An early lesson in cruelty, coupled with the injustice perpetrated by adults: my first friend at primary school was Stuart Osborne, a quick-witted, popular little charmer, whose mother was a teacher at the school (and a woman I can only remember as "Mrs Osborne"; in my memory, undoubtedly inaccurately, she looks like Anni-Frid, the dark haired one from ABBA). We were in the same class and bonded over the fact that we both had English accents in a rural Scottish primary school (never a good plan) and our families didn't have a TV (I remember having a conversation with him, both of us around 6 years old, where we agreed it was a Good Thing not to have a TV; we could be part of our own little club of children who didn't need TV and loved reading books instead). I invented a playground chasing game called (for some reason) "Scrooge", and we taught the other kids the game and played it every breaktime. We still have a photograph somewhere of a Halloween party at nearby Winton Hill Farm; I'm dressed as a witch, in green; Stuart's pictured eating an apple, dashing, dark-eyed, charismatic. I loved him. Until...
Overnight, it seemed, Stuart's family got a TV and he started adopting a Scottish accent. I was completely out of favour; not only that but I was an embarrassing reminder of everything Stuart was now trying to pretend he wasn't, and accordingly he actively loathed me. I watched in the playground, alone, as children played Scrooge around me. Stuart and his friend Darren threw ice and stones at me. And when I complained to Mrs Osborne, she, of course, did nothing, because it was her son, and he wasn't capable of that sort of behaviour.
Stuart's family moved to Canada in 1979 and he now works at Whistler. I never saw him again, but I've never forgotten him and the terrible taste of betrayal.
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4 comments:
What's he doing, cleaning chalet toilets? Little squitter.
No, I think he's running a ski slope. Or something like that. It wasn't really his fault; he made the smart choice in adopting an accent to fit in. If I'd been less idiotically principled I'd have done the same. Shouldn't have thrown the stones and ice, though, Stuart, eh?
Kids really are horrible to each other and we adults carry the scars and bruises for a long time to come.
My Stuart was a boy called Nick Gibson, who not only betrayed my friendship but actually resorted to hair pulling with his new friend Lee. It was the one and only time I have ever been physically bullied. No idea where he is now altho I think his family moved to London in the early 80s
Actually, MSS, as Morrissey said, I can laugh about this now... I don't even feel the urge to give him a kicking.
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