Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

She studied all the major subjects as well as art
and theater, showing expert aptitude in all areas as
a matter of course. “I was a great student. I was a
prefect. I couldn’t get into trouble. That wasn’t a
possibility. My father and mother couldn’t afford to
send me to that school; our company sent me to that
school. I was an extension of my father’s dignity. I
had to do every single thing correctly, have great
grades, be a prefect, be house captain, do
everything that had to be done, learn French, learn
Spanish, learn Italian. That was my job. The only
thing that was of any importance in our house was
having a function.”
This isn’t to say that Angie avoided trouble. Her
natural inquisitiveness and rebellious spirit often put
her at odds with the more provincial aspects of her
faith. “Catholic school was a nightmare,” she says. “I
couldn’t stand the smell. It smelled of peanut butter
and plastic.”
When she was seven she was caught being
kissed by a neighbor, incurring the rage of her
otherwise good-natured father. “I got beaten within a
fuckin’ inch of my life by my father,” she says. “He
came back from work and found me with this boy
Billy McDonald. Billy said to me, ‘Oh, come into the
woodshed,’ and I guess he tried to kiss me. Billy was
sent off. My father was just the most wonderfully wellread
and pleasant man I had ever come across, but
his face had become like a monster and he chased
me into the house. The company, Cyprus Mining
Corp., used to provide all the furniture. The bed that