Whilst the last two years at Overdale Junior School had been my best years so far on planet Earth, the next three are a nightmare as I undergo the transformation from child to adolescent. It’s not a pretty sight. Lancaster Boys Secondary Modern School is Hell on Earth and not even the Beatles can save me now, though I’m comforted at times by ‘A Little Help from My Friends’.

Life starts with a uniform (uncomfortable grey trousers, white shirt, striped tie, black blazer) and a regime that Prison officers would be proud of. As first years, we are allocated our own ‘yard’, a small playground where playing games is frowned upon. Any form of football is prohibited, and stepping outside the perimeter of the small yard during morning and lunch time breaks shatters many rules and regulations… and results in a visit to ‘The Headmaster’.

On our first day, we have to line up in ‘forms’ and answer to our names as the warden… sorry, the teacher, calls them out in turn. I’m in 1A and our teacher is called Mr Busby – a pale faced man with black, wiry brushed back hair. He seems all right – but he doesn’t seem to know any of our first names. I have become ‘Howrie’. Not Stephen Howrie – or even Mr or Master Howrie. Just Howrie. I consider pointing out his error, but then think better of it when a squat man with a terrifying voice arrives in the playground.

“From now on,” he shouts, “it’s going to be ‘Yes Sir, No Sir, Three Bags Full Sir!’” I want to ask him what the three bags are for, but a little voice in my head tells me not to. The squat man is called Mr Hopkins (known to the local boys as ‘Syd’ – his first name apparently) – and he’s Welsh. After his army-style lecture, we are marched off to our classrooms… and I begin to wonder what crime I’ve committed to be sent to this ‘Institution’.

Still in shock by the time our morning break comes around, I follow the other boys down to the ‘Tuck Shop,’ a place manned by one of the teachers, where we can buy crisps, chocolates and drinks.

“And what would you like, young man?” a stern-faced man enquires.
“A packet of crisps,” I say, handing over my money. 
“A packet of crisps, what?” he growls.
“A packet of crisps, please,” I reply, hoping this is the missing word he needs. The stern-faced man is even sterner. He looks straight into my Soul and says: 
“A packet of crisps, please Sir!” I repeat the mantra, and hey presto, I’m given a packet of crisps. (Note to self: ‘Yes Sir, No Sirs, Three Bags Full Sir.’)

I head out to the first form yard with my packet of plain crisps and new found wisdom regarding planet Earth: Don’t go there – it’s not worth it.  It’s full of sadistic, crazy humans who cut you with knives, break your arms, ridicule you in front of your peers, and ask you silly maths questions. I find it difficult to believe that I volunteered for this mission on this miserable planet. Why on Earth did I do it? But although things have started badly at Lancaster Boys’ School, they are about to get very much worse.

*
Earth sister Sarah passed her Eleven Plus and for the past three years has been attending Wyggeston Girls’ Grammar School – the same school as Deirdre, it turns out. I ask Sarah how Deirdre is getting on, but she says she hasn’t seen her. My love has been lost in the maelstrom of young academics thronging the corridors of a posh school. (Maelstrom is a word I learned in English language). I put Deirdre on the back burner for a while, having other much more pressing things to occupy me at Lancaster Boys: survival, for one. And then my life dips even further downwards.

One morning, as I’m making my way across the Seniors’ Yard to my own pathetic little first year area, I’m stopped by one of the older kids. I don’t know him – but he knows me. Or I should say, he knows Earth sister – and he’d like to get to ‘know’ her better. He puts me in a grip that a professional wrestler would be proud of, and won’t let me go until he’s interrogated me about Sarah. I’d like to help him out, but I tell him truthfully that I know very little about my sister since we stopped having baths together. He doesn’t believe me, and thinks I’m winding him up. Then he tightens his grip around my neck until I’m nearly chocking, and continues the interrogation. I confess nothing, and he finally lets me go with the parting threat, “See you tomorrow.” I want to give him the Vulcan Mind grip; but unfortunately, ‘Star Trek’ has not yet been invented on this planet. 

