A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

was excused from rugby, I was punished by the music teacher for persistent lateness in
getting to his class after the p.e. lesson (it took me longer to get changed back into school
uniform) - most people accepted me as I was, or at least did not make an issue of my
impairments. I had friends, I got on with things, I enjoyed mucking about. During my second
term a boy named Ralph Bullock, a 4 th Year, joined our dormitory. Bullock found
entertainment in mimicking my speech, and this became a regular after „lights out‟ activity
joined in by others. I would often end up in tears.
In school lessons, where much time was spent copying masters‟ scrawl from blackboards, I
found myself unable to keep up with the rest of the class as a result of the slowness in my
left hand, and what had to be copied out was usually wiped off before I had finished getting
it down. I ended up trying to copy from the exercise book of whoever I was sitting next to,
which inevitably caused friction. I eventually gave up bothering to try and spent lessons
concentrating upon finding other forms of diversion, usually involving trying to entertain the
rest of the class. I began to find myself a frequent visitor to the junior headmaster who would
give me a stern talking to and ask what had become of the nice boy who had joined the
school.
My attitude towards school and to life in general became progressively worse. While the
term cripple was a fairly generally-used term of abuse, I would fight anybody who used the
word to me. As the school placed high value upon physical achievement and prowess in
sports, I found myself excluded from approved paths for gaining distinction, and resorted to
making my mark in subordinate ways.
It was at the end of a class cross country race towards the end of 1977 that I came to the
sudden realisation that I was never going to be better and that the day when nobody would
ever be able to tell that I had been in an accident was never going to happen. That this me,
the damaged me, was the only self I was ever going to know. All the rest of my class, who
had reached the school gates long before I reached the top of Hamilton Road and came round
the corner, were gathered to applaud my perseverance. I decided I was sick of it. I did not
want to be known for my infirmities and would be known instead for being disruptive
(Cameron, 2006).
Distancing myself from association with disabled people was not very difficult during my
teenage years as I very rarely came into contact with anyone I would have considered
disabled. Apart from one 6 th former when I started in the 2 nd year, I cannot remember a
single disabled boy at the school during the years 1976-1982. As the school had a roll of
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