Out of Sight, Out of Mind
After my first humiliating day at Fairburn School, I
figured it was best to get my head down, do as I
was told and try to fit in as much as possible. That
means I didn’t go out of my way to stand out or
make an exhibition of myself. If you doubt my
capability of remembering that far back, well, I
don’t blame you, so do I. But the caution is very
evident in this piece.
On Thursday October 11, 1979, the North Yorkshire
County Council String Orchestra visited our school
and this is just a simple write-up of what
happened. Having grown up with young parents
(they were 18 when I was born) who listened to Led
Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, classical music was alien
to me and it’s doubtful I would have heard any
played live before. The strange punctuation bears
this out. Maybe I was just having a bad day - I still
spelt most nouns with capital letters and I thought
both North-Yorkshire and County-Council were
hyphenated - but it seems I was paying attention
when someone pointed out that cello was an
abbreviation of violoncello and should therefore be
spelt with an apostrophe. It’s not a memory I
retained into adulthood though, so my discovery
that I knew this as a child is quite a surprise.
Whether I truly enjoyed the concert isn’t really
evident, though I do say the tunes were “very good”
and it’s clear I got a kick out of the jauntier material
- Plink Plank Plonk (complete with swanee whistle)
is singled out for praise. But it’s obvious I didn’t
enjoy it anywhere near as much as the other kids,
and that’s where the caution comes in. When “the
man” asks us if we want to join in, “I didn’t put my
hand up but lots of people did.” Now, this could be
just because I had no interest in music. That clearly
isn’t true. The only other conclusion I can draw is
that I really didn’t want to draw attention to myself.
The thing is, I couldn’t help standing out, mainly on
account of my hair. Though there were quite a high
proportion of blonde-haired boys at Fairburn
School, I was still the blondest boy anyone had
ever seen. I mean, this wasn’t standard blonde hair
- it was almost white. This had been a problem all
my life - adults would assume I was a girl because
boys weren’t supposed to have white hair, and kids
would just use it as an excuse to call me names -
first “Blondie”, then the slightly more creative
“Debbie Harry”, and eventually other, more hurtful
names which I’ll keep to myself for the moment,
thanks. The point is, I stood out in a crowd, which
when you factor in my weird sense of humour, my
love of sci-fi and my inability to choose the right
bag, meant I was a prime target for bullying. I’d
experienced a little of it before I came to Fairburn
and I didn’t want it to happen here. So I had to
keep my head down, shut up and fit in as much as I
possibly could.
It wouldn’t last. By the time 1980 rolled around I
was beginning to show my true colours and
eventually took my rightful place as the biggest
show-off in the village. But in this piece, the show-
offs appear to be David - who I assume must be
David Bramley, then a 4th year junior and thus one
of the oldest boys in the school, and can be seen
beaming at the back of this photograph - and
Paula, who I’m sad to say I don’t remember at all. I
wonder, if I’d never kept those photographs or
these books, how many other Fairburn kids I would
have forgotten about. I wonder if any of them
remember me.
The Orchestra of Doubt
When I first re-read this as an adult, I doubted
whether North Yorkshire County Council actually
had a string orchestra and even doubted there was
such a thing as “North Yorkshire County Council”. I
didn’t really believe the largest county in Britain
would seriously have its own council. But I was
wrong, which goes to show how much I know
about the way my country is governed. They no
longer appear to have their own orchestra* but we
lived in a semi-socialist society back then, when the
gas, electricity, water, trains and even the bloody
telephone service were state-owned. We even used
a quaint olde-worlde fuel called coal and that was
state-owned too. So of course the council had its
own taxpayer-funded orchestra.
They were clearly very good at what they did.
Playing tunes on sandpaper, making a double bass
sound like an elephant - I wonder if this is where
the 80s incarnation of King Crimson got some of
their ideas? I’m very impressed. Not so impressed
with their selection of songs for us to guess
though. Keel Row? John Brown? Early One
Morning? Never heard of them.
Finally, I wonder, what is a “lang” and why would
you write a song about its eye? Was I thinking of
Fritz Lang? Did I think it was some kind of animal?
Maybe it produced lang’s wool as well and you
could eat a nice lang chop for your Sunday dinner. I
suppose you can forgive a seven year old
Sassenach for not knowing what Auld Lang Syne
means - actually, I’m quite impressed that I knew
how to spell “auld”.
The amazing thing is, I still got a tick from the
teacher, despite the glaring error. How
marvellously easy it must have been to be a
teacher in those days, just a tick and you’re done.
My wife has to fill in all kinds of forms when she
marks books, and that’s just for four year olds.
*Since writing this article in 2010, I’ve discovered that,
although North Yorkshire County Council still doesn’t
have its own orchestra, it does in fact run a service
called the Music Hub, which works with other arts
organisations to improve the quality of local music
services.
String Orchestra
STRING ORCHESTRA PLAYLIST
Plink Plank Plunk
Hong Kong Youth
Handbell Ensemble
Three Blind Mice
The Canadian National
Film Board
Keel Row
A Bloke on a Whistle or
Flute of Some Kind
Auld Lang’s Eye
The European
Parliament
HISTORY 1
Sept 1979 - Oct 1981
FAIRBURN
The place where I wrote
all this rubbish
TERM 1
A day-by-day account of
Waen’s first term at
Fairburn School
TERM 2
The birth of the 1980s -
Blake’s 7, Blondie and
battles in space
The Fugitive
A man runs - but who is
he? And what is he
running from?
The Flame in the
Desert
An evil fire threatens
the safety of the world