Malcolm’s Presentation from Malcolm McLachlan on Vimeo.

Part one of my presentation on creative writing and my childhood.

Not only did I now have a bath every night, I had it in the privacy of a proper bathroom with a bolt on the door. No more zinc bath in front of the living room fire while three sisters looked on and no more being banished to my bedroom to spare my sisters’ blushes; a consideration that had only ever worked in their favour.

The bathroom bolt didn’t actually last very long. Mummy asked the man next door, who’d been helping us with things like how the Rayburn worked, to take it off as a safety measure. Thankfully the bolt on the toilet door stayed. I didn’t even mind waking up in the small hours needing a pee now; all I had to do was pop my slippers on and walk across the landing to do the necessary.

There was definitely less nervous watching of the sickly little ginger haired boy as winter approached. Even when I did get the inevitable cold it stayed as just that and only cost me two days off school. No more cold and damp to help turn every cold into a major illness.

I spent quite a bit of time with the man next door. He had a big garden shed with an enormous workbench and what seemed like an endless variety of tools. He was very good at carpentry and I watched in awe as he turned boring old bits of wood into all sorts of useful things. I was even allowed a little go, using some of the less lethal tools on little bits of scrap wood.

In those days Mr Boxall, as we all knew him worked as a coppicer and one November day while I was in the shed with him he asked if I’d like to go to work with him the following Saturday. I was thrilled at the idea and so was Mummy. Of course with hindsight it’s obvious that she was happy for me to finally have a male role model in my life, something I hadn’t had since I was 4. I was just caught up in the magical idea of being a proper workman for a day, even if I was only 9.

My ninth birthday came and went with the usual celebrations both at home and at school. The year proved remarkably uneventful in most respects and little by little the worries over my health began to ease.

During the summer holiday I made my first and last disastrous foray into the world of tree climbing but beyond that nothing dramatic happened. Until the end of the holidays.

We were moving to a new house, one that had just been built about a hundred yards away from the cottage. I hated the cottage now because it had tried to kill me; I didn’t trust it not to have another go when autumn and then winter arrived.

The move was a true community effort and involved everybody we knew in the village, including all my little playmates. Throughout the moving day a steady stream of children and grown ups trooped down the road bearing armfuls of our possessions.

The new house had things that were new and truly wonderful. Electricity! No more reading by the feeble light of a paraffin lamp. In the kitchen there was a Rayburn which, apart from being a fantastic cooker supplied hot water for another novelty; a proper bathroom.

Possibly the greatest leap forward was the presence of an inside toilet. Throughout my childhood we’d had to use the horrible outside shack in the cottage garden. I hated it because it was full of creepy crawlies and smelled awful.

My new bedroom was very strange. It was a little bigger than my old room but it didn’t need a bed. The person who’d designed the new houses had come up with the idea of a sleeping platform where my mattress would go. The only problem was that it was a bit high and Mummy had to help me up onto it.

The one thing that had to come from my old bedroom was my huge, pale green quilt. Without that big, snuggly thing it just wouldn’t have been my bed!

In lower Sixth Form those of us studying French Literature for A Level were invited to the University of Sussex at Brighton for a day of study along side first year undergraduates.

The first session was to be watching a film adaptation of Jean Paul Sartre’s Huis clos followed by a seminar to discuss what we’d just seen. After lunch there was to be a lecture on Sartre and Existentialism.

While I was filling in the form at home I noticed that there were two options for the seminar; English speaking or French speaking. Without hesitation I ticked the French speaking option and next lesson handed the form in.

It didn’t occur to me that I might be the only representative from my school in the seminar; I blithely assumed that everybody else would relish the challenge. It didn’t occur to me to mention my choice to any of my contemporaries either.

On the day we travelled to Brighton in the school’s recently acquired and, frankly ramshackle minibus but somehow we arrived safely. After a brief introductory talk and coffee we went into the main theatre to watch the film.

