Gary Browns look on life

A humerous and sarcastic look on the daily goings on of a young hip hop stud muffin from the land of Trowbridge

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Sundy the 4th of December

After reminiscing with Luke and Justin respectively on life and mishaps during our time at Clarendon, ive written up my top memories into a list of no particular order. Not everyone who went to Clarendon will be aware of all of these and there’s a good chance I’ve missed some out, if I’m told I’ll do a follow up article soon after (around 2008 most likely)
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The one with …. 14 silly boys

In year 11 drama we were given the task of being split into two groups for an exercise. As you’d imagine for a group of mature 16 year olds we went boys against girls and told we had to use all of our bodies to create a symbol for a word.This turns pretty competitive, but with myself, Luke and Justin in charge we soon out do ourselves, until we are given the last word of ‘Victory’

The plan is to lift one person in the air and somehow its chosen to be me. All 14 guys lift me up in the air fairly high, over 6 foot and we hold the pose. Bear in mind I’m not keen on heights as well. After holding this pose, I suddenly hear a voice.

Luke’s.

My best friend since I was 4.

”On the count of three, everyone drop him”

And I laugh, because it’s a joke.

I can trust Luke.

”One”

And everyone else knows it’s a joke.

Maybe one or two people will take him seriously

”Two”

But not all fourteen people.

No ones that stupid.

I mean I’d fall 6 feet onto my back. It could cripple me.

”Three”

Its hard to explain the feeling of lying on 28 pairs of hands, then have them all suddenly move out your way. I was quite lucky I landed mostly on my ass. I think Ali Warren (Teacher) was more worried then I was, screaming

”WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING,YOU COULD HAVE INJURED HIM”

Of course no one really cares, in fact all of us are laughing and its still a discussed point with me and Luke today,esp if I have a favour to call in.

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The one with … All the interviews

Staying with drama, it’s the same class but this time Ali Warrens away. In her replacement we have David Bullock MBE, A Toshiba TV and video made in 1979 and a copy of ‘Shakespeare in Love’. Joy of Joys. Quickly deciding we won’t watch it, myself, Luke and Justin set up a table and tell David we have important coursework to do. Everyone else begins to watch the video.

Quickly getting bored we decide to try and interview everyone without DRB catching on. We ask them three questions (Birthday, favourite chocolate bar and what they want for Christmas I think) Then we give them the name of who to send up next. Despite Bullock watching all this, he doesn’t suspect anything. Twenty minutes and seven people in and we ask Matt Holmes to come up, question him, then ask him to bring up Jo Cooch. In fairness to Matt, I don’t think he knew what we were doing, and he was a very nervous guy. Not wanting to let us down he crawls over to Jo and starts to tap her on the shoulder. It’s even harder as Jo was easily one of the best looking girls in our year and Matt tries to stammer out that we want to question her…. Unfortunately Bullock notices this.

The class are also being noisy at this point and he storms to the front and tells everyone to be quiet, before turning to us, asking us why were aren’t working.

”I thought you had coursework to do, yet all I’ve seen are people coming up to you. If you aren’t working you can sit down and watch the video”

The problem I have (maybe not so much now) is saying things when maybe I shouldn’t... I say at least one stupid thing a day without thinking, but no one else was going to say anything and I cant stand ‘Shakespeare in love’...

”Sir (respectful like) we are working, honest!”

Now I don’t know what was wrong with saying that to this day, I really don’t. He might have been thrown out of bed by his wife the previous night, not been able to fill in his crossword or the fact his cushdy afternoon off had been disrupted by having to watch ‘Shakespeare in Love’ with a group of adolescents. I can’t think of anything though to justify this.

”Get out, How dare you think you can talk to me like that”

”Like what sir?” (Gambling on innocent yet endearing cheeky grin to get me out this)The problem is, I’ve not really done anything wrong but the teacher can’t go back now as if he does he’ll look weak.

”Don’t argue with me young man, just get out”

”Ok, can I take my chair with me”

”Yes, just go outside, I wont have you disrupting this class”

”Yeah fair enough sir” (turn and handshake with Justin and Luke who are both in tears of laughter and leave)
Feeling I wasn’t punished enough, at the end of the lesson Bullock tells everyone to leave their chairs and I will stack them. Luckily nearly everyone ignores him, meaning I only have about 3 left to do.Over the course of the next two years I get my own back on Bullock in several ways, be it whistling Postman Pat when he fixed our light bulb in statistics, following him around if I got bored or even the simple gesture of pushing a squirrel puppet in his face making him jump.

