I used to spend lunchtimes reading the library for both regulation and to better myself. I read about things that interested me, mainly history.

I know, I had people tell me that I was stupid. One thing that never ceased to amaze me was, one day, I asked a question about when we were supposed to return certain books, and one of the bullies, a short, stocky boy, said, "Duh!" And our teacher, in Year Seven, a man of dominating height with a Norse build, asked a kid if he could borrow a ruler, and walked up to the bully and said, "He and I are gonna have a little talk." He struck the kid across the upper arm with the ruler and yelled at him. And one day, this bully had me up against a wall, and this same teacher called out the bully's name and said, "Get right here!" The bully didn't respond, and he repeated it. Another boy had been defending me and the teacher said to him, "The intention was right but the action was wrong." But I also remember the bully was fascinated because his index finger was the same length as my little finger.

If I remember rightly, you were raised in South Africa. One of the paradoxes of South Africa is, despite the European South Africans wanting independence (I know most are either British or Dutch, with some French and German) the English South Africans wanted to be more English than the English. And people talk of sporting sanctions and the fact that Tony Grieg played cricket for England (so did Allan Lamb) and Kepler Wessels for Australia, but it wasn't the case that South Africa said, "Hey, we've got a guy who wants to play cricket, but we have sporting sanctions. Who'll take him?" Tony Grieg's father was Scottish and emigrated to South Africa and Allan Lamb's parents were English immigrants. I remember, when I was about four, watching an advertisement for breakfast cereal where Tony Grieg starred and my mother said, "You annoy me, Tony Grieg." And I found him to be a racist bastard.

Sheila had a point about the finest steel but the thing is, yes, people should achieve things, but nobody should be abused to have to prove resilience.

I am glad to have you as a follower (we follow each other) and I do hope that you can not only survive the year, but thrive through this year and the next.