As we were leaving the theatre I followed the directions for the seminar and a puzzled voice called out “where are you off to, Mac?” Looking back I just said “the seminar, of course; aren’t you lot coming?” and carried on walking.

I was the only one who’d opted to attend the French speaking seminar and for a brief moment I regretted it. Then, deciding that I’d have to live with my choice I tossed a casual “À bientôt” over my shoulder and sauntered off.

The seminar was incredibly tough going and I found myself struggling to put my insights across. The students I was working with were exceptionally helpful and seemed willing to tolerate a rather hubristic sixteen year old. The Lecturer conducting the seminar was very patient as well.

In the end I decided that I’d made the right choice and had gained a great deal from the experience. Reading in French was one thing but thinking in French was a completely different matter.

The journey back to Midhurst was interesting. Opinion seemed to be divided as to whether I was incredibly brave or just astoundingly arrogant. Eventually I grew bored of the whole matter and retreated into a book after muttering the famous words of Sartre.

“L’enfer; c’est les autres.”

Love

Just after my eighth birthday I joined the church choir, a conventional enough development; expected and welcomed. I loved singing and being in the choir made church a lot less boring. Sunday school was bad enough without having to lose another hour for Matins.

Also, just after my eighth birthday Rich and I were invited to join the Northchapel Cubs. The troop met immediately after school one day a week which would have meant the pair of us walking 2 miles home. That in itself wasn’t particularly daunting, as normal, mischievous little boys we’d been given detentions on numerous occasions; the walk home was part of the punishment.

When I asked Mum if I could join the Cubs she said “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Darling” and clearly hoped I’d let the matter rest. Not a chance! I wanted to know what could possibly be wrong with doing something that all my friends were doing and which sounded like a lot of fun.

Eventually my persistence got on Mum’s nerves and I ended up with a smacked bottom for my trouble but I couldn’t get her to change her mind. Rich, staunchly loyal as ever, decided that if I wasn’t allowed to join the Cubs then he didn’t want to.

It wasn’t until early autumn that I contracted pneumonia and came perilously close to ending my days, so that wasn’t a part of Mum’s reasoning. Admittedly I wasn’t a particularly robust child and having my tonsils removed at 3 had done nothing to reduce my vulnerability to illness.

Against that though, I’d tear around the village and surrounding woods with no worries and in all weathers bringing home at least my fair share of cuts, scrapes and bruises; that seemed to be alright.

After I’d fully recovered from pneumonia I was allowed to resume my normal boyish activities and continued my habit of acquiring injuries. Everybody, Mum included, seemed to be relieved that such a serious illness didn’t appear to be having any long term repercussions.

When our school friends asked us why we weren’t joining the Cubs Rich quickly put his hand over my mouth and stoutly declared that we didn’t want to, saving me from declaring myself a “Mummy’s Boy”.

When the Cubs went on their first camp and I heard about how much fun they’d had I was wildly jealous and very upset but wisely decided not to say anything at home.

In the way of children I soon forgot about the whole thing and a couple of years later had a much more serious problem to deal with so the matter never got mentioned again.

To this day I have no idea why Mum was so set against what was seen as a natural part of a boy’s life; of course it’s now far too late to ever find out.

Love

When I started this often painful excursion through my formative years I did so with the desire to give as honest a record as possible which necessitates recalling some pretty horrific moments.

I loved Dad and I know that he loved me. Our problem was on a rather more visceral level, we didn’t actually like each other and that’s a much more difficult situation to resolve.

As a teenager I’d get irrationally upset by trivial things such as his whistling while he shaved and when he came down for breakfast. That’s hardly a failing on his part, now is it? What’s wrong with a man being happy in his life and his work?

For his part Dad completely misconstrued my dislike of being touched as rejection. By the age of eleven I flinched from contact with any man or older boy but of course nobody had any idea why.

