Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2016 5:20:44 GMT
Introduction
Fake Interviewer - So, planetdave, how did it all begin?
planetdave - There was this big explosion...
FI - you know what I mean
pd - I saw a light and then someone smacked me
FI - *sigh*
Chapter One. Once upon a time on a planetdave far, far away.....
pd - bear with me, this is going to pass through so many tangents you'll need a sat-nav to find your way home.
My dad wanted a big house. East Manchester had a plethora of coal mines, several of them were on fire (actually one big fire, they had connecting galleries) and were abandoned. That meant that the area manager of the collieries was removed and his house was put up for sale.
This bit is genius. We moved into one of the biggest houses in the area when a lot of the population lost their reasonably paid jobs, with consequent poverty. That made growing up in the area a bit uncomfortable at times.
FI - so you got bullied a lot?
pd - not exactly. I was fairly popular in primary school, with the boys, because I was good at football. That was VERY important.
FI - when was this?
pd - the 60's. I was born in 1961.
FI - you were good at football. What else was going on?
pd - they were strange times. The class size was always about 40, one teacher and no assistants. They were so busy dealing with the ones who couldn't read or write (dyslexia etc not known at that time) that the rest of us were ignored, pretty much.
I did really well when supervised but stared out of the window the rest of the time, actually looking inside my own head, which was much more interesting.
The 'strange times' thing - we were taught things that are completely alien today. It was assumed that the English were the best people ever, all the isms were rampant - I don't think I saw a non white person till I was eight.
FI - why did you mention that?
pd - I'm getting to it. I played football. I also hung out with the geeks playing 'mind' games, it was a tiny clique, but not persecuted. I lived in another world.
FI - that sounds like pI.
pd - yup. I was already a fair bit apart what with living in the big house. Many kids were completely at sea if invited in, amazingly deferential. I stored those memories without analysing them, because I couldn't, until later. I wasn't lonely but I didn't thrive socially; couldn't understand social dynamics.
FI - comorbid Asperger's?
pd - probably a bit. Somewhat.
FI - and then?
pd - I was eleven and my dad got a new job - we moved to Rome.
FI - cool.
Chapter Two - planetdave changes orbit
pd - it was absolutely jaw dropping. This was 1972. Travel was still exotic and I went to an international school. I went from the amazingly backward suburbs of Manchester, with casual/institutional isms, to one of the most open minded environments anywhere. School mates were from, effectively, the worlds elites - it was wall to wall ambassador's/embassy staff kids, 'United Nations' kids (The F.A.O. is a huge organisation) and sundry others from commercial concerns.
The whole thing was housed in an old seminary and had an abbey on the back of it, still in use. There was a full time doctor (possibly a paedophile), a live in janitor and a sports assistant called 'Christmas'. The janitor's son only had one hand - the school cellars had been used as a German ammunition store in WWII and hadn't been cleared out properly (H&S, what's that?!) and had found a grenade that went off without provocation. Apart from being picked up.
Sorry - got into tangent mode.
Anyhoo - I got a proper shock. Jonny foreigner was all over the place and was neither uncouth, stupid or in any way inferior. There were, for example, eleven year olds who had lived around the world, spoke six or seven languages, were chauffeured to school in six doored Mercs, were polite, cleverer that wot I woz and were ever so slightly black.
A slightly scruffy oik from the industrial suburbs of Manchester had the learned isms kicked out of him PDQ; it's pretty hard to be superior when you get invited to a sleepover at this dude's minor palace.
School was amazing - I woke up every morning wanting to get there. It was also slightly difficult - many of my classmates, the seven language types, learned those languages by living in those countries, so obviously moved on every couple of years. The death rate was also troubling, because people had money they got to do interesting things, and interesting could be dangerous - Italy in the 70's was a death trap for the unwary - definitely no H&S gone mad. There were drownings, falling off mountains, skiing accidents, car crashes, suicides, the school incinerator (big concrete chimney) fell on someone. With all the deaths, and people moving on/arriving it felt difficult to hang onto people; more alienation for the feap and weeble like me.
And the weather - going to school in shirtsleeves in December (not every year) beats being rained on every day, hands down.
FI - How was everything else?
pd - mixed. Dad was rarely home, but never had been. I didn't really get to know him till I grew up, then found out why he liked being away.
FI - Sounds ominous...
pd - he'd had an affair shortly after I was born and my parents never got over it - they fought when he was home and tried to hide it by whispering behind closed doors, but I had good ears. I just wanted it to stop
FI - but you lived in an amazing place and school was great.
pd - I had a few problems elsewhere.
FI -
pd - going out to play in the street was difficult. I was a head taller than the local kids of my age, had properly blonde hair and blue eyes, you might have well shone a searchlight on me I stuck out so much. And didn't speak much of the language. I've mentioned the isms from 60s Britain - it made 70s Italy look medieval, an incredible level of racism. And I copped for it. It was mostly insidious, because I was big and sporty - the rumour got around that I was a bit 'dangerous' because I knocked people over when playing football, they being so much smaller. And if anything got nicked - I was in the frame. I think the term is 'demonised'.
FI - another box of tissues?
pd - thanks
Chapter Three - What's that coming over the hill, is it a monster, is it a monster? Yes. Puberty AKA hell.
TBC - it will become more obviously ADHD relevant as it progresses.
