MY BEHAVIOURAL HISTORY AFTER STARTING AT SECONDARY SCHOOL

I remember in September 1987, when I started Secondary School, there was someone who lived near me who did 'Book-keeping' for a living and I was told they earned a lot of money for it. In reply to that, I said "I want to do that. I like reading and it is easy to keep books". This comment drew puzzled looks and the person who I was talking to remarked, "No. What she does is accounting, not keeping or looking after books".

One memory that is very clear from when I was younger, just after starting Secondary School, was Radio One's 20th anniversary on Wednesday 30th September 1987. They played music from the 1960's to 1987 all day. I got up at 5.30am that morning to tape songs from the Radio before I went to school. They played music from the 1960's to 1987 all day. I got up that morning at 5.30am to tape songs from the radio before going to school. I still have the cassette.

The 'Radio 1 - newsbeat' reported the prison siege at Peterhead in North-East Scotland that had started two days before, on Monday 28th September. A prison officer named Jackie Stuart, who was, from memory, aged 50-odd, (Not the car racing driver!) had been taken hostage. I think Mr Stuart was released and the protesters give up, though I can't remember when or how. Don't forget, I was 11 years old at the time, and this happened over 20 years ago.

When it came to getting dressed after PE or swimming at Secondary School, I took longer to get dressed than it took me to get undressed. I am not going to comment on the person who taught that subject. All that I think about him, and all that needs to be wrote or said about him, appears on another page on this website.

I haven't self-harmed deliberately in my life. I have got depressed and have considered committing suicide, but never have made any attempts to do so. I am not the sort who would slash my wrists across or take an overdose and then phone the hospital in a "cry for help". My mind doesn't work like that. I would discuss things, or write them down, if I was feeling down or low. If I was to take such drastic action, then it would be to end my life, not to seek attention or express unhappiness with life, which I do feel at times.

However, on Tuesday 13th October 1987, five weeks after entering Secondary School, probably as I was upset and stressed by the unwanted and unwelcome changes that the new, seemingly hostile place had brought to my life, I got in the bath and shaved a bald patch around my crown. Amazingly no-one, not any pupil or Teachers, remarked upon it. I was expected someone to comment on it, but they didn't.

You may have read elsewhere on my website that I was laughed at and mocked for liking Elvis and Queen at Secondary School, at the age of 12 or so, when everybody liked Bros, and said they were going to dominate for the next 20 years. I liked music from the 1960's then. On Sunday 18th October 1987 at Bawtry market, I bought a cassette called "An hour of the greatest hits of 1964". I still have the tape even now. At Christmas 1987, I had bought for me on record, a '60's remix, with about 60 songs of the 1960's remixed. In the early spring of 1990, having had a "Guinness hit singles" book bought the Christmas before, and given my obsessive interest in dates and history, I began to try to listen to or learn about less famous number one's, or songs from all periods of chart history, including the 1950's. This interest ended in the Autumn of 1990: My interest in music remains as strong today.

I shave my hair off again on Tuesday 12th January 1988, whilst also in the bath, and again no-one commented on it. Whilst I had the mickey ripped out of me a lot of the time whilst I was a pupil there, no-one remarked on this. Yet when someone else shaved his eyebrows off for a bet, he was verbally slaughtered for it.

During the first year of my time at Secondary School (or sentence), we had two Teachers who taught CDT called Mr Davies. One was in his early 60's or so at the time, the other early 30's and was tall with black hair and a moustache. On Thursday 5th November 1987, I did a drawing in CDT, and showed young Mr Davies as it was. It was of my kitchen at home, and the date of was "Thursday 15th October 1987". I told him that was the day after my mum's birthday. Mr Davies snapped, "So what? It doesn't matter whether your mum's birthday was the day before or not does it? Where's the relevance in that?".

Another routine I followed from March 1988 was if I was watching the television in my living room I could not stand to have the door open, and had to shut it. This ended about 12 months later.

About this time at Secondary School I started to look in the registers for each class and each year, to see when people's dates of birth were. Once, when my mum bought an expensive dress and she said "Do you like this?". Most NT's would put on a false cheesy grin and say 'Yes it's nice' even if they don't like it, but I said, "No it's horrible" because I didn't like it. I used to get an image of somebody being sacked from employment as having a sack put over their head. Indeed when I was at Secondary School daft things would make me laugh, which would puzzle NT's.

If someone said to me "Birds Eye Sweet Trolley is very dear" I would laugh, because I had a visual image of someone complaining that a Birds Eye Product was expensive and arguing over it. Other words that made me laugh were rotten eggs and drugs because they used to give me a visual image. Similar even now, if I see numbers, each and every number from 1 to 100 creates a visual image in my mind.

When I first started Secondary School we used to cover our exercise books with wallpaper. This process was known then as "backing" but I didn't know what it meant at the time, or I misinterpreted it. I used to think this expression was used as a slang word for returning. As a result of this misinterpretation, I said to someone else "I am backing my book next week". This was when the next lesson was held. The response I got was that of a puzzled look from the others.

A while later, this guy who lived across the road called Brian looked like John Lennon and I said to him, "Hello Brian. Don't you look like John Lennon?". He got angry and said "If you say that again I will tell your Dad".

At Secondary School, the registers used to be kept on the reception desk, which was adjacent to the main doors you passed through to enter. I used to, during 1988, have a sneaky look at them when no-one was around, so I could view the dates of births of pupil in the school, and therefore remember them, and I rarely forgot.

In the early days at Secondary School, I didn't introduce myself to other pupils or ask them their name. Instead, I would ask them what their date of birth was. I think I knew the date of birth of every single pupil in my year at Secondary School off by heart, though I couldn't tell you that know. I can't even remember the name of every single pupil in my year at Secondary School now though, for the simple reason that it doesn't matter. Why should I? I don't see them anymore. I don't meet them anymore. They are irrelevant to my life now, so therefore, I don't remember their birthdays.

In fact, this was perfectly illustrated in a bar on Saturday 26th May 2012, nearly 25 years after I started Secondary School, though it seems to be even longer because that much has happened since then. There were five people who were in my year at Secondary School who were out drinking, because one of them, someone who was in my class, was having his stag do. We shook hands. There were two other men present. Either they were in my year or in my school and I could not remember them, or they were total strangers. Anyway, after we had all shook hands and said hello, someone in my year asked me I could remember when his birthday was. I thought to myself "Is he taking the piss out of me or trying to get a cheap laugh at my expense, or is he asking me because he is just curious to see if I can do it?". I then thought a second later "I am not going to tell him, but even if I wanted to I would not be able to anyway". You get a bit fed up of it as you can become a performing monkey for people. I then thought, "Rather than snap or say "I have got Asperger's Syndrome, laugh that off", I will try to make a joke out of this situation". Following on from that I replied, "No, I have started with Alzheimer's".

This response generated laughter among those who were there. Someone stood next to me replied that he didn't know who I was. I spoke to three of them. The rest I didn't really. I was asked if I fancied going around with them but I said no. It is too long ago. None of them have bothered with me in the years leaving school, so why bother now?