When I kicked over the traces Dad reacted the only way he knew; genuinely believing that strict discipline and corporal punishment were the only things that would keep me in line. At the time this was accepted thinking when dealing with errant boys.

For my part I provoked him beyond reason many times and could hardly claim to have been surprised when the belt made contact with bare flesh. That said the punishments were painful and, in the nature of their delivery humiliating.

Not being a parent or a teacher I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to deal with a supercilious and patronising child who simply has to have the last word on any subject.

One of our former next door neighbours summed the whole thing up rather neatly when we were talking after Dad’s funeral “I think that stepfathers and stepsons nearly always have problems”.

That may sound simplistic, even trite but fundamentally it was probably an accurate assessment.

I want to dispel one possible misconception. I have never claimed that certain events in my early life ruined it and I certainly don’t regard myself as having failed in any way because of those events.

I’ve had some high profile jobs over the years and have worked for some extremely well known companies. With the exception of being made redundant in 2009 my leaving those jobs has been entirely my decision.

Circumstances changed my young life dramatically, sending me along unexpected and sometimes treacherous paths but they didn’t ruin it.

It’s very easy to get trapped by the linearity of cause and effect; that’s a form of denial. To simply say that X happened and that Y resulted is to deny one’s own contribution.

Yes, the abuse made me angry and depressed but in my last year at primary school there was something else weighing heavily on my mind. My best friend, the boy I’d known since we were 3 wasn’t coming to Grammar school with me; none of my friends were.

Looked at through mature eyes that may seem trivial but to 10 year old Malcolm, losing the unfailing love and protection that Rich gave me was a cruel blow.

Before I even got there I was scared of and hated the school for which I was destined and had probably already made a subconscious decision to be unhappy.

Love

“Luke” as he was affectionately, and I mean that sincerely, known was determined that corporal punishment would be used only in the most extreme cases and as a last resort short of expulsion if suspension had failed.

Don’t, however get the idea that Luke didn’t believe in discipline he was just much more creative than a lot of Headmasters. The school had a very strong prefect system and very little went unnoticed.

Many of us lived in remote villages, although few quite as remote as Lurgashall and detention, always on the day and on a tariff of one period per infraction could be a big problem as I was to find out. Walking 7 miles through hilly country lanes wasn’t a pleasant prospect.

By and large the deterrent worked and I tried to minimise the detentions I suffered. Unfortunately being an argumentative and very opinionated child meant that I fell foul of authority on many more occasions and the older I got the less the “but I live miles away, Sir” ploy worked. I had to walk home, politely refusing any offers of a lift.

When we finally got a phone at home I could at least warn Mum that I’d be late but in keeping with the ethos of the punishment Dad was never despatched to pick me up regardless of the weather.

There was a perfectly logical reason for evening detention, the school had boy’s and girl’s boarding houses with several resident Masters and Mistresses. It was much simpler, logistically to extend an errant child’s day by as long as necessary.

When I served detention I did so in the company of the boarders in my year who were doing their prep, so my punishment was visible to at least some of my peers. I wasn’t allowed to do my prep I was given a special essay to write so by the time I got home I still had that to do as well as my violin practice.

I suspect that Luke also understood how most boys were dealt with at home and knew that suspension for a serious offence would be met with severe punishment from parents.

Knowing what you do about me can you imagine what would have happened if I’d arrived home one evening to tell my Mum that I’d been suspended for a week? I’d have probably considered caning at school a kindness.

Talking about school days with many of the people I’ve met over the years has made me aware of just how unusual and forward thinking Luke was. Until his retirement, at the end of my Third Form days his beliefs seemed to work for the most part.

Given that I’ve said already I was a victim of bullying some may question the system that Luke operated but that’s not really a fair criterion.

Bullying is, in essence a form of abuse and most victims suffer in exactly the same silence. I was certain that reporting any of the incidents would end up with me as a bloody smear on the floor of the boy’s toilet as retribution for squealing.

