On the edge

I had that not unusual experience as a child of wondering if I had been adopted. That would explain my feelings about not quite fitting into my family of origin. It got worse when I passed the 11 plus and was clearly set for University. Only my cousin Ian had been to Uni and my dad, like many Englishmen, despised intellectuals (and counsellors and social workers to boot). It probably did not help that my mother was part Welsh (and psychic) and so my teenage moods were put down to my 'bad Welsh blood'.

I could never figure out what class I belonged to and class was very important in the 1950s Britain I grew up in. My mum taught me "not to despise working class people". But in saying that she was clearly saying 'we are not working class' but she was not saying 'and so we are middle class'. And my dad would never see himself as middle class. So I got educated and then sent for elocution lessons before I went to Uni (didn't work very well, I hated them and it made me feel ashamed of my local accent).

So I have got the culture(?) and education to be middle class but...

I grew up rather quickly as my mates in the street were all 2 years older than me - I got bullied a bit as a result - and moved on from cowboys and Indians to War games ahead of my school mates. I got into reading the Guardian from aged about 13 which made things worse with my Dad and I got very political (ditto) and wanted to join CND (ditto) whilst most of my school mates were apathetic. Although I was studious at school I missed out on being bullied by the rugby players because I also drank and went to nightclubs from 16 onwards.

This stuff about class caused me not to go to Oxbridge (Oxford or Cambridge) because I knew I would not handle the class stuff there very well plus I did not want to wait an extra year to do an entrance exam. I was desperate to leave home and find my future. So any Uni I looked at had to be over 50 miles from my home and preferably in a city, so Manchester it was. I did computers because it was sexy it was a good future (I needed to know I could earn a good living) and because I peaked in Maths at 17 and because I had given up History which I loved at 16 as I did not want to be a teacher and I hated learning dates and stuff by rote.

I didn't really fit in with the tecky science scene at Uni, I loved talking in the student cafe bars and I hung out with some local anarchists and some community activists. My 3rd year project was a computer programme/dissertation was on automating council house waiting lists.

I got a job writing computer programmes in the NHS and found myself surrounded by very nice evangelical Christians. I hung out with some radical medical students but they were Marxists not anarchists and had not read R D Laing Wilhelm Reich and David Cooper who were my radical therapy heroes at the time. I remember carrying Copper's Death of the family around with me at the time.

I then found my home among the counter culture in Notting Hill and had a whale of a time with the music drugs and mysticism and helped found a radical anti psychiatry group called Cope. This was where I discovered group therapy and began to hone my writing skills.

Heck this has become rather autobiographical which was not quite where I intended it to go. I'll leave it for now and see what else is cooking later.

Bill-on-bike, enjoying the cooler weather.

As ever email me on or off blog if so moved.