// Something to do with my hair…//

From a young age after moving towns I used to go out and play a lot. I was a kid who loved sports, playing games and just running around like an idiot. My best friends didn’t live so close to me or their parents were over-protective so I had to make do with the people who lived in a close proximity.

One girl was in the ‘older’ class in my year, though I was actually the oldest in my class by over a month and older than this girl. She was very brainy, great at gymnastics, good at sports, always the lead in plays, could kind of sing, was in the school orchestra and went out with the guy who sat next to her who was in the year above (and also a lead in the school play… and good at sports…. and quite brainy… and probably good at gymnastics). She was quite ‘popular’ – a term that never made sense to me as everyone generally hated those girls… even at 8/9 or whatever we were.

She lived not too far from me, so I started to visit her house more after my friend had moved away. Her brother worked at McDonalds and had an old beat up car, which all seemed very glamorous then.

One day we did our usual stuff of running around, cycling around and talking about school. She always made quite snooty comments that used to annoy me and really I used to dislike hanging around with her, but especially in the summer months it was great to be outdoors. But this day topped all the comments, which must be as I can’t remember anything else she ever said to me but this one I clearly remember.

‘You have such lovely hair!’

‘Ah thanks, that’s nice.’

‘Yeah…shame about your face.’

Now the worst thing about it all was then she just carried on as normal and acted like she hadn’t said such a thing… and in those days you can’t blame alcohol or anything. Nice one.