Yesterday, I happed to drive past my old school at finishing time. For many people this may be an everyday occurrence, but I live approx 50 miles away from where I grew up, and although my Dad is still near, I'm not usually around on a week day at a quarter to four.
It's funny the memories and feelings that went through my mind.
The building is still the same, but the uniform has changed (I would have killed for a v-neck sweater when I had to wear a crew-neck). As I watched the kids walking along in groups, waiting for their buses and trying desperately to be "alternative" and nonchalant. I couldn't help but smile. I was one of those girls, with band names written all over my school bag, books covered in wallpaper and a desperate desire to fit in by being different.
When I went around the corner, I saw another sight that was different from my schooldays, but yet the same. On a streetcorner (coincidentally the street where I used to go for piano lessons). was a crowd of about 15 girls from my old school, and about the same number of boys from our brother school. (This corner is approximately equidistant from those two august institutions). Some of the kids/teens were chatting, and flirting. On the edges of the group the other kids, the ones more like me, were hanging around. Perhaps jealous, perhaps bored, but unwilling to leave without their more popular mates.
For most of the way home, this song was in my head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPPi58K6wZs
Perhaps, it should have been "I'm glad I'm not young anymore"!
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Fairly recently, I've ended up on buses that have been the end of school time bus for my old school, and for the boys school. The bus from the girls school was ear-drum splitting and rowdy (was I like that on the bus when I was that age? *Surely* not!). When I realised I'd ended up on a bus that was going to hit the boy's school at 'out' time, I was prepared for more of the same - surprisingly, it was all very civilised.
Btw, the half-way point between the two (upper) schools is 'The Robert' on the Ridge. Did we meet there at lunchtimes when I was in the VIth form? What do you think?...
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