If school is the best time of your life, why do I still have nightmares about it aged 63?

 Of all the myths and old cobblers we are told, the worst is that our schooldays are the best of our lives. If I am honest, I actually enjoyed the last couple of years at Orange Hill, but I enjoyed myself far more when I left. Until that, it had been awful. I still have nightmares about it. There are three that seem to recurr pretty regularly. The first is that I've had to go back to school and I don't know when any of the lessons are or which classroom they are in. I don't even know what subjects I am doing or why I am actually there. I also don't recognise any of my classmates. Perhaps it is my brain preparing me for dementia, when I have no idea who anyone is or whats going on ( I have no symptoms and have not been diagnosed and I think I know what is going on as much as anyone). The second dream is worse. I have left Orange Hill and returned to FCHS, which I pretty much hated all of the time. The reason is that I decided I wanted to a physics A level with John Shuttler, who was a brilliant teacher. I decided to stick it through, only to find out he's left. In this dream I do know people and they all treat me with hostility for leaving and then coming back. 

The third dream is the worst. I am in an exam and the teacher won't give me the exam paper. Everyone else has started but they refuse to engage with me. I suspect that this was instigated by a memory at FCHS, a teacher who didn't like me, deliberately gave me the wrong English literature mock O' Level paper. It was for the other group, who were doing the same books, but with a different teacher. I didn't realise until Miss Amy Walsh, a miserable retired nun, who hated me, read out the marks. She gave me zero. I was slung out. Her response to my protestations was "If you can't do the right paper you don't deserve to do an O level". For the record, had she marked it against the other groups paper, I would have passed, as I an remember thinking it was easy.The only good thing was it meant I no longer had to endure her droning, boring lessons. 

When I left FCHS, the concept that I would ever be successful as a writer seemed bizarre. Of course blogs were not invented. I can only wonder what she thought if she ever heard that I have had works published as an author and for The Guardian, as well as for various online publications. She was not the worst by a long chalk, apart from trying to sabotage my education. She was miserable and sarcastic and didn't like me, but hardly registered on my table of loathing. The worst was undoubtedly Mr Daniel Coughlan, head of the lower school. I could list many things, but the worst was when he punched me in the throat and then kicked me, when I fell to the ground unable to breath. When I finally managed to get myself together, he told me that if I told anyone, I'd be expelled and that would be the end of my education. I suspect that even he realised he'd gone to far. I was either 11 or 12 at the time. I learned a valuable lesson that day. I lost all trust and respect for teachers and I learned to keep as far away from them as possible. If you see me mention a teacher on this blog and say nice things about them (as I did about John Shuttler) it is because they earned the respect. 

Recently at my wife's 60th birthday, an old FCHS schoolmate was there. We were discussing our class for 1-5B -1973-78. A former school secretary informed me that we were the worst class in the history of the school. We brought shame and disgrace on the school, when we rioted during a religious retreat at a Church Centre. I it wasn't for the fact that 17 of our class participated, I am sure that the perpetrators would have been expelled, but when half the class owns up, it gives a difficult and unique problem for a school. The headmaster at the time, Nick Kelly was totally humiliated. I was not involved. I would have been, but I knew the priest running the retreat. He had used to run the Alter Servers at The Sacred Heart. His name was Fr Cowan and I had always got on well with him, so he invited me for tea and biscuits in his office, when the riot occurred. He was keen to know how the family were getting on. I think he'd been at teacher training college with my sister Catherine.  Kelly accused me of lying and being a coward when I didn't admit to participating in the riot. I was lucky because Fr Cowan was there and was my alibi. I think my Father would have half murdered me, had I participated.

I felt very sorry for our form tutor, Mrs Alison Shuttler, who clearly had the shame of being the form tutor for the schools most disgraceful class. She didn't deserve it. The school was banned from all future retreats. When I was chatting with my mate, I said that I think the only thing I really learned at FCHS was the art of logistics. We would regularly cause mayhem and attack other classes, as well as school buildings. We would meticulously plan such things and even leave false trails, so other classes got the blame. If we could successfully cause mayhem and not get caught, we all thought it a marvellous success. Perhaps the most perverse aspect of my time was that I probaly got the cane six times from Kelly, but in almost all cases, it was not for things I'd done. I did far worse and got away with it. 

Maybe he just knew and so used any excuse to cane me. Perhaps the only lesson I learned was that corporal punishment, in fact any punishment, is ineffective if you punish the wrong person. I used to bear grudges, so each time it happened, I was determined to get even. In truth, long before I was slung out, I came to the conclusion that Kelly was not up to the job intellectually. He used to chair 'religious debates' in our class. He would pick the child he thought was thickest to propose the anti church line and that brightest pupil to put the argument for the church's viewpoint. We were informed at each lesson, what the debate would be the following week. Kelly picked me to put the argument for birth control. My sister Val was a nurse at the time and helped me prepare, as well as getting me a load of leaflets from family planning clinics, that I left on everyone's desk.  I had an extremely sound argument, and my classmates had the source material. I think I had 5 minutes alloted to make the case for birth control. 

