The Greatest Social Injustice of the 20th Century Part 2

Part 2. The Shard of Broken Glass

I grew up in rural North Yorkshire. It was a lovely way to spend a childhood and a beautiful place to live, if very rural. The nearest town was 12 miles away and transport links were scant and mistrusted. There was no live music or live comedy. There was livestock but that is not as good. All our school field trips were trips to actual fields, to help out with the Spring harvest because farmer Mansfield had got drunk off moonshine scrumpy and accidentally ripped off both legs off in a threshing machine again.

Ol' Clumsy Mansfield was just one of the many, what were kindly referred to as “characters”.

I also remember a time when a young teacher, who had grown up in a town, came to teach IT and all the parents were so suspicious of his computer that they put him in a giant wicker man shaped like a Commodore 64 and only let him out again when he gave some trinkets he'd bought from a nearby Morrison’s to the village elders in a bizarre three hour ceremony involving candles, twelve virgin goats and an effigy of popular entertainer Robson Green.

One of my school friends was at such a loss for something to do one summer that he spent the whole holiday digging a big hole in his garden and then when it was finished he just went and sat in it and drank Babycham he'd stolen from his parents drinks cabinet. 

(I'm not even joking about that last one, my mum came to pick me up one day and found us both in this massive, unstable crater in the ground and told me I couldn't go round there any more and that one day I'd understand why, that day has arrived.)

But I digress in a way that sets the scene...

The greatest social injustice of the 20^th century (yes including that one) happened when I was in year 7. I was happily walking from Remedial Calf Birthing on my way to Applied Being Suspicious of Outsiders when I noticed a small piece of glass on the floor, possibly from a bottle, possibly not. Being a conscientious little boy, I picked up the piece of glass and took it over to the bin to safely dispose of it. Pausing only to jokingly threaten one of my best friends in a way that was clearly a joke and only a stupid, and probably now ex maths teacher, would ever misconstrue as anything else.

So half an hour later I was sitting alone in the headmistresses office, teary eyed and scared. I had a form in front of me and had been instructed to write my own account of why I had been pulled out of lessons for threatening to murder a fellow student in cold blood with a broken shard of glass that, as far as Mrs Harborne could tell, I had smashed myself. I was only 11 but even I knew things had looked better. 

I was scared, confused and annoyed and in no state to come up with a witty, sardonic response like that one about making an ass out of you and me. So I wrote a pathetic whimpering apology to all concerned and explained that I was a nice boy really.

But I've had 14 solid years of stewing the bitter curds of resentment and fermenting the curdled grapes of injustice. I've been supping shame from the broken cup of heartache and chewing on the couscous of misery. For pudding I've been dining alone on a flambéed banana of psychological scarring and vomiting back up cheese course after cheese course of mistrust of authority figures. 

It is an unsatisfying meal filled only with the empty calories of hurt and of no nutritional value.

To exorcise my demons I have written a letter to my old school. I am hopeful this will put right the greatest injustice of the 20^th century (still yes).

Dear Mrs Harborne and Mr Byrne,

Hello. Gareth here. You probably don't remember me because I came to what you call a secondary school in 2001 and then left again in 2003 to move to Birmingham. The reason I am writing to you in newspaper cuttings and blood is to rectify the greatest injustice of the 20^th century (yes including that one) where you gave me detention and sent me home early for allegedly threatening a child with glass.

I have several problems with your accusation. First right, why would I even want to stab my friend Harry? As far as I can recall we were like best mates and got on like a house on fire. And even if I did want to do him harm why would I wait upon a chance encounter with a tiny piece of glass by the netball courts? I find it insulting that you think I would take such a slapdash approach to a brutal playground shanking. I find it insulting that you considered me not only a potential psychotic killer but the sort of incompetent, ad-hoc psychotic killer that stumbles upon their opportunity without thinking it through.

I don't know if you've read We Need to Talk about Kevin but in it Kevin doesn't just stumble across his weapon on the way to his lessons, and think “fuck it, when in Rome.” He premeditates the whole thing. He really puts some thought into it and does it based on a symbolic moment from his childhood in a satisfying literary device. That's what I would do if I was going to do a high school massacre. But I wasn't going to do one anyway.

 

Also while we're on the subject maybe if the Dinner Ladies that you employed had been doing their bloody job rather than smoking rollies round the back of cricket pavilion and bitching about their ex husbands this whole sorry situation would never have happened. Maybe it was ill advised to pick up the glass myself but come on, I was 11 years old and they were in their forties probably.

The problem, Mrs. Harborne, is that you saw me with a shard of glass and assumed the worst. And what happens when you assume? That's right, you make an ass out of you and me. You also generalised the children in your care as thugs. And what happens when you generalise? That's right, they're general lies.

Fortunately I'm not the litigious, violent or arsonist type otherwise you'd currently be finding yourself in a whole world of pain, lawsuits and fire. What you may not know is that I write an incredibly successful and popular blog, and I doubt my legions of fans are going to be happy when they hear what happened to me. I don't wish to alarm or threaten you so all I'll say is "Rodney King". I think you know what I mean.

All I require is a full apology in writing and I will call them off.

Thank you for your attention, or whatever the Yorkshire equivalent of attention is. Being arrogant yet surly probably.

Yours

Tedious Clown (Gareth Edwards from class 1b)