The Start of School
1971. I started secondary school.
At eleven years old, I had to board a train by myself to go to a school further away than I'd ever been before. Even driving to get to the train was a long distance for me. My parents drove me to London from our home in Plymouth, then I was off to Scotland on the train. It was a Scottish, private, boarding school. None of my family had been before, I only got in due to a full scholarship, so I had no idea what to expect. Other than middle/upper-class rich gits.
My sister had just gotten her driving licence at the time, so she drove half the way while our parents worried and fussed over me leaving for Scotland for months. I'd be back for the Christmas holidays, but I was only eleven at the time and had never been away from my parents for longer than a week (my friend's family invited me to a week-long holiday at Skegness when I was eight.)
Once we got to the station, my parents hugged me, checking over my suitcase, and piling my arms with snacks for the train. I hated it at the time, I was constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure no other kids were looking as I got hugged. I wanted to be so adult back then, and now I’d give anything to be a kid again. I guess that’s the way it works, we’re never satisfied no matter where we are in life, constantly jealous of whatever others are or have.
My sister, Sy, was the opposite of my parents. She didn’t give me anything, but a small piece of advice.
“Find a friend on your first day and stay with them. Don’t let yourself be alone.”
I listened to that. I mean, I was a very sociable and outgoing kid, I still am. But her words are probably the reason that when I ran into this messy, blonde girl on my first day who told me a shitty joke and promptly fell on her loose shoelace and grabbed my hand, I never let go.
Sy was the coolest person I knew at eleven. An almost eighteen-year-old, with shaved hair, leather jackets and ripped clothes held with safety pins, and piercings on every inch of her ears and face. She went out at night, I didn’t know where back then, but she drank and smoked and I had once caught her making out with her best friend in her bedroom.
So, I listened to Sy. I always listen to Sy. Even now, living on my own with my son and I still turn into that star-struck child whenever we meet up.
My parents hugged me, one last time, and I got onto the train. I found a half-full carriage of other first years to sit with; they were nice, we talked and played little games for the entire journey, but I never became friends with the group. They never really were a group of friends, just small eleven-year-olds finding people to talk to and something to do on the boring train journey, as kids do. God, I don’t even remember most of their names, and they were my first real introduction into this new world.
However, one of them was later sorted into the same house as me at school. Gryffindor. Her name was Emmeline Vance, and we grew extremely close as time went on. She was from South Korea, the rest of her family was still there. But her parents sent her to Hogwarts, having both gone there themselves, they were like alumni. She knew so much English already, I remember, I was so impressed by it. I only knew English at the time, and couldn’t speak a word of another language. She had a separate group of friends to I, but we were roommates and shared many classes together which allowed us to get to know each other very well. She was more than a friend to me, and I'll never forget her and our time together.
Once we arrived at Hogwarts, we crossed this beautiful lake, the lights from the school castle shining into the dark water. It was magical. There was a rumour of a giant squid that swam in the depths of the lake; as such, two students jumped out of their boat in search of the giant squid. Of course, the rumour wasn’t real so the two students had to swim back to shore, since the other people in their boat had rowed away, I didn’t know who they were back then, but I only realised recently the two students dumb enough to jump into the lake at night were later two friends of mine, James Potter and Sirius Black. Those two were always getting up to stupidly hilarious stuff. And my other friend and roommate were in the boat with them, rowing away so they couldn’t get back in the boat. Lily Evans. Those three were always like that for all the years I knew them, James and Sirius doing reckless things with each other, and Lily mentally rolling her eyes and berating their stupidity.
As first years, we were then sorted into our houses, randomised, where we would live together and compete against the other houses in sports and house points for good behaviour. As previously stated, I was placed in Gryffindor. The other Gryffindors in my year were Marlene Mckinnon, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and as already mentioned, Emmeline Vance, James Potter, Sirius Black, and Lily Evans. We all slowly became the best of friends over those seven years. We were practically inseparable, well some of us more than others.
After I was placed in the house of Gryffindor, the entire school held a large dinner in celebration of the start of the school year. Barely any vegetarian options, as always. James Potter and I were both vegetarians, and as we got older and spent more time having to rummage on the school tables to find vegetarian options, we started to bring in our own food. James’ parents would cook him food, packaged well so it wouldn’t spoil. And I would bring tinned food at the start of the year and buy as much as I could in the town on weekends.
It was like that with a lot of problems at our school- something was shitty so we’d find a way around it. That got harder the more we grew up, when we slowly started to discover the whole world and everything in it was shitty. We all had different reactions to the realisation. Some of us hoped to improve it, to make a difference and a change for good. And some of us gave up. I gave up the most.
And I will never forgive myself for that.