Luke was an astonishing man in many ways but he’d have been mortified to learn that he was, in part responsible for my early unpopularity.

By spotting me from my rather blatant hair colour, deducing who I was and addressing a First Former of less than 2 weeks by name “Mr McLachlan” he marked me out.

By telling me how much he expected of me, given my 11 Plus marks and reports from my primary school he marked me as different. I’m sure he thought he was being kind but that almost pants-wetting moment when he stopped me didn’t get my Grammar School days off to a good start.

I will always remember Luke, and his wonderful wife with the greatest fondness, perhaps if he’d been my Headmaster for longer things could have been different.

That’s something nobody will ever know.

Love

Just after I started Third Form, aged 13 I got into a stand-up row with the RE Master. I’d got on my high horse about something and he made the mistake of telling me I was wrong.

The rest of the Form gleefully watched the entertainment which was probably part of the reason for the red faced Master suddenly shouting “that’s it, McLachlan you’re on detention!”

Believe it or not that was my first one. Up until then I’d always managed to avoid detention by playing the “but I live miles away, Sir” card which got detention commuted to an essay on “why I shouldn’t…” or some such twaddle.

I tried that on the RE Master and failed, I was on detention for 45 minutes from the end of school bell and the journey home was my problem.

In the way that things seemed to happen to me it was gym and violin day so I had my satchel, my gym kit and my violin to carry. To make things worse it had been raining since lunch.

We weren’t on the phone at home and neither of my sisters would notice my absence from the coach. My after school activities were nothing to do with them and by the same token theirs were no concern of mine. The coach left at its usual time without me.

The final item on this list of woes was that I didn’t have any money on me for bus fare. I didn’t just have a long journey in front of me, it was a 7 mile walk.

Before anyone thinks ‘duty of care’ this was 1966 and I was 13. My duty was to be a well behaved schoolboy, if I failed in that duty I faced the consequences.

Finally allowed to leave I settled my satchel on my back, hoisted my gym kit over my left shoulder, settled my violin case in my right hand and started the walk home.

By the time I’d covered almost a mile I was soaked through to my skin, I didn’t have a raincoat with me. The rain was clearly set in for the night so there was no point in taking shelter, on I trudged.

Several cars went by sending waves of water over me that just added more misery and then one car’s brake lights went on, it stopped and the passenger door opened.

I knew every car in my home village and I’d never seen this one before. The driver was a complete stranger, a man of about Dad’s age. Delighted at the prospect of saving about 6 wet miles, I readily got in putting my luggage behind the seat.

He asked me where I lived and was appalled at how far I had to walk but he had a good laugh at my explanation. He said that he lived in Petworth but would run me to Lurgashall. I could have hugged him, he was going miles out of his way just to help a soggy kid.

At no point during the journey did anything untoward happen by word or deed and he didn’t just take me to the village, he got me to guide him right to my home. Thanking him fervently I retrieved my gear and got out of the car, obeying his instruction to just run for the house.

I breezed in through the back door to be met by a look of thunder on Mum’s face and was ordered to stand just where I was on the doormat and not drip  water all over the place.

Mum went to get a towel then ordered me to strip naked and dry myself before taking one step further into the kitchen. Thankfully my sisters were all in other rooms so at least I didn’t have that embarrassment to deal with.

Once dry I was allowed to sit by the Rayburn, just wearing the towel and feeling vulnerable. Then the questions started.

Mum knew exactly what my extra-curricular activities were and always made sure that on those days I had bus fare so I could take the long journey via Petworth and reduce the walk home to a mere mile from Lane End.

Why had I missed the coach? There was no point in a lie so I admitted the argument with the RE Master and the subsequent detention which wasn’t as much of a problem as I’d expected.

If I’d been in detention why was I home so early? That was the killer question but again there was no point in lying, she knew perfectly well that I didn’t have any money. I timidly admitted that I’d accepted a lift from a complete stranger.

