But boys and girls began to come up to me in the playground bringing handfuls of leaves and berries. ‘Eat this!’ they would demand, thrusting something – a dock leaf or a dandelion – towards me and I would eat whatever they waved in my face. I had to. I remember how some leaves burned my tongue and how horrible some of the berries tasted. However, I did not hesitate for a moment. I found out, years later, that the teachers at school knew what was going on out in the playground, but none of them interfered, though for all they knew some of the leaves and berries I was eating could have been poisonous. Once again that school playground seemed to stretch itself out all the way between school and my home. ‘Eat this! Eat this!’ other children cried as we walked home, thrusting out their grass and leaves and berries, and I would chew and then swallow whatever they offered me.
Chasing a witch with a poisonous bite can become a little boring after a while and so can the sight of someone eating leaves and drinking out of puddles. But just as other children were growing tired of seeing me eat leaves I accidentally did something that excited them all over again. I ate a leaf without noticing something that other children were already well aware of There was a caterpillar clinging to that particular leaf. If I had seen that caterpillar, I might have rescued it. Who knows? I might even have told the other children that I could talk caterpillar language. As it was, I just crammed the leaf into my mouth and ate it, caterpillar and all. Within a second other children were leaping around me screaming, ‘Ugh! Ugh! She ate a caterpillar!’ Well, I don’t really blame them.
There was no way I could enjoy what was happening to me. Indeed I hated it. It was so different from what I had imagined it would be like when I began to invent my story. Certainly, I had not turned into the mysterious and wonderful creature speaking animal language I had imagined I might be. Instead, I had become a school fool, eating leaves and caterpillars and drinking dirty water – and it was all my own fault.
Troubled times seem to go on and on. But nothing, not even a bad time, lasts forever. After a while, in spite of the caterpillar excitement, the other children lost interest in seeing me eat leaves. As for me, I fell silent. For many years I said nothing more about my magical powers. Instead, I began writing stories in little notebooks. I would go home and sit in my room scribbling tales about beautiful wild horses, and children who lived adventurous lives with pirates and gangs of outlaws. I had successfully woven my way into story-life after all, but I had to do that weaving shut away in my own room, just as I do today.
Trying to turn myself into a witch with a poisonous bite, or a child who could talk the language of animals, did not take up much of my school time. I suppose it was really only a matter of a few weeks here and there. However, whenever anyone asks me whether I enjoyed school or not, the first thing that I remember is trying out those impossible stories on other children who were all too sensible to believe me. And I also remember being part of the playground chorus tormenting that girl in the shelter-shed.
I learned a lot at school – I learned to read and write, and I learned the multiplication tables – things which I use every day. But I also learned how stories can work in the world. The odd thing is that nowadays, when I watch the news on television, it seems to me that heads of many countries are trying hard to make everyone else believe that they are the true heroes of the world’s stories, and that other countries around them are ruled by villains. I haven’t yet seen any prime minister or president eating grass…but who knows? They tell powerful stories and then have to prove them, so one of these days they might do just that.
Mount Everest
ROBERT SWINDELLS was in the RAF for three years, then had a variety of jobs including shop assistant, clerk, printer and engineer. He trained as a teacher, the taught for eight years before becoming a full-time writer. He won the children’s Rights Workshop Other Award for Brother in the Land which also won again for Room 13 and, in the shorter novel category, for Nightmare Stairs. He won the Carnegie Medal for Stone Cold and the Angus Book Award for Unbeliever.
Piggo Wilson was an eleven-plus failure. We all were at Lapage Street Secondary Modern School, or Ecole Rue laPage as we jokily called it. Eleven-plus was this exam kids used to take in junior school. It was crucial, because it more or less decided your whole future. Pass eleven-plus and you qualified for a grammar school education, which meant you went to a posh school where the kids wore uniforms and got homework and learned French and Latin and went on trips to Paris. At Grammar School you left when you were sixteen to start a career, or you could stay on till you were eighteen and go to university. Fail eleven-plus and you were shoved into a Secondary Modern School where you wore whatever happened to be lying around at home and learned reading, writing and woodwork. You couldn’t get any qualifications and you left on your fifteenth birthday and got a job in a shop or factory. Not a career: a job.
One of the rottenest things about being an eleven-plus failure was that you knew you’d let your mum and dad down. Everybody’s parents hoped their kid would pass and go to the posh school. Some offered bribes: pass your eleven-plus son, and we’ll buy you a brand new bike. Others threatened: fail your eleven-plus son, and we’ll drag yer down the canal and drown yer. But grammar school places were limited and there were always more fails than passes.
It wasn’t nice, knowing you were a failure. Took some getting used to, especially if your best friend at junior school had passed. You’d go and call for him Saturday morning same as before, only now his mum would answer the door and say, ‘Ho, hai’m hafraid William hasn’t taime to come out and play: he’s got his Latin homework to do.’ William. It was Billy before the exam. You’d call round a few more times, then it’d dawn on you that you wouldn’t be playing with William any more. Grammar School boy, see: can’t be seen mixing with the peasants.
Most kids took it badly one way or another, but it seemed to bear down particularly heavily on Piggo. The rest of us compensated by jeering at the posh kids, whanging stones at them or beating them up, but that didn’t satisfy Piggo. What he started doing was telling these really humungous lies about himself. He’d stroll into the playground Monday mornings and say something like, ‘Went riding Saturday afternoon with my grandad, bagged a wildcat.’ He’d say it with a straight face as well, even though everybody knew he’d never been anywhere near a horse in his life and wildcats lived in Scotland. In fact if you pointed this out he’d say, ‘Yes, that’s where we rode to, Scotland.’ Or we’d be listening to Dick Barton on the wireless and he’d say, ‘My dad’s a special agent too, y’know: works with Barton now and then.’ If you pointed out that Dick Barton was a fictional character he’d wink and tell you that was Barton’s cover story. He couldn’t help it, old Piggo: he needed to feel he was special to make up for everybody else seeing him as a failure.
Anyway that’s how things were, and by and by it got to be 1953. There was something special about 1953, even at Lapage Street Secondary Modern School, because of two momentous events which took place that year. One was the coronation of the young Queen Elizabeth at Westminster Abbey. ‘My cousin’ll be there,’ claimed Piggo, ‘she’s a lady-in-waiting.’ ‘She’s a lady in Woolworth’s,’ said somebody: a correction Piggo chose to ignore.
The other momentous event was the conquest of Mount Everest. For decades, expeditions from all over the world had battled to reach
