Socialisation

In English we did no work whatsoever and instead spent an hour listening to Mrs. Slicer relating tales of her St. Trinian's past. Then, instead of a lesson from Hirst, all the sixth and seventh formers packed into B8 for a lecture, “Marxism and History” by Dr. Whittaker from Whincliffe.

His talk was pretty obscure and obtuse and people seemed to turn off almost from the moment he began. Many of the terms he used went unexplained and within minutes people were fidgeting, doodling and, eventually, sleeping. Mr. Elson fell asleep and I noted at least three others sleeping too. Although I found it all a bit tedious some points were interesting, especially his point about the ‘socialisation’ of capitalism, which pointed to his acceptance of an evolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism. He mentioned ICI, saying that socialism in that case would merely be a change of ownership. I didn’t agree. The Historians had to wait behind for half-an-hour or so and I asked a question about the inevitability of socialism.

In Art we had a 50-question test, which, if I’d revised, would have been fairly easy. As it was I left six questions blank and then half-ran, half-walked back to school for the staff v ex-pupils rugby match. It was really warm and I was sweating like mad when I got there, and everyone was already changing.

I was given a green and white shirt and told I was playing for the staff. There were about forty people watching including Barkston, Flatters, Simon D., Sean Barker, Robin Q., and some of our sixth form girls. Before the match started both teams had their photos taken by Scott. I had a crummy game, and for long periods I could only walk around after the ball. Only the sight of all those spectators spurred me to run. Occasionally I did get hold of the ball and fumbled it out to Andy or Farrar, but I made a lot of forward passes and my most blatant and embarrassing error came near the end when the ball fell nearby, was kicked past me, and I gave chase, bringing the man to a halt by hanging on to his arm. Christ I was cringing! It was just an impulsive, involuntary thing and was made worse by his indignant cries. We won 13-9 after trailing 3-4 at half-time, and everyone said that I’d played well and if I hadn’t fouled when I did we would’ve lost.

Afterwards, we all piled into various cars and went up into the country somewhere to the The Anchor Inn, where we had a private room hired. I had two pints of Best and after talking with Mrs Newsholme, Ingham, and Mr. Scott I wandered over and sat with Robin Q. and Steve, even talking with Carol Lancaster, Lynn Norden, Tracey Booth and other unapproachables. I began to really enjoy myself, and Elson bought me another pint for my ‘match-winning’ efforts before we left at last-orders.