Fun Size Magrs

In 1991 I went to Lancaster University. I'd just turned 18 and it should have been the most exciting thing in the whole world! Freedom! Staying up late! Alcohol! Sex!   (AKA: Debt! Vomit! Hangovers! Infrequent, crushing disappointments! )  But I was shit -scared. I'd only done GCSEs and A levels as a delaying tactic. I didn't want to make decisions about life or work or anything because I didn't have a clue about any of it. For a lot of people, going to University is a career move or a chance to broaden their horizons but for me it was simply a way to hold back the 'real' world.  I only knew one other person who'd been to University and he was always swanning about in a straw hat and a cricket jumper. He never really talked about life as a student but he did keep calling everything (and everybody) back home ' sooooo boring ' in a fake posh accent. Did I really want to end up like that twat? Everything else I knew about University was stuff I...

When I was 8 I had warts.  Lots and lots of warts. It started with a funny lump on my thumb. It was right on the joint and it looked like a bit of squashed cauliflower. I didn't think much about it. I thought it might be a scab or some dried-on dirt, so I scrubbed at it and picked at it and it bled a bit but it wouldn't budge. Then I noticed it was getting bigger. It was spreading and seemed to be three or four times the size it used to be. And then I started getting more of these funny lumps on my fingers and thumbs... Loads of my friends noticed and one of the teenagers who lived on my street started calling me names. He got all the other kids to dance around shouting ' Wart Hog! Wart Hog! Wart Hog! '  I cried and locked myself in the toilet.  I never could work out why a teenager liked to hang around with a bunch of 8 and 9 year olds; maybe he liked having people to boss around and pick on (sometimes he'd play games that involved us all going behind bushes and ta...

TRIGGER WARNING:  This blog post is about childhood mental health, depression and suicidal thoughts . A few days before my 8th Birthday I tried to throw myself off a bridge. It was a ridiculously small, low bridge over a thin trickle of water called The Burn , but at the time it made perfect sense. I wanted to die. It was a warm, sunny day in June and I was walking home from school with a couple of my friends. Back in 1981 kids could walk home on their own - I didn't know anybody who got picked up by parents, we all just streamed out of the school and down one of two paths. We didn't have any roads to cross on the way home - just The Burn . That day, I was in tears. And I couldn't actually believe what had just happened. I was in the first year Juniors (they call it Year 3 nowadays) and we'd been given our end of year exam results. I'd only gotten the SIXTH best marks in the class. Out of thirty-one kids, I was SIXTH. And that's why I couldn't face going hom...