I was born in Sussex in 1954 - far too long ago. I was an extremely dreamy and shy child, and I used to used to wander round muttering to myself and playing games with imaginary friends. My parents had to shout - "He's in the land!" to explain to people why I apparently couldn't hear what they were saying to me. I did very badly at school - I was daydreaming too much to concentrate on anything much.. It wasn't until I was pretty nearly grown up that I started to think that the world around me might be at least as interesting as what was going on in my own head.
I did poorly at school, although occasionally teachers would think I had a lot of promise. In those days we had an exam called the eleven plus, which you did just before you went to High School. If you were a clever kid with a good brain, you passed and went to Grammar School to learn brainy things, and if you were a dumb kid, you failed and went to Secondary Modern School and learnt how to do things with your hands. I was a kid with hands. I went to Secondary Modern School.
I wasn't very happy at my new school. I remember having a lousy teacher there, who bawled me out for doing a story in a way she hadn't ordered - I'd done it as a diary. She was furious! - called me out in front of the whole class and made a fool of me. So, she got no good stories out of me. My parents moved again, to Reading in Berkshire. This new school was going comprehensive - children of all abilities were to go there. I got on much better there, due to one or two very good teachers who helped me along, but I was still a poor worker, and came away with two very bad A levels, in Biology and English. Mine was only the second year to do A levels - I'm sure, if they hadn;t been just gagging to let anyone do them, no one would have let me near the exams at all..
Life got rapidly better for me after I left school, but
