and I thought I was going to stop breathing !! (In those days nobody of the opposite sex noticed me, unless it was to take the piss out of the train-track brace on my teeth and my lank, slightly greasy hair!) But because he bothered to wink, and because he was so gorgeous, I decided to take Economics!

It was when I entered the Sixth Form that I think I started to become more aware of myself. I went through a bit of a dramatic change. The brace came off to reveal gorgeous, straight white teeth and suddenly it was easy to smile, which I did readily. I had a soft perm (come on it was the eighties - we all had one, even the boys!) and so that limp hair was suddenly voluminous with no hint of grease. Eyeliner and lipstick became my best friends and with no school uniform to hold me back, I used “Dallas” (the soap, remember?) as my fashion inspiration, particularly Ms Victoria Principal who played Pam. My legs had suddenly lengthened and the puppy fat on my thighs and hips had fallen away and so I was either in skin tight trousers and heels (which helped me to walk with a bit of a sway) or dresses with tight belts and huge shoulder pads. Come on, I looked fabulous !

I became aware of male attention for the first time in my life and finally got myself a proper boyfriend. He was one of the best looking guys in the school so I was seriously impressed with myself. I made him wait but at seventeen, I finally had sex. Probably the last girl in the school to get round to it but at last I was a proper “woman”. Thing is, I didn’t like it that much. Well what was to like? It was usually hurried and a bit fumbly and just not particularly pleasant. He certainly didn’t take me to the heights that Bobby clearly took Pam to (in “Dallas”, remember??)

I gave it just over a year but then I decided that I really needed to concentrate on my A-levels and stopped running every time he called and so, he dumped me!! It was OK. I was stressed with all the revision and my mum going on at me all the time, I didn’t need bad sex as well - though obviously at the time I didn’t know it was bad sex.

Looking back, it was probably for the best that the sex was dull. It meant that I concentrated on my revision without any desperate longing for what had been and it also meant that there was oh, so much better to come !