An old Imperial typewriter and an imagination far beyond my years nearly got me expelled from secondary school

My interest in writing came long before any interest in photography.

I was bought an old Imperial typewriter when I was about 9 years old. It was big, black and extremely heavy. I taught myself to touch-type and by the time I went to secondary school at the age of 11 where they actually taught typing, I was able to type 35 words per minute.

I failed my 11 plus on purpose because I didn’t want to go to a grammar school where I wouldn’t know anyone. The last laugh was on me though, because I had excelled in English and Maths during my final year at primary school I was put into one of the top classes at secondary school – where I didn’t know anyone.


I was a bit of a tomboy and as a consequence I knew lots of boys who were friends, as opposed to boyfriends, and the girls at school were not impressed. I found myself the victim of what today would be recognised as bullying. Girls wouldn’t talk to me, they wouldn’t sit next to me in class, and because I didn’t have any girls to hang out with at break time I hung out with the boys, which only made things worse. I remember going to a teacher, feeling completely miserable and isolated and trying to explain what was going on. Her response: ‘I can’t make people talk to you, why don’t you try harder to make friends?’ In my 11 year old mind what she said was right, but what the girls were doing felt wrong, the two thoughts were irreconcilable. I tried bringing in money for biscuits in break and sharing them out. In effect trying to buy some friendship. When the biscuits were gone so were they. I learned very early on that you can never buy true friendship.

At home, after school I continued to use my old typewriter to write stories. One girl from primary who had sort of stuck by me by being my friend when no-one else was around fancied a boy from another year, so I wrote a short story about her and this boy. It was only about 500 words detailing a very corny and romantic encounter in the park. I gave it to her at school the next day, and she loved it. She showed another girl who came up to me at break time and asked if I could write a story about her and the boy she fancied. Within weeks, I had 5 girls who wanted me to write stories about them and the boys they fancied or were going out with. It started to get time consuming. Every evening I would have tea then go to my room and write. I was never short of ideas, just short of time, so I started to serialise the stories. Instead of writing complete stories for each girl I wrote stories the left with a cliff-hanger. They were desperate to get the next instalment, and suddenly I was popular. Girls would argue over whose turn it was to sit next to me. I was never alone, and even had a sleepover with one of the most popular girls of my year.

I have always had a good imagination, and it was this that would eventually get me into deep trouble. My fan club had grown to a dozen or so girls. Each girl would get chapter 1 on Monday and the final chapter on Friday. Every weekend I would work out new plots for each girl. When the object of their desire changed I would write the old boy out and the new boy in.

At the tender age of 12½ I had developed a writing style that was, shall we say, inappropriate for someone of my tender years. I hadn’t even kissed a boy but was able to write some rather steamy stuff, simply from my imagination and bits that I had seen and heard on TV. My ‘friends’ loved it, in fact part of the buzz was writing stuff that would shock them, and I did that with some considerable success. At break time everyone would congregate in a quiet area in school and read their respective stories, the more they giggled and blushed the more I liked it.

Then came the phone call. My mother was summoned to see the headmaster. He was a formidable man, who only saw parents or students when they were in trouble, and boy was I in trouble. Apparently, a teacher had confiscated notes that were being passed around the class by a group of girls during an art lesson. Only they weren’t notes, they were stories, my stories. Of course, my ‘friends’ took no time at all in explaining that they didn’t write them and giving the name of the author to the headmaster.

Strangely, the headmaster never spoke to me. He just gave my mother an ultimatum. If I write any of that ‘disgusting rubbish’ again, I would be expelled.
My mother, a fairly straight laced woman, was mortified. Her obvious shame would have been punishment enough, but with no more stories being written my popularity reached an all time low. Low level rumours circulated, that maybe I was writing from experience and not imagination after all.

In September of the year when I was 14 years old, I went back to school after the summer holidays, only to find that I had been dropped down into a class and not a friendly face could be seen. I spent that first morning in school trying to work out how I was going to cope with yet another miserable year. I went home for lunch and never went back.