Categories: uncategorized
Date: 26 January 2009 22:41:39
Well - more or less, anyway.
Twenty years ago today, I was in my second term as a sixth former at a minor provincial public school. I had discovered that there were two places in which I could hang out in my free time. There was the girls' house, a civilised place which I associate with buttered toast and 'our tune' at break times, a quiet, orderly study with tidy desks and inoffensive posters of boys in levis on the walls, and the constant presence of a smiling housemistress; or there was the music department attic. The music department was (and indeed still is) housed in one of those fabulous old buildings that has a fantastically grand entrance hall, and gets more and more scruffy the more stairs you climb. At the very top were four rooms. In one, the deputy head of department gave piano lessons and coached scholars for Oxbridge entrance exams. A few yards further along the corridor were two forgotten corners of the school which had been turned into 'common rooms' for 6th form music scholars and their 'guests'. Sofas with exposed springs, stereos with home-made surround-sound speakers (frequently blowing fuses), lethal coffee with no milk and unsanitary mugs, and ongoing low level warfare between the occupants of the two rooms. In case you're wondering, the other room was a small and fragrant loo. Farts were regularly lit. I did mention it was a mostly boys' public school didn't I? My very first boyfriend appeared on the scene at this school. We were both in the chapel choir, and he gradually became a fixture in our attic room. Drinks were drunk in the attic room, caretakers were bribed to turn blind eyes and the handy window to the roof and fire escape became a regular out of hours exit when the department was locked. Sometimes too many drinks were drunk. (I realise that any drinks at all were strictly speaking 'too many' but y'know...) So - I spent much of this term, 20 years ago, in an attic room, with a boy who was a member of House "B" (for the sake of some anonymity). Before coming to the school he'd been a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral School.
Today, I was back in my old school, summoned because one of the viola pupils was having a 'personality issue' with the sole violin & viola teacher in the department, and urgently needed a change of teacher. I walked into the marble entrance hall, past the stone lions, and up the first staircase.
"Ah - lovely! Glad you're here. Trouble is, we're a little short of teaching rooms today... Um - OK - I think I know where there's a room free"
And then we went up two more staircases, and it all came flooding back. Past the old teaching room where I was coached unsuccessfully for Cambridge, past a boarded up door which used to lead to the loo, and into the second of the attic rooms - now a good deal tidier. But - in the first attic room - a pile of old and suspiciously familiar looking furniture.
"Right - this is Oli, your viola pupil. He came to us from Salisbury last year - ex chorister - now in House "B".
I facebooked the first boyfriend when I got home and told him what I'd been doing with my morning.
"Dear God - no! Were you sick over him as well? Did you notice if my sweatshirt was still out on that roof?", came the amused but rather TMI response.