8 of 24 - The Road to Chudleigh, Summer 1972
By the time I was fourteen my parents had moved out of the sleepy village and into town and were contemplating another move into Devon so that my father could start a new job as a corn merchant, a semi-autonomous role that was a real step up the ladder for him. It was decided that when they left, I would go into lodgings so that I could stay in my school. I never really enjoyed school that much, certainly not secondary school. I tended towards disruptive behavior and smartassery and must have been a right trial for the teaching staff. For a while I was put into the remedial class, presumably as a kind of short sharp shock, an attempt to shame me into good behavior. Of course, it didn’t work because I found that in the remedial class, I was hilariously funny, much funnier than I was in the mainstream classroom and could create even more disruption than before. I stayed around for my CSEs which I think occurred before the easter break, but I didn’t go back to school after the east...