Well, peeps, here I am again, whinging on about issues, which to some of you are simply not relevant. Call me prudish, call me boring, call me an old timer, call me anything you want (well anything within reason - as long as you leave the country thereafter and I can’t gain access to disengage your blood supply or rip out your tonsils) then go ahead call me what you want. But what I am about to say has to be said.
Even though it is a long and distant memory, a rather painful one actually, I can remember the first time I went to Secondary school and all the emotions that went with this experience. I remember quite clearly how daunting my first day was. Believe it or not, I was a rather naive, timid and shy individual who hardly spoke. Can’t stop me from chatting now though – I can chat for the whole of Barbados. Back then if someone said “Freak - get lost smallie” I’d think they wanted to be my friend and that by saying this to me was some sort of initiation or friendship test. I didn’t actually realise that this was supposed to be a warning that I was not popular, that I would never be their friend and that if I didn’t take heed, there was the chance of me getting my head kicked in.
One of the reasons why I wasn’t popular was the way I dressed. The other issue was that my parents were from Barbados, and I was known as “small island.” Still can’t work out how that affected who I was as an individual, but they say ignorance is bliss. At least my name was not something like Babatundi, or Sunday because that was a serious offence back then and the name in itself determined that you were ostracised in school for life.
What I can clearly remember, as I am sure many of you old timers can relate to, was the School Uniform. There was nothing “designer” or remotely attractive about this attire, I can tell you. My parents had us going to school looking like we’d just walked out of a convent and to try and even say “I ain’t wearing dat” – well you know where the swelling would be sitting for the next week or so.
Also, don’t know about you, but we did the pleated skirt thing to death. I am sure all you Pentecostal-Church-going-babes would understand where I am coming from, because I know they were part of your church attire too back in the day. It seems that the longer and drier and more boring we looked, the easier it would be for us to get into heaven. And if those skirts were any longer, road sweepers would’ve been out of business. But God bless my parents, on the whole I think they did really well. They were the sort of people whose pride went before our fall and it was their duty to make sure in a very practical, Christian way that we looked tidy and smart everyday. It didn’t matter that we looked as if we were part of some insane religious sect, who should be living in the remotest part of the Antarctic. The option to add or detract from the school uniform was certainly out of the question. If my school tie was not correctly positioned and sitting rather nicely and tidily in the centre of my shirt collar, then the Head Teacher would have me standing in a corner reciting Shakespeare. Even the Head Teachers back then did not mess around. Mine wore a black cloak like Batman, but he was more like the Joker believe me, crazy with the discipline thing and if he smiled at you, well you knew your parents had received a phone call and were on their way to the school and that was before he put a cane to your backside. Now the done way to do the tie back then was to have it so tight up your oesophagus that if you sneezed you could easily split your eardrums. But then again other than our school clothes, we were very well dressed, all kitted out in the same styles and very smart. Apparently we were the envy of many.
I certainly could cope to a certain degree with the clothing, but when it came to the footgear, that was another ball game altogether, because the shoe thing was not a joke. Trying to stifle laughter whilst mother or father were purchasing footgear, was enough to condemn us to the front of church on Sunday morning. There we would sit in our pretty ruffle, ruffle rara, rara dresses with matching headbands and socks and our newly purchased laced up Rhino-styled shoes with 4 inch soles. Can you imagine how ashamed we often felt because even though all the other children would be wearing heels that they could barely walk in, and who were already sporting a myriad of corns and bunions, at least their shoes looked like shoes. I guess the bonus here for us was that these shoes gave us a little height.
Excerpt Taken From Laugh At Life With Me: Volume III,
