Hey!! Teacher!!

What is real and what is not real? When I was quite young. I saw the film Chariots of the Gods, based on Eric Von Daniken's book, at what was probably the Saturday morning cinema – a regular showing of roughly child friendly films. However I was badly frightened by one film the details of which I have forgotten. The one nightmarish scene I do remember – they were trying to force a man to sit in a strange seating contraption. Perhaps this echoed my fear of being gassed at the dentist. I was anxious that I was going to be shown that film again each time I subsequently went. I had the gift and curse of being highly sensitive.

Having seen that charlatan Von Daniken's rather lurid film, I was of course convinced of the part played by extraterrestrials in building all the Egyptian pyramids and their flying machines being clearly depicted in ancient stone reliefs. The Nazca lines in Peru where obviously landing strips for spaceships. I excitedly went home to share these marvels. I remember that words of caution where expressed, since my parents were solid people, generally grounded in reality.

There was something mysterious in the air called “the facts of life”and the question was “do you know them?” I was eventually told the facts of life by a peer at primary school -“The man puts his willie up the woman's bum.” This sounded reasonable but really meant nothing to me – probably useful to know- but really had no relevance to my daily life. So I didn't waste time dwelling on this; it really didn't register. This was despite my fascination with Natural History. My concerns where more prosaic “What's for lunch?”- being the most important question at school on a daily basis.

 Maybe my dislike of cows milk was because I had been breast fed, as my mother was proud to tell me. Having got through the trauma of forcing down the morning milk ration. (can you imagine it curdled on a hot day?) The what's for lunch? question was crucial, because it was the difference between some horror- or something to look forward to throughout the long, long morning. Treacle sponge and custard comes to mind. We were forced to eat our dinner for fear of punishment. ultimately you could be slippered so you hoped for a kind hearted dinner lady who would let you chuck the offending parts. In short -life went on.

 During the last year of primary school – that question came up again. My knowledge base was rudely updated. I repeated the facts as I understood them.....“No that's not right – it goes up the women's front.” I was shocked and for a moment my world swam before my eyes. Shocked and rather disgusted at the same time. Reality was creeping in. The adult world beckoned. Women had been mothers, girls at school were tolerated or avoided. Holding hands with a girl during our walking trains outside school was an humiliation to be avoided. The nuns were a mysterious and special category of female.

These highly imaginative phases, where more like possessions. Please remember that I did not yet have fully functioning critical faculties. All the current identity bending palaver reminds me that when I was very young I had an overwhelming desire to be a dog.

Possibly two films had fired my imagination: The Legend of Lobo (1962) about a wolf and The incredible journey* (1963) about a Siamese cat, a Bull Terrier and a Labrador Retriever on a trek across the Canadian Wilderness. They are stirring stories of survival and full of pathos.

My parents told me that at about this time I had started walking with a limp – they didn't press me about it – thinking “oh that's just Rich” they didn't rush me to a child psychologist. Anyway I only kept it up for one week; I stopped limping having proved some sort of point; it was just a phase.

I believe that the limping was because during The Incredible Journey, Luath, the Labrador retriever, sustained a leg injury. I identified so strongly with this courageous and wounded animal. My friend Colin and I would crawl about in our road generally being dog like, I can even remember drinking out of puddles. I was perhaps carrying things a bit too far.

I had a recurrence of this phenomena after I started primary school. By this time I had made progress and now found my identity with Native American Indians. So I decided that was what I was. I told all my class mates that I had grown up in a North America tribe – I didn't feel I needed to explain how I ended up at a Catholic primary school in Twickenham. Again I identified with a tough survival story.

I think the split was 50/50 on whether I was believed or not. I wasn't lying exactly – I knew it wasn't really true, but I felt that it should be. I think that's OK for an 8 year old – maybe highly debatable post puberty. But I had no expectation of adults conniving with my fantasy. The pervading culture of the time gave me no expectation that my claim to be a dog or an Indian would be supported by the adults in the room.

One day we had a student teacher filling in and she was asking the class which countries they had originated from. I was dreading her asking me – for obvious reasons – I stood at the book shelve – trying to be inconspicuous; or rather trying to disappear. What the hell was I going to say? I was lucky on this occasion. I am not sure that this sensibility of mine to create such powerful imaginings was necessarily the best foundation for life in the painful growing up process. Any stoicism was going to be hard won.

During the final years of primary school the Apollo moon missions had really captured the nations imagination. Phillip and I were going much further than the moon – Venus in fact. We designing our space ship. Venus was a paradise where nobody wore clothes. During class we would spend our time flying our space ship. "Increase full consumption" commanded Phillip, and our desk would raise alarmingly at a 45 degree angle. Miss Durban moved us to the front of the class to keep us grounded. I was at the time possessed by C S Lewis's science fiction books. His description of the naked green lady on Perilandra (Venus) was my first literary and vaguely erotic experience. The other was when Colin and I found a girlie mag on some waste ground.

We tend to believe adults when we are younger because they are adults and they have authority. They tell us things with great confidence even when they are wrong.

Neither was a later history teacher correct. It is true that Catherine the Great of Russia was very fond of the boys but she didn't die whilst “accommodating a horse.” Fake news is not new, it just spreads more rapidly. And by the way...in the Middle Ages people didn't think the world was flat – they may have been medieval, but they were not generally stupid.

In my fantasies I was straddling the twilight zone- between fantasy and reality that makes childhood so magical. Childhood should be a special time, they shouldn't be wrapped in cotton wool – they are resiliant but do not mess with their brains and burden them with ideas that don't belong in the classroom.

As I write this Ed Millibean has just popped up on you tube indoctrinating some wide eyed children with a “be kind” mantra tied into Climate Change awareness . Meanwhile ignorant ideologically driven teachers are indoctrinating our children with the woke mind virus. Children are impressionable like sponges. We can't control what influences them but we can keep political ideologies out of primary school.

Stop messing with their minds!

* Based on an excellent novel by Sheila Burnford