”David Bullock, he was at Clarendon when I was there… Mans a prick” Steve Brown
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The one with … The miracle goal
In sixth form Kytie wasn’t the best footballer. Yes he could play the guitair, sing, make love to literally 15 women in an hour, but when it comes to football he wasn’t the best.In that sense it was a surprise when he signed up to play for Taffy and his ‘Team Taff’s’ during the 6th form football tournament. It was less of a surprise when it was announced ‘Team Tay’s’ would play ‘Team Taff’s’ The biggest game of the lot, Tay’s and Taff’s are hardly the best of friends. With a packed out sports hall and the score at 1-1, around 70 people watched Kyte pick up the ball on the halfway line, including myself and Ali.
At that very point I turn to him.

”Wouldn’t it be amazing if Kytie scored” And Ali just bursts out laughing. Seconds later Kytie hits a left footed shot from the tightest of angles that beats Tay’s into the corner. The crowd go ballistic as does a stunned Kyte.
To this day on of the greatest tragedies will be that Dan King didn’t film it correctly, it really will be. Team Taff’s win the match 3-1 and Kytes goal, voted by 6th formers as the best all year is still discussed today in many pub conversations.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The one with …all the stupidity
Maureen Nitek was a crap teacher. Fact. Not thru want of trying but ultimately she was a crap teacher. She looked like a riddler, had an annoying voice and it was hard to believe at times she was qualified to teach science.The following are two shining examples why.

1. “If you’re looking at speed, I mean Concorde travels at 17 kilometres per second”

2. (Calling the register)”Mark Harrison”
”Yeh”
”Phil Harrison”
”Yeh”
(Nitek stops and pauses)
”Are you two brothers by any chance” (after teaching them for 6 months)
Mark “Yeah,um we’re twins”
Nitek then looks at Phil, then Mark, then Phil again.
”Are you identical twins?”

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The one with … All the touching

Keeping with science still and its Hoskins lesson. We file in and sit down. There’s an expensive looking tray filled with water and wires on a small and so forth balanced on a small platform on a desk. Andy Smith sits by it immediately.
”Right we’re doing about Ripples today and I’ve set this up. It’s an electro – something (it was three years ago) Terribly expensive, I had to miss my lunch break (to her this would have been a big deal) to set it up and it is very fragile…

At this point 3 minutes in Andy’s leaning over, poking it…..

So please don’t poke it Andrew”

”What?” Grin on face, expecting everyone to laugh.

Rest of class are silent

”Don’t touch it please, I’ve just asked you not too”

”I didn’t”

Hoskins stares at him for a bit, then turns and writes ‘Ripples’ on the whiteboard. Immediately Andy leans back over and pokes it around again. This time one of the platform slides gives way, the tray slides down and smashes on the floor. The usual talk you get when a teacher turns her back stops immediately as Hoskins spins around. Now Andy has to think fast, he’s alone on the table with the object and needs an excuse.

”I didn’t touch it”

Probably not the best after 23 people just watched him do it… Hoskins actually looks like she’s about to murder someone.

”Andrew, get outside”

”But I...”

”OUTSIDE NOW ANDREW”

Andrew leaves looking like he's about to nurst into tears.Soon as they both go outside you can hear Hoskins literally screaming at Andrew and I’m surprised she didn’t actually kill him. That was the last we saw of him for a while.

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The on with … the twenty sheets

Same person again, this time DT in year 11 still. Systems and control and today after the double lesson we hand in our portfolios for marking. Despite having made one of the most useless inventions in the world (see me for details) I hand in my work on time as does most people. Andy still had only done about 3 pages during the 5 months of the project. We were expected to hand in at least 20 sheets of A3 in two hours time. He’d used excuses every week to explain his lack of work in class and it was obvious Turner (teacher) was enjoying this.
For the next two hours Andy did 20 sheets of work. He started off fairly neat, bordering up with ruler properly etc. After an hour and only 7 sheets done, he decided to ditch the ruler, drawing borders freehand and handing in some of the worst work I have ever seen. But he’d still done it and he proudly handed it to Turner.

