There are some things that are so horrible that you simply put them in a dark room in your mind and shut the door on it, hopefully to be buried forever. Very occasonally, something happens, and that closed door flies open, and the rotting corpse of the rancid memory rolls out. I guess we all occasionally have flashbacks induced when we see things that are unpleasant and remind us of such things.
Today, I sat down with a nice cup of tea to watch the budget speech by Jeremy Hunt. Up until now, I've not really minded Jeremy Hunt. He seemed one of the less stupid and nasty Conservative ministers. Today I saw a completely different side to him and it made my flesh creep. Why? Well let me take you back to September 1973. I had just turned eleven years old and I excitedly turned up for my first day at Finchley Catholic High School. It is a real shock, going from being the big boys at St Vincents Primary School to being the little squirts at big school.
One of the first things I learned was that it wasn't a nice place to be. The school still had pretentions of being a Grammar School, despite having been a Comprehensive for four years. The Boys in the fifth form and the sixth formers were all Grammar school boys. They looked down on us, as none of us had passed an eleven plus ( I certainly wouldn't). The school was divided into three distinct areas. The Lower School (forms 1 & 2), the Upper School (Forms 3,4,5) and the sixth form.
The sixth formers were by and large viewed as a bunch of nerds, all being Grammar school boys, by us plebs. What made matters worse, was that the most nerdy and unpleasant had the title of "prefect" bestowed on them. This meant that they had certain priviliges, the main one being that they could enact their more psychopathic urges on the new recruits in the lower school. The teachers used them as a proxy paramilitary force, monitoting dinner queues etc. They were allowed to relentlessly bully us, allegedly to keep us in line. They were a nasty bunch, but by and large, they lacked real gumption.
As bad as the low level physical abuse tha you'd experience, they could give minor punishments such as lines, for small infractions. Larger ones were passed to the teachers to deal with. Worse still, in some ways, was they way they'd humiliate us. They all seemed to be fluent in Latin and have degrees in sarcasm. They'd refer to you in a condescending way, probing to find any insecurity. Comments like "Tichborne, how come you haven't grown any pubes" or "Tichborne, did your mother drop you on your head as a baby" or "Tichborne, can't your parents afford soap" were typical.
Today, as Jeremy Hunt baited Keir Starmer about his weight, he had the exact demanour of one of these awful specimins known as FCHS prefects. Condescending, making personal comments and getting cheered to the rafters by his mates. I found prefects to be the most loathesom of all at the school. I saw them as collaborators and narks. Sadly, when I saw Hunt, that was all I could think of and it made me feel ill. The sooner he's gone, the better.
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