After two minutes, Kelly called a halt, slung me out of the class and wrote a letter to my father stating that I was involved in 'spreading evil anti church propoganda'. Val rather kindly wrote a letter of reply on behalf of my Dad. She was good at forging his signature. Apparently, according to her letter, my Dad had beaten 'common sense' into me. Kelly seemed pleased at the result. I simply concluded that he was too thick to refute my arguments. I think he realised that I hel him in contempt after that, which probably contributed to my early exit.

At subsequent debates, Kelly would never take questions from me, would not engage. I made sure I passed RE O'level just to annoy him. He would often inform me that "you are not as clever as you think you are", which bemused me slightly because he gave no example of why I was actually wrong. Another of his favorites was to inform me "They are not laughing with you, they are laughing at you". The last time he used this, a mate of mine Pat Walsh interjected "No sir, we are laughing with him, it was funny". 

In June 1977, I saw The Ramones and discovered pun rock. I was 14. Almost immediately, I immersed myself in the music and the philosophy of punk rock. It made life bearable. Very few of my school mates got punk. For me it was a liberation. I realised, more or less straight away, that I wanted to be in a band and make my life about music. I started to bunk off lessons and go on expiditions into London. I would read the New Musical Express from cover to cover. I started doing all manner of part time jobs, as we wanted to buy musical equipment. I lost all interest in school. I realised the need to get exams, but did none of the things needed. 

It was only when I went to Orange Hill, that I got the balance right. The atmosphere was different, I had no baggage and the teachers talk to you, not at you. I ended up with nine O Levels and two A levels and when I left I felt it had been a great experience. There were about five bands at the school, the most successful being The Polecats. Boz Boorer and Phil Polecat were in my year. But it took me a very long time before I could even get a 221 to Finchley without feeling uneasy.

I've tried many times to write a song about my time at school. I love Baggy Trousers by Madness. Chas Smash was ex FCHS, a few years above me. We all believed it was about FCHS, but it isn't. Suggs and Chrissy Boy didn't go there. If by chance, the band ever becomes rich and famous, I might write a whole Ska Opera about the school. It would make a great film. I realised that my schooling, especially with my dyslexia, was so awful that few people would actually associate with my experiences. No one has had the cane in a UK state school since 1987, the year after Tom, our trumpet player was born, so the experience of waiting to be caned is a dying memory. To be honest, it was wasn't the worst thing. Being in an environment controlled by sadists and fools was. 

When I was eighteen and I'd left Orange Hill, I went and lived in Stockholm for six months. My Swedish friends did not believe that schools in the UK still used the cane (no AI to check back then). When the False Dots did our tour of Stockholm in 1982, we played a gig at Tumba Gymasium in Stockholm. We got a tour of the facilities and did a Q&A with the sixth formers, who were our age. I could not get my head around the fact that they were all treated as adults by the school.

This film was made the year before I arrived at FCHS. I found it fascinating and disturbing in equal measures. Enjoy....

Rog T's Dyslexia Blog - Reflections on the teaching of dyslexics in the 1970's

Seven years ago, I wrote a blog detailing my experiences of education at Finchley Catholic High School in the 1970's. I don't often re-read my own blogs. However two things conspired to make me have a look at it. The first was that I went to see a band put together by an old classmate of mine from that period, a certain Mr Sam Sproule and his band the Midnite Crawlers at the Boogaloo Bar in Highgate last night. I've not seen Sam since I left the esteemed establishment aged 15. It got me thinking about the school. As if by magic, a random reader also left a comment on the blog. This inspired me to re-read it.

It is quite a hard read for me. My views on my education have evolved. When I was 14, I felt trapped and forced to go to school. If I could have possibly escaped the experience I would have. I didn't enjoy the almost ritualistic belittlement that we faced as students at the hands of the teachers. As someone who was bottom of the class most of the time, I got far more than my fair share of it. Was there any upside to it? I've come to realise that there was, but not the one that the Teachers who indulged in the bullying intended. It gave me a complete lack of respect for people in positions of authority and a hatred of bullies. I'd probably not have started this blog, to moan about injustice if I didn't carry a deep felt anger. But.....

