One day in 1966 I ran
away from boarding school. I was eight at the time. It was the beginning of my second term.
I'd been sent there with the best of intentions. I'd been having
problems at my previous school and my parents were at their wits'
end. In their position, had I been able to afford it, I may well have
done the same thing.
The first term had not
been easy but my teachers had reassured my parents that things would
get better. All boys take time to settle in, they said, some longer
than others. To the adults in my life, things, understandably, didn't
seem to be as bad as they really were. One had to accept that
teachers knew what they were doing. What the teachers played down, I suspect, was the way violence was normalised inside that institution.
For myself, as soon as I got back, I realised that the coming term
was going to be at least as awful as the one before. For ten weeks,
I'd been beaten at least four times a week and, at the end of term,
the headmaster told me to remind him next term that he 'owed me a
whopping'. Needless to say, when I returned, I didn't.
One morning, soon after
the start of term, me and another boy who'd also had enough just
walked off. I remember it vividly. It's a slide-show I can replay in
my head at will. Chapel, which was held every morning, after
breakfast, was over. We were walking down past the sports fields to
the block where the classrooms were. As I remember it, he and I were
talking about how fed up we both were. We'd never really spoken to
each other before that day or been particularly friendly, but that
morning we found common cause. Perhaps we gave each other the
strength we needed to do what needed to be done. As we passed the
rugby pitch we simply turned off the path and walked across it
towards the fields and woods beyond. We had no plan. Like so many
great rebellions, however many times it'd been dreamt of, when it
actually happened it was a spontaneous act. I remember the other boys
stood and watched us, jeering and laughing at us as we walked away.
Looking back now it strikes me as curious that they thought they had
something to laugh about. After all, they were the ones left behind on the inside
of a violent neglectful institution, looking out. We were the ones on
the outside, walking away. We were the lucky ones.
We just kept walking. We
held out for a whole day. The school, as I remember it, was in the
middle of nowhere. We made our way from field to field, furtively
crossing the occasional road when we had to. I remember once peeping
round a hedge to see a queue of police cars waiting at a crossroads,
all, we presumed, out looking for us. Looking back it was probably
one of the most exciting days of my life. We were wanted men. As we
travelled we made a vague plan for the immediate future. The other
boy knew the area slightly as his family home was not that far away.
We decided to head for it as best we could but I've no idea whether
or not we were ever actually travelling in anything like the right
direction. He said we'd get a telling off if we made it but, knowing
his mum, she'd at least give us a plate of beans on toast. As the day
wore on, we began to get hungry. The thought of that beans on toast
spurred us on. I have a vague memory of coming across an apple tree
at one point and taking a few bites from a sour apple, but I might've
imagined this.
By the evening, it was
obvious we were getting nowhere. We didn't relish the thought of
spending the night out of doors, or huddled in the corner of some
farm building. Not only would it be cold, scary and uncomfortable but
it would raise the whole episode to a different level. We decided to give
ourselves up. The next road we came to, we simply waited on the verge
for the next passing police car.
I have no memory of the
journey back. What I didn't know at the time was that the police had
been to the school for another reason that day, to arrest the
headmaster for taking indecent photographs of children. When we got
back I did get the sense, though, as you do sometimes as a child,
that the adults around us were preoccupied with important things we
knew nothing about. I remember hearing low voices involved in earnest
conversations, too far away to hear what was being said.
We were taken to the
headmaster's study and given a stern lecture. Apparently, our crime
was so grave that, for once, we were not going to be beaten. We were
to be suspended. We should understand that this was the height of
indignity, far worse than six of the best. Our parents were coming to
collect us. I remember feeling disappointed that we'd not been
expelled. Perhaps, I thought, we should've stayed out all night after
all. But that was only a passing thought. It was immediately followed
by the realisation that, although I was only suspended, my parents
would surely never send me back. All through the lecture I remember
standing there, staring impassively at the adult in front of me while
feeling, inside, a sense of complete triumph, a feeling which he, had
he been able to read my mind, would've described as insolence. I
viewed him with complete contempt. We had broken the rules, yes - his
rules. He viewed what we did as misbehaviour. In fact, looking back,
I find it hard to think of a day during my childhood when I behaved
better, right down to our decision not to worry our parents unduly by
staying out all night.
We were sent to collect
our trunks from the cellar. My father came to collect me. I remember
the tug I felt when the boy I'd run away with was whisked away. I
knew at that moment I'd never see him again. As I expected, I never
went back.
There was no
barbed-wire fence around the school. There didn't need to be. Most
boys more-or-less happily adapted to the regime of cod-tradition,
bells, beatings and rough team games. There were prizes to be won,
one could become a good cricketer, even captain of the First XI. One
could make a life for oneself there. Those who did, erected
barbed-wire fences in their minds and rarely if ever felt a desire to
cut through them.
My time at that school
and especially the events of that day certainly played a part in shaping my life
and, in particular, my political opinions. As an adult, I've always
found complacency tiresome. I tend to feel more at home among
misfits. I'm still intrigued by how people develop loyalty to
institutions that abuse them. For example, I don't understand how
anyone can feel patriotic towards a country that lets its most
vulnerable citizens suffer, die needlessly, or sleep on the streets.
When I look at the world's political institutions, authority figures
and the public's response to them, I'm often reminded of Tom Waits'
observation that we're 'monkeys with money and guns.' And then
there's the business of having to choose between breaking the rules
and doing the right thing. As people often point out, those who
shielded Anne Frank and her family were breaking the law. Those who
killed them were upholding it. When Rosa Parks, quite rightly,
refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person she, too, was
breaking the law. I've come to the conclusion that doing the right
thing trumps the rules. The more people think for themselves and set
off across the rugby pitch the better.
Looking back, I'm not
sure what memories from that day have left the deepest impression on
me. Was it the impotent finger-wagging of the authority figures? Was
it the jeering of the boys we left behind? Neither. I think, on
reflection, it was the epiphanic moment, after we'd given ourselves
up, when I realised I was free. There was a downside, though. I'd
made myself into an outsider. As Camus said: The outsider is not
sure who he is. He has found an “I” but it is not his true “I”.
His main business is to find his way back to himself.
I can relate to that.
For years afterwards I felt lost for words. I was painfully shy in
adult company, never sure of what I should say. I didn't make friends
easily, although the next school I went to provided me with the safe,
caring environment I needed. They also taught me to play an
instrument and began turning me into a musician. In retrospect, it's
obvious that Camus' project, the journey back, the search for my true
“I”, was my project back then. Come to think of it, I'm still
working on it.