Member-only story
School Report — 1970s
(an abecedarian poem)
Adaptation is what we are all experts at now that our normal is about as comforting as vinegar in milk.
Behaviour is subdued and
Carefree times carefully counted as kids traipse back to school today
Defaced with uniform masks –
Emblems of low expectations…
Far back in time (the 70s), my school experience was also educationally
Gross!
Holding-pen conditions in a sprawling, low-rise building, surrounded by a high metal fence,
I endured my last six months of Primary School.
Jostling for space, two to a desk and chair made for one.
Knowing that break time on the square of tarmac outside would teach me
Lessons in how to be invisible — and how not to pee!
Mama mia — the toilets…
Not a cubicle or seat in sight!
Only, in a cold metal hut, a stinking wooden bench with holes that hung over brimming buckets -
Perpetually!
(Quality conditions that were mirrored across England at the time –