The more I think about it, the more I feel aggrevied. You see these teachers were paid a decent wage and held a position of some respect in society. My parents would attend evenings with them, where they were told all manner of things about me that were a) rather bad and b) completely true. What they didn't tell them, the key matter, was that I was dyslexic and my relatively poor performance at school and my bad behaviour was very likely a result of having a learning difficulty. I accept that teachers now have far better training in such matters, but if they were doing their job, they most certainly should have recognised this. My parents were told I was lazy. I believed I was lazy to the core of my soul. I believed all of my problems were down to being lazy. The thing is, I wasn't. I never have been. I've always been an incredibly busy and hard working person. If I have something to do, I throw myself into it heart and soul. The reason that I didn't throw myself into schoolwork is because whenever I did, I completely failed. For my getting a pass (usually a C grade) was a victory. It happened rarely before I reached the age of 14. I can remember teachers setting us school projects, where I'd be inspired, work my nuts off, do what I thought was really brilliant work, only to get it back with red ink all over it, corrections to spelling and grammar, with not a word on the actual content. I recall one science project that had a big prize, a record token if my memory serves me right. I did what I thought was a brilliant piece of work. I knew what my classmates were doing and I knew mine was better. When the marking was done, I got a C. Why? Because my project was littered with spelling mistakes etc. I asked the teacher whether it was a science class or an English class as I was so pissed off. He replied that no one who was unable to spell could become a scientist. I just wished I'd known Albert Einstein was a dyslexic at that moment.

The whole educational experience was telling me that I should do a job like being a gardener or a decorator. I was lucky. I had a stable home life and parents who cared. They supported me in what I tried to do and encouraged me. That is why I now run one of London's most successful music studios. It has taken a very long time, but I now can say with complete confidence, I'm not and never have been lazy. I can also say that those teachers who would belittle my class mates and I were the epitomy of laziness. If I could, I'd love to sue them to get the money back that they were paid, as they were paid to be teachers but let me and my classmates down. They took money under false pretences. Sure some of the brighter kids did OK, but they would have if the class was taught by a donkey. I shudder to think what my youth would have been like had I not had a home that I felt safe and comfortable in. Re-reading the blog I was taken back to those times and it is very hard not to feel angry about it. As I mentioned in the blog a few of the teachers were decent folk who cared and our class was notoriously difficult, but they were grown ups and they had a job to do. The fact that I was in my 30's before I even realised I was dyslexic, let alone identified by people marking my work is a complete disgrace. I'm only moderately dyslexic and I've developed coping mechanisms to get through. What happens to those who's dyslexia is worse? Those who don't have the stable home life? Sadly, if you look at studies of the prison population, the answers are all too evident. I'm coming to the opinion that every prisoner in jail for minor offences (clearly not murder and sex crimes), should be given an assessment and a plan to deal with their issues. They should be given another chance. They have been failed by society. 

Some people may read this and think "Another soft minded liberal seeking to blame society for their ills". I see every day that there is a complete lack of understanding of the subject. Even my wife, who has been with me for 37 years doesn't really get it. But I talk to other dyslexics and when I say I am, they open up and so many experiences were similar. I've always said I could walk into a classroom and tell who the dyslexics were just by where they were sitting. The one thing you learn early is not to be in the teachers eyeline and to be close to the door. You don't sit too near the front as then you are in the firing line when they pace up and down. About three rows back, as near to the door as possible is the perfect seat. I used to deliberately get thrown out of class, as standing on my own in the corridor was less stressful than sitting in some teachers lessons. I'm not alone in this. No teacher ever took me to one side and said "This is the tenth time I've sent you out, is there something you want to discuss, do you not feel comfortable in class?". A very basic question which may have made a big difference. It's too late for me. Only the nightmares about school remain. I guess they always will. 

For those of you who haven't read my dyslexia blogs before, here is a little preamble and introduction, so you know who I am and what I do and why I write this stuff. For those of you who know the story, skip to the end of the paragraph for todays installment. Let me give you a bit of Background so you know who I am and what I do. I was born in 1962. I didn't start talking until I was 4 years old (at all, not a single word). My parents thought I was deaf. My reading age at eleven was 5. When I was fifteen I started a rock and roll band called the False Dots, the band is still going strong. When I was 16 I started a business called Mill Hill Music Complex (although then it was simply called the studio), a rehearsal studio, as we had nowhere to rehearse. The business has grown into a very successful enterprise, one of Londons biggest and most well respected independent studios. We now have 16 studios and a music shop and also have a photography/video studio and a dance studio. I also have done IT work, mostly on a freelance basis since 1983. In 2012 I also moved into film production, producing two highly acclaimed documentary films, both of which had screenings at the House of Commons. When I was 31, a friend suggested I had a dyslexia test. To my surprise I was told I was moderately dyslexic. This made me interested in the subject. To my amazement, what I have learned over the years is that my lack of educational aptitude, my feelings of anger and injustice and the core of my personality have been formed by the fact I cannot read words in a linear fashion. In 2013, I have set one of my objectives to use this blog to let dyslexics know they are not alone, to suggest that people who think they may be dyslexic to get an assessment and toget people who have dyslexic children or siblings to understand the issues that they face.