Mum went mad! Before I knew what was happening I’d lost my towel and was over her knee getting the thrashing of a lifetime.

After that, while I was still howling I got a long, loud lecture, Didn’t I realise what could happen to children who took lifts from strangers?

I tried rationalising that nothing bad had happened but was arguing from a hopeless position. I knew perfectly well that what I’d done had been stupid and irresponsible.

The plea that I was wet and cold cut no ice, not that I thought it would and I was abruptly dismissed to have a hot bath before coming back down for some tea.

After tea I did my violin practice and then sat at the kitchen table, as near to the Rayburn as I could get to do my prep. I didn’t even make it through one subject before a feverish headache started and Mum had to help me up to bed which was the end of my school week.

Dad was on late duty so I was well asleep by the time he got home. The next morning he came into my room and, ignoring the fact that I was ill gave me a fearful telling off. I thought I was in for another thrashing but Mum had clearly convinced him that she’d made me suitably penitent.

He did make it very clear that if I ever did anything like that again he’d deal with me, whether Mum had already done so or not. I was fairly sure that his big leather belt would be involved.

Not very long after that my bottom and that belt did become acquainted but not because I took a lift from a stranger, his threat worked on that score.

Love

When I was 12 the mother of one of my school friends (yes I had one or two) and my Mum hatched the idea that a Youth Hostelling holiday on the Isle of Wight would be a good way for two boys to get their first taste of a holiday away from parents.

Unlike most of my friends I never belonged to the Cubs or Scouts. When I’d asked if I could join the Cubs at the age of 8 Mum had simply said she didn’t think it was a good idea and my persistent efforts to get an explanation nearly ended with the standard punishment.

To this day I have no idea why she took this attitude, all 3 of my sisters were Girl Guides in their day and that seemed a fine idea for them. Admittedly I was a pretty sickly child but nobody had ever suggested that I was too fragile for normal boyish activities.

It’s perhaps significant that the decision to allow me to go on this holiday came a month or two after Mum remarried and I suddenly had a Father again after 8 years. Maybe it was time to start ‘making a man out of me’.

The only way we were being allowed to go on this adventure was if we were accompanied by someone old and sensible enough to ensure our safety and good behaviour.

Thankfully my Big Sister, 16 and very sensible (if a bit bossy at times) volunteered for the job so a route was planned that was actually achievable by a pair of 12 year olds and bookings were made at the various Youth Hostels.

In those days my bike was an old Hercules which, for the uninitiated, was made entirely of steel and to a skinny little 12 year old weighed a ton. Its strength and weight were actually considered virtues!

It had a 3 speed Sturmey Archer gear hub which had to be treated with great respect. If you didn’t back pedal to change gear there was a strong likelihood of the gears slipping followed by a cross-bar accident, the bane of many a boy’s cycling experience.

So come the great day my sister and I cycled over to Graffham to collect my friend and then the three of us set out for our first stop. Andy and I had been all for making straight for Portsmouth, catching the ferry and making our first stop on the Isle of Wight.

Bless my sister for obstinately refusing that idea and insisting that a hostel outside Portsmouth should be our first stop. By the time we got there I had to admit that that I couldn’t have gone another hundred yards let alone make it all the way to Portsmouth Harbour.

Dinner, no worse than the school canteen and eaten in the same refectory setting was a small milestone in my life.

After we’d eaten and got a mug of tea I looked down the long table and realised that by the time the sugar bowl made it as far as me my tea would be stone cold, so I drank it without sugar for the first time ever.

I never took sugar in tea from that day on, indeed I found sweetened tea to be quite nauseating and for a couple of weeks after I got home had to keep reminding Mum about it.

After dinner came the introduction to the very ethos of Youth Hostels, everyone got a chore. I was assigned to the washing up crew which gave me some clue as to what the canteen ladies had to put up with every school day, I vowed to show them a lot more respect in future.

