'Who wants to be locked into a room with 30 people dressed just like them,to be startled by a bell every 35 minutes, to queue for lunch for 40 minutes and be made to stand external in the cold twice a day?' Jenn Ashworth most definitely did not…We were watching Family Fortunes. I was 11 a late-blooming August baby who looked more like a nine-year-faded. A Sunday evening: the end of my first week at high school. It was darkish: my dad liked to believe the big lights off and only one of the fringed table lamps on at a time, and either because the dimness made it easier to see the telly or because he wanted to save money on the electricity bill. I remember,certainly, lying on the sofa under a red tartan blanket that smelled like the car and the dog, and it being a few minutes before my mum noticed I was crying.
She asked what was mistaken. I gave her the simplest answer I could assume of: I didn't want to travel to school. What should I believe said? That my rucksack wasn't right? The other girls had different sorts of socks? My hair wouldn't stay inside the clips? This sort of thing came up later as I searched for a reason they could accept,but the truth is that it started with a feeling I still believe difficulty putting into words. I hated it.
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Source: theguardian.com