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Updates -------------- March 13?th 2005 - About Me Part 1

I was born a poor black child.... What a way to start, ripping off Steve Martin with my very first sentence in this section.  This is a little odd - its the first time I've ever attempted to write an "About Me" section, despite dallying with my own pages for quite a few years now.  But I'm going to give it a try, to give you some context so you can maybe see how I got to this point in my life.

?I was born in April of 1981, to Lesley Denise Thompson.  The timing of my birth was less than fortunate for my mother however, as it was the nigh?t of the?? ????Eurovision Song contest? and my birth caused my parents to miss this special occassion, special bec??ause? Bucks Fizz were destined to take home the gold that evening?.  Despite this rocky start, I survived my first night on Earth and began on the journey that brought me here, writing this paragraph.

I had a relatively normal first couple of years I guess, I don't remember much of what happened, other than sticking my hand into a fire to prove to my parents that it wasn't dangerous, and  there was no need for their constant warnings of "Danger!"  Despite the severe injury that followed, I managed to leave my youngest years without any major damage and was sent to the local school; St Silas' Junior School.  As a pupil I excelled at Primary School, regularly attaining the highest marks in each subject, a hard-working, intelligent and pleasant boy.  Despite these laudable qualities I nevertheless found myself at the mercy of the school bullies.  Whilst I used to dread going to school for fear of what they may do to me, the lure of academia proved to much and I was resigned to a life of torment.  Eventually, both my parents and teachers saw and recognised what was happening to me, and were completely ineffectual at actually helping me in any way whatsoever.  Not that they didn't try to help, they were just unable to.  It wasn't until a close friend of mine saw just how upset I was that things turned around.  Steven, who I had known for many years displayed the most enviable qualities of compassion and a highly developed moral sense.  Despite being younger than the gang of bullies, and despite being highly outnumbered, he stood up to them and taught them a lesson that they never forgot, punctuated with a warning to leave me alone.  I still believe that this was the moment in my life when I recognised the value and importance of friendship, its something I have never forgotten and explains why I place such significance on friends and how they make you who you are. The rest of primary school passed without incident, other than a fractured arm caused by my own stupidity (and again, Steven was the one looking after me) and one or two dalliances with girls.  Even at this age when the concept of a girlfriend is something not seriously grasped, I had a vague understanding of the importance a person in that position would come to have in my life.  Unfortunately, my heading to Secondary School, whilst anticipated on the one hand, was also accompanied by a sadness that I would not be spending my formative years with Steven, as he was going to QEGS. In September of 1992 (possibly) I arrived for the first time at Pleckgate High School (Now Pleckgate City Centre College For Learning And Development Institute or some other such bollocks), feeling excited, but a little on edge.  I had no Steven to look after me, so I was forced to try and make things work myself.  Initially I began my Secondary School career in much the same way as Primary School - an intelligent, hardworking and polite young man.  I soon realised however, that this raised the ire of many of my fellow students, who saw intelligence as a disease and in order to avoid too much of their negative attentions I began to "tone down" my level of academic accomplishment, putting less and less effort into any work that I produced.  Pleckgate was not a place for academic achievement though, it was a place where I met my friends who would be wth me for a long time to come.  Maths lessons with Terrence and English lessons with Richard showed me the importance of the rules of comedy, and together we discovered why things are funny, what it is that makes them funny.  Evenings were often spent with Henry, through a shared love of video games we became fast friends.  Similarly, Peck was an important part of who I was, and the vast majority of the rest of time at secondary school was spent with him.  As the years passed, we became closer as a group of friends and demonstrated a real understanding of who we were - the intelligensia who had interests outside of achieving high marks.  I had still been spending time with Steven during evenings and at the weekend, and he was soon accepted into this group of friends, despite attending a different school, a school which was often the butt of our primitive jokes and social commentaries.  This was the beginning of what was to become "The Massive", and for the first time in my life I felt I had a place in the world.

From the ages of 11-16, my life was more than this group of friends and school.  Through another (smaller and far less important) group of friends I came to realise and understand the idea of differing personas.  Whilst I only saw these people irregularly, and very rarely in the company of my other friends (Only Steven met any of these people, and even then only once or twice) I felt that there was another place where I could feel comfortable, and it was a place where I could be different; cooler.  It was (even at the time) an interesting and diverting social experiment, but it eventually led to perhaps one of the most traumatising experiences of my life.  Perhaps this was the first time that I saw my outgoing nature as a problem, as it attracted the attention of an older and far more experienced girl.  You can see where this is going, so I will spare you the disturbing details.  Nevertheless, that party was the last time I hung out with them.

I achieved respectable grades upon completing my GCSEs, not as good as my friends' but good enough to get me into college.  When it comes to my exams however, the grades were not what filled me with the pride, no my greatest achievement was managing to fit a Monty Python quote into every exam paper.  A task there that sums me up far better than anything else I can put up here.  It shows the nerdiness, the confidence, the brazen cheek and the desire to be noticed, remembered and associated with laughter.  School was finished, and now I was on to the next chapter: A-Levels and College.

John: The College Years