Fake Interviewer - So, planetdave, how did it all begin?
planetdave - There was this big explosion...
FI - you know what I mean
pd - I saw a light and then someone smacked me
FI - *sigh*
Chapter One. Once upon a time on a planetdave far, far away.....
pd - bear with me, this is going to pass through so many tangents you'll need a sat-nav to find your way home.
My dad wanted a big house. East Manchester had a plethora of coal mines, several of them were on fire (actually one big fire, they had connecting galleries) and were abandoned. That meant that the area manager of the collieries was removed and his house was put up for sale.
This bit is genius. We moved into one of the biggest houses in the area when a lot of the population lost their reasonably paid jobs, with consequent poverty. That made growing up in the area a bit uncomfortable at times.
FI - so you got bullied a lot?
pd - not exactly. I was fairly popular in primary school, with the boys, because I was good at football. That was VERY important.
FI - when was this?
pd - the 60's. I was born in 1961.
FI - you were good at football. What else was going on?
pd - they were strange times. The class size was always about 40, one teacher and no assistants. They were so busy dealing with the ones who couldn't read or write (dyslexia etc not known at that time) that the rest of us were ignored, pretty much.
I did really well when supervised but stared out of the window the rest of the time, actually looking inside my own head, which was much more interesting.
The 'strange times' thing - we were taught things that are completely alien today. It was assumed that the English were the best people ever, all the isms were rampant - I don't think I saw a non white person till I was eight.
FI - why did you mention that?
pd - I'm getting to it. I played football. I also hung out with the geeks playing 'mind' games, it was a tiny clique, but not persecuted. I lived in another world.
FI - that sounds like pI.
pd - yup. I was already a fair bit apart what with living in the big house. Many kids were completely at sea if invited in, amazingly deferential. I stored those memories without analysing them, because I couldn't, until later. I wasn't lonely but I didn't thrive socially; couldn't understand social dynamics.
FI - comorbid Asperger's?
pd - probably a bit. Somewhat.
FI - and then?
pd - I was eleven and my dad got a new job - we moved to Rome.
FI - cool.
Chapter Two - planetdave changes orbit
pd - it was absolutely jaw dropping. This was 1972. Travel was still exotic and I went to an international school. I went from the amazingly backward suburbs of Manchester, with casual/institutional isms, to one of the most open minded environments anywhere. School mates were from, effectively, the worlds elites - it was wall to wall ambassador's/embassy staff kids, 'United Nations' kids (The F.A.O. is a huge organisation) and sundry others from commercial concerns.
The whole thing was housed in an old seminary and had an abbey on the back of it, still in use. There was a full time doctor (possibly a paedophile), a live in janitor and a sports assistant called 'Christmas'. The janitor's son only had one hand - the school cellars had been used as a German ammunition store in WWII and hadn't been cleared out properly (H&S, what's that?!) and had found a grenade that went off without provocation. Apart from being picked up.
Sorry - got into tangent mode.
Anyhoo - I got a proper shock. Jonny foreigner was all over the place and was neither uncouth, stupid or in any way inferior. There were, for example, eleven year olds who had lived around the world, spoke six or seven languages, were chauffeured to school in six doored Mercs, were polite, cleverer that wot I woz and were ever so slightly black.
A slightly scruffy oik from the industrial suburbs of Manchester had the learned isms kicked out of him PDQ; it's pretty hard to be superior when you get invited to a sleepover at this dude's minor palace.
School was amazing - I woke up every morning wanting to get there. It was also slightly difficult - many of my classmates, the seven language types, learned those languages by living in those countries, so obviously moved on every couple of years. The death rate was also troubling, because people had money they got to do interesting things, and interesting could be dangerous - Italy in the 70's was a death trap for the unwary - definitely no H&S gone mad. There were drownings, falling off mountains, skiing accidents, car crashes, suicides, the school incinerator (big concrete chimney) fell on someone. With all the deaths, and people moving on/arriving it felt difficult to hang onto people; more alienation for the feap and weeble like me.
And the weather - going to school in shirtsleeves in December (not every year) beats being rained on every day, hands down.
FI - How was everything else?
pd - mixed. Dad was rarely home, but never had been. I didn't really get to know him till I grew up, then found out why he liked being away.
FI - Sounds ominous...
pd - he'd had an affair shortly after I was born and my parents never got over it - they fought when he was home and tried to hide it by whispering behind closed doors, but I had good ears. I just wanted it to stop
FI - but you lived in an amazing place and school was great.
pd - I had a few problems elsewhere.
FI -
pd - going out to play in the street was difficult. I was a head taller than the local kids of my age, had properly blonde hair and blue eyes, you might have well shone a searchlight on me I stuck out so much. And didn't speak much of the language. I've mentioned the isms from 60s Britain - it made 70s Italy look medieval, an incredible level of racism. And I copped for it. It was mostly insidious, because I was big and sporty - the rumour got around that I was a bit 'dangerous' because I knocked people over when playing football, they being so much smaller. And if anything got nicked - I was in the frame. I think the term is 'demonised'.
FI - another box of tissues?
pd - thanks
Chapter Three - What's that coming over the hill, is it a monster, is it a monster? Yes. Puberty AKA hell.
TBC - it will become more obviously ADHD relevant as it progresses.