Turner >” I’m not accepting that”
Andy > “Why not”
Turner >”It’s utter crap, look!”

And for the next five minutes he went over every fault in the work to the rest of the class who were in hysterics. I think that was one of the only systems lessons that had a slight element of humour in it.

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The one with … the nearly fractured skull

Back to 6th form drama. Blower’s lesson and we’re setting up tables. They were the cheap consortium fold away legs ones. For some reason I’m helping Aidon set up his table
Soon as I knelt down Blowers said “ Ok?”. Now I don’t know if he thought I said yes instead of no. Maybe his hand slipped or maybe in a red mist he decided to get rid of me. Whatever reason, he let go and the table came cracking down on my head flattening me. And it bloody hurt. Bastard.

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The one with … The big lad

Looking back I do feel bad for our old tutor BNO. For five years we were essentially scum yet she still stuck by us. She let us stay unsupervised in our tutor room during lunch in winter when other tutors locked their kids out, and we left food, wrappers etc everywhere leaving her to apologise to the teacher who had to teach next in that filth. In the end one day she just cracked.
We’d knocked the bin over, leaves were everywhere and there was food all over the tables.

”Ugh no one is going anywhere until I find out who’s made this mess”
”Bye Miss”
”CLOSE THE DOOR” –Literally screaming.
The door is closed as she finally has control of the class.
”Who’s made this mess” – Silence
”Well, who’s made it”
”Um… Neil Lacey”
”Who?”
”Neil Lacey,he’s in Maggie, I mean Mr Mays tutor”
”So your telling me this Neil Lacey came in here, emptied the bins, drew on the board and threw food everywhere and between thirty of you,noone stopped him”
”Yeah…. He’s a big lad miss”
”Right” – And she didn’t think for one second we were lying. She did believe this one boy had come in the class, destroyed it and all 30 of us had just watched him.
”Bring him to me”
”What”
”Go and get him now”

I think it was Mark that went and got him
”So why did you do this”
”Do what”
”Don’t play the fool with me please. Make all this mess”
”WHAT!”
”Oh so I suppose all thirty of my tutor group are liars, or just imagined it”

At that point I snuck out the class. I think they were still arguing about it for ten minutes afterwards with Neil being ‘banned’ from our class as a result.

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The one with… All the school bags

Keeping with the tutor group saw us bored one lunchtime. A group of year 8 students (we were in year 11 by this stage) were playing football by the side of our class. There were around 20 of them and so there were around 20 bags on the ground, just outside our door. So as you do we decided to steal/borrow them. Which worked, they didn’t realise until we’d got the last one in and we made a big pile of them in the corner and locked the door.
Five minutes later BNO comes along and tells the children to go away, lunch is over. Of course the kids don’t move.
”They’ve got our bags”
”Ugh what”
”They stole our school bags”
”Ugh (turns and looks at us) Have you taken their bags”
” (In unison) No miss”
”yes they did! (Kids near crying point now)”
Me >” Oh (points to 6 foot pile of bags in the corner) Are these them”

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The one with … all the political incorrectness

The final point is still discussed and joked about almost daily. Again involving BNO, this time in year 8 and I’ve just said something to upset Eppie (spec needs child)

“Oh shut up you black shit” is her witty reply back

Class laugh including me. BNO feels the need to chime in.

”Ugh Eppie, theres nothing wrong with being black”
Me>”What?”
BNO > “Gareth should be proud of who he is”
Me > “Whoa, Well, I’m not black am I!”
BNO >”Now look at what you’ve done Eppie, he’s embarrassed by it”
Class in hysterics by this point
Me > “I’m not black!”
BNO > “Don’t be ashamed of it Gareth, really!”

And she must have thought I was black for all five years. When she finally met both my white parents at a parents evening a year later she did actually say.
”So are you both Gareth’s parents”
”Yes”
”Oh, I see…”

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There’s a lot more that happened, it was 7 years after all and there’s a lot I didn’t mention. For me they’re the stories that will always make me laugh and we always seem to talk about in JD on a Friday in the summer. Apparently when you go off after 6th form you lose contact with the people you grew up with so this is pretty much a post for Class of 2004.

Cheeeeeers