Not a great deal done today other than searching through wardrobes trying to find my mum’s knitting. It used to be in a cloth bag with a wooden frame but we can’t find it.

In the process of the search a few things turned up such as a large selection of my school reports right from my first year at primary school where it was noted that I was enthusiastic about drama, apparently. That must have been the year that I played a cat in the nativity play. Quite a few mwntioned that I had quite a good sense of humour. Obviously the teachers never heard me try to tell jokes.

The later remarks about poor spelling and writing haunt my abilities to this day and caused especially my history and biology marks to show badly. Another trend which can be seen is my poor marks in exams relative to course work and how I can only do well in subjects I can see the patterns behind the answers rather than bare facts.

I was surprised by the remarks from my French teachers saying that I tried hard but that it was obvious that it was a subject that I was ill suited to. I could have told them that but I was surprised due to the way the teachers had treated me, such as sending me into detension and up to the head master for a slippering for poor vocabulary test results etc.

Since then I believe that I’ve worked out why I had/have so much trouble with spelling etc. even in English. I remember learning to read and finding that the only way to stop the word jumping around the page was to sit right under the room light. I also found it easiest with red sweet wrappers over the eyes. This seems to tally with mild dyslexia I’ve since discovered. So, maybe that’s a contributary factor in all this. I definitely have dystypia quite often. 🙂

What other revelations were there? Well, from the outside it obviously seemed that I fitted in quite well. This shows very much how teachers don’t see things. In primary school, where I was supposed to be well integrated according to the teacher, I was the only boy not to have a “girlfriend” and was never in anyone’s group for playing marbles or aeroplanes etc. The later reports don’t show how I was not in any other real social groups in my secondary school.

The final thing found was a notification from the local L.E.A. informing me of the size of my grant for my 2nd year at university. This was the mighty total of about £1200 for the year. Surprisingly, in 1985/6 this was emough for me to commute to London form N.Bedfordshire for two terms and live in halls for the last term and pay for books and field trips with a little to spare. It does show how the cost of living has increased, especially rail fares. (I remember that with the Young Person’s Railcard a cheap day return form Bedford to London St.Pancras was £3.50 and was valid from 8:15am. Those were the days!)

So, other than that I merely played some Lemmings and watched a little telly. It’s off to Truro tomorrow, mostly so as to get out of the house. I think we may pop into Falmouth on the way back so that I may buy my mum a complete set of replacement knitting stuff as a late Christmas pressie. She needs a hobby to keep her mind and hands busy.

This has turned into a bit of a mammoth entry. I’d better be off to bed.