The first setback came just before O Levels actually started. I didn’t get the scholarship not, they assured me, through any lack of ability, simply because those scholarships were very limited and heavily oversubscribed.
I was reassured that if the grant was forthcoming then there was a place waiting for me at Dartington so I decided to be grown up about things, the toys stayed in the pram.
The second setback came on the day I was due to take my Chemistry paper. For some reason Chemistry had proved to be a subject I just didn’t “get” so I’d spent hours and hours trying to get enough understanding to just pass the O Level, it didn’t matter how well.
One night, well half past one in the morning actually, I had one of those “Road to Damascus” moments and suddenly 5 years of struggling with the subject all fell into place. I knew that I wouldn’t just pass, I’d exceed expectations.
I was due to sit a Chemistry paper on a Tuesday afternoon but woke up feeling a bit off. At breakfast Mum said I looked ‘a bit peaky’ and wondered if I shouldn’t stay home but I just put it down to nerves before an exam in my weakest subject.
Mum wasn’t convinced but let me go into school with the proviso that I was to tell someone if I felt any worse. I gave her a kiss and left for the coach.
The journey into Midhurst was awful, I just kept getting worse and by the time we got there I was on the point of throwing up so I made a side trip to do just that in the toilets.
Sitting in the Form room, waiting for registration I couldn’t help but notice a widening circle around me as people tried to get away from what was quite clearly something much nastier than a summer cold.
After I’d failed to respond to my name for the third time, the Form Master slapped a note on my desk and just said “Office!” I panicked, I had to sit that paper in the afternoon, I had to pass everything.
He just hustled me out of the room assuring me that I wasn’t the first kid to get sick during exams, I could sit the paper when I was better. Somewhat mollified I stumbled off to the office and handed in the note.
There was no way I could be sent on the bus, the journey was too long and included a wait of up to an hour in Petworth and then I’d still have a mile walk to get to Lurgashall.
One of my music Mistresses ended up being asked to drive me home in her Morris Minor 1000, so at least I had a friendly chauffeuse. Mum saw me getting out of the car and opened the front door with a resigned look on her face.
I was diverted straight upstairs where I just dropped my clothes on the floor and crawled into bed, too sick to struggle into pyjamas. Mum took the Mistress, who she’d met on numerous occasions at concerts and parents meetings, into the living room for coffee.
Eventually Mum came up bearing medicines and somewhat grumpily picked up my discarded clothes before complaining about the lack of pyjamas and helping me to rectify the situation. After that I slept until late afternoon.
Fortunately I only had the one paper that week so not actually getting out of bed until Saturday wasn’t to much of a problem. I was more than a bit pissed off that I was too ill to go to my Saturday job, I needed the money.
Eventually I did sit the paper, just me in the advanced chemistry lab with a bored Master as invigilator and a morose Fourth Former who’d been co-opted as chaperone in the event of my needing a toilet break.
Oh yes, when these things go wrong PANIC!
And then it turns out to be very odd, but just about OK – with other people having to suffer extra torment to look after you when you are finally well enough and the missing exam(s) can be taken.
It happened to guys in my year during ‘O’ levels too.
But panicking is so much more satisfying for a dysfuntional teenager!
It must happen in the vast majority of schools but one doen’t tend to take a balanced view when it’s personal. It’s not as though I was a stranger to the idea of a solo exam, as the only person in my year doing Music Theory I sat that paper in the main hall with my own invigilator and runner.
On the plus side I got loads of extra time to revise my weakest subject and achieved a much better grade than anybody dreamed I would.
Hello Mac. How have you been? I have not been here in a bit, not as much as I wanted to. I see from your writings you did not have an easy childhood, and things just seemed to work against you. Your body has really been hard pressed to stay well hasn’t it?
Much warm love and many hugs,
Scottie
Scottie
Lovely to hear from you. I came to the conclusion many years ago that I just wasn’t very well put together. I was at the front of the queue when brains were being handed out but clearly near the back for everything else. With today’s improvements in medicine my doctor has been able to establish that almost all of my problems are congenital so as a child I was essentially a health timebomb, fortunately I only went off a bit at a time.
Love
Mac