The most unsettling aspect of the Hostel was dormitory sleeping, something I had no experience of. Naturally the older boys got to choose bunks first and the younger boys all ended up on the bottom bunks.

Thus it was that I was given an inadvertent eye full of a boy in his late teens who, to my shock clearly intended to sleep naked. Before I could hastily roll over and face the wall his threatening voice came down.

“’Ere, kid, you lookin’ at my dick?”

I had the presence of mind to stay silent, saying no would have been tantamount to admitting that I was indeed looking at a very big and interesting dick, not something I wanted to admit then.

The incident passed without further comment and a few minutes later the Warden came in to announce lights out. The blessed safety of absolute darkness came to my rescue and being very tired after such a hard day I was asleep in minutes anyway.

Love

This is another story I told some time ago but it bears retelling, anyone that missed it first time round may find it amusing and a very good example of what happens when you push someone too hard.

On my very first day at Grammar School I was teased about two things, my bright ginger hair and my surname. I was struck by the banality of supposedly intelligent children seizing on these details as an excuse for teasing.

Within a couple of weeks, after the other boys had a chance to see how physically weak I was, teasing graduated to full scale bullying. My decision to learn the violin simply added fuel to the flames, I was now regarded as a sissy.

The fact that I didn’t have a father also added the term ‘bastard’ to the repertoire of insults and pointing out that my Mum had been married when I was born made no difference whatsoever.

It didn’t cross my mind to report any of this at school, I had no reason to believe that I’d get a sympathetic hearing, so I complained about it at home.

I was shocked and disappointed when Mum, supported by the man who would become my Stepfather, told me that I was a big boy now and had to learn to stand up for myself.

One morning break I was standing alone as usual quietly thinking my own thoughts when a tirade of insulting names began to come in my direction from one of the chief bullies.

Remembering Mum’s words I decided that the time had come for me to ‘stand up for myself’ and without stopping to think I ran the few yards to where my antagonist was standing and launched myself at him in a flying leap.

Even under 4 stone of furious redhead has a certain mass and as luck would have it I knocked him straight into a chain link fence. Everything clicked together in my mind and I hooked my little fingers into the fence while pushing my thumbs onto his windpipe.

I can honestly say that nothing I’ve experienced in my whole life has been as sweet as the look of sheer terror on that boy’s face as realisation dawned that I fully intended to kill him.

I vaguely registered that there was a lot of shouting going on and that hands were trying to drag me off but nothing was diverting me from my chosen task. I didn’t even flinch when he managed to get a knee into my groin.

Someone punched me in the side of the head, sending my glasses flying and breaking my concentration sufficiently to loosen my grip. Then I found myself lying in the mud getting a severe kicking.

Once everyone was satisfied that I was properly quelled the kicking stopped and the bullies went off, taking their rather subdued friend with them. A couple of boys who were almost friends helped me to stand up.

They pretty well dragged me into the changing room and made me look at myself in the mirror, it wasn’t a pretty sight; I already had a black eye and a fat lip as well as some other cuts and bruises.

The breast pocket of my blazer had been almost completely ripped off, my trousers were torn and covered with mud and my glasses had been smashed.

I had to make it through the rest of the day with no glasses so I couldn’t see the blackboard at all and I refused refused point blank to clean myself up which earned me a note from my Form Master to be delivered to Mum. I was told that I was lucky not to be sent to the Headmaster.

I wasn’t at all surprised to get a vicious thrashing when I got home. Less than half a term into my new school and a very expensive uniform had been ruined. To add to the thrashing my various injuries had to be thoroughly disinfected which hurt like the devil, TCP really stings on open cuts.

My attempt to justify the situation by explaining that I’d just been standing up for myself cut no ice at all, apparently I was supposed to negotiate my way out of these situations and not use violence.

Unfortunately it seemed that I was the only boy in my year that was expected to live by that rule.

Love