The Scavenger

For my last two years of regular schooling, I attended my father's old school Kelly College, on the edge of the moors in Devon. It was my first experience with boarding school and living away from home, and yet I fell into the new lifestyle quite easily. I'd got used to amusing myself with solitary pursuits, and this was simply a new location to do so.

During my first year there, the few girls were somewhat segregated from the boys, with studies in a separate building and dormitories in a large house a couple of miles from the main school. In the second year, however, we were more integrated with the female pupils divided up among the regular houses - I ended up in Newton House sharing a study room with Sue and Kate, one of several 2-3 person rooms in a long corridor. As the only girls around, you'd think we'd have been incredibly popular, but that was not really the case. Kate did "go steady" with someone, but I'm sure they weren't each others' first pick. Sue pined angstfully for one of the guys in her French class, but he continued to date a steady string of girls in the year below us. And I was still terminally shy and went through the whole two years with no more than a "half night stand" (poor Cézar, he was mercilessly teased when word got out and never spoke to me again).

But I digress. As part of my efforts to "fit in", I tried to decorate my desk the way the boys did theirs, with books, lamps, posters, rugs and other memorabilia such as car parts. Hold on a moment, did I say "car parts"? Yes, indeed. All manner of accessories from headlights to switches to number plates to whole bumpers could be found adorning the boys' study rooms. But where could I find anything like that?

An abandoned railway line ran along the back of the school, and a little further north it passed a small quarry, now used as a scrapyard for old cars. (Google maps shows it as empty now) I knew it was there because, of course, I had spent my weekends exploring the (forbidden) railway line. I discovered I could slide down from there into the quarry, bypassing the gates with their large "No Trespassing" sign, and spend my Sundays wandering around with a spanner and screwdriver, disassembling parts that might look good nestled up against my desk. For some reason, this never struck me as criminal or stealing, as I wasn't disturbing anyone on a Sunday afternoon, and the items I was taking were ultimately destined for the crusher and oblivion. I was simply extending their life. It also never struck me that perhaps the reason that we were forbidden from going anywhere near there was the inherent danger in wandering around, unsupervised, so close to teetering piles of crushed metal. I guess it is true that teenagers have an under-developed "common sense".

My expeditions failed to attract friends to my little corner of our study room. The only times that boys entered the area were if Kate's boyfriend (and his roommate Damian) were there, (there's another story involving a bottle of whiskey and a couch and an expulsion that will have to wait for another time.) or if they needed my expert help when they couldn't understand their maths or physics homework assignments. Somehow, I had the knack of explaining things better than the teachers did. But that was not the acceptance or camaraderie that I craved. Even Sue and Kate were distant, although Kate was the first person to ever tell me she liked my sense of humor.

These things change. But, oh so slowly.