This routine continues for a few days, and then the next couple of weeks. My sleep patterns start to be affected, and I have recurring nightmares about the boys who interrogate me at school. Earth father, who always seems to notice every emotion I am feeling, asks me what’s wrong one morning as he’s driving me to school. At first, I say nothing – not wanting to appear unable to handle the situation – but eventually I tell him about the encounters.

The next morning, he wakes me up around 6:30am and tells me all about ‘Sex’. I’m not properly awake, and it all seems like a strange dream. He talks about men and woman and pleasurable sensations and babies. And then he says he’s telling this because he thinks the boy who detains me at school every morning might be a ‘homosexual’. All this in about thirty seconds. I don’t know who is most embarrassed – him or me – but I’m certainly the most confused. I’d gone to bed as a child, and awake as a totally mixed-up adolescent.

Jokes and references that formerly made no sense to me at school, suddenly have meaning. But far from being a simpler world that I have woken up to, it is so much more complicated, with layers I didn’t even know existed. It did explain my hose thing though. At school, I now find myself a member of a club that I previously had not been party to. I recognise not only others in the club, but also those who are still unaware of the existence of ‘SEX’. I want to share my new found knowledge with them – but I feel ill-qualified for such a momentous task; it’s better to leave it to their own host parents, I conclude. As long as it’s not Earth father who delivers the ‘good news’.

Not long after my ‘awakening,’ I catch a cold and have to stay away from school for the day. The next day back at the Institution, my mates are all smiles and grins. “Guess what you missed in Biology yesterday, Howrie?” They smile.

“Cutting up a dead rat?” I ask hopefully. I’d have been very happy to have missed that.

“No. You missed our lesson on human reproduction!” they smile. Typical! The one day I miss from school all year, and it’s the only Biology lesson worth going to. But in fact, it wasn’t. The teacher is a pervert of the highest order, and most of our lessons involve him trying to grab boys’ testicles. Hasn’t he got a pair of his own?

My newfound wisdom only confirms my feelings that females are alien creatures, here on Earth to torment us blokes – in one way or another. I want to find out what their ‘bits’ look like (it was a long time since I’d seen my sister’s, and she didn’t have proper breasts at the time). I consult my school Biology book – only to find that the section on Human Reproduction has been removed by the teacher!

I make progress with my academic lessons – giant strides forward in mathematics in particular. My thought processes required for this subject, dormant since my arrival on planet Earth, have been awakened by our form tutor Mr Busby, who also teaches us maths.

In Art, we have a new teacher. She’s one of only two female teachers in the school – and a rather attractive one at that, I observe. She knows my father, a fact which turns out to be a big disadvantage to anyone with the name of Howrie – unless of course you can paint like Michelangelo. Mrs Clarke, as she becomes known after she marries Geography teachers Mr Clarke, expects my work to be outstanding – because Earth dad was one of her professors at the local Polytechnic (and he is very, very good at art). She is therefore in for several disappointments, despite the fact that I possess ‘Blue Peter badge’, an award from a kid’s TV show for painting a TV dog called Petra. (No, sorry: I didn’t actually paint the dog, I painted a picture of her).

For our first homework assignment, we must produce a still-life pencil drawing of an everyday object. I select an orange, and do my best possible drawing. At our next Art lesson, Mrs Clarke pulls my picture to pieces. Had it been a real orange, she could have offered it around the class. But unfortunately (according to Ms Clarke), it is nothing like a real orange. The other kids gasp in disbelief at the high standard she’s setting. I’m not sure I like hearing Mrs Clark’s opinion – but I wouldn’t mind seeing more of her body.

Experiments with solo sex (also known as DIY) begin as I explore my hose to find its true potential. I can see that much practice will be required in this department to get things absolutely right.

* * * * * 

End of Chapter 4.

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