Funny how old memories can pop back into your head for no reason. Today I suddenly recalled something of no great significance from when I was 8 at Cheddar primary school.
I was a new boy at school that year, my family having just moved down from Loughborough (we lived there for four years, having originally moved down from Yorkshire). Subsequently I have vague memories of feeling a bit superior to my country bumpkin classmates, as we repeated a lot of stuff I'd done the year before at my old school. They didn't even know about fractions, the Somerset idiots. How they would have been bullied in the playground had they moved to Leicestershire with that kind of gap in their knowledge.
I was a rather swotty and precocious child, (probably exactly the kind of boy, who given the chance would have challenged Norris McWhirter over which tree had the most leaves) and enjoyed being the brainiest one in class 7. I suspect if I were to meet the 8 year old me now I would really want to punch him. But back then I was pleased to be this way.
The memory that came back to me was one lesson where Miss Robson (who I secretly loved and who was a really great teacher - I met her again a couple of years ago and gave her a kiss. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life) asked us something like, "What is your favourite animal?"
As she went round the class there were people saying dogs or cats, some of the girls probably went for a pony, others who were trying to impress with their originality might say a giraffe or a tiger. But I knew I could trump them all.
When it came to my turn, I pulled as wry a face as it is possible for an 8 year old to pull and with an infuriating air of superiority I replied, "Man. Men are animals as well."
I distinctly recall the rest of my classmates taking a sharp intake of breath. None of them had had any idea that this was the case.
"That's not true is it miss?" asked one of the pony loving girls.
"Well, yes it is," said Miss Robson, and though I didn't spot it at the time, in hindsight I think I can sense a touch of annoyance in her voice, like she hated me and wished that it wasn't against the law for her to kick me in the face, "Man is an animal as well."
I had known this for ages, but none of them had even contemplated the fact. I had shattered their tiny innocent worlds and from that day on they would never be the same again.
I can't tell you how much pleasure this gave me back then, both to have been the cleverest and the one who punctured their world. It is rather revealing that I have this moment of "triumph" has lodged in my memory banks, though it's not something that has resurfaced for nearly 30 years.
I suppose the McWhirter memory (which has been challenged in all sorts of directions by some of you and makes me wonder if I got it right at all) must have instigated this.
I just rather like the fact that an incident that my 8 year old brain thought was worth keeping a record of because it showed just how brilliant I was, has stayed with me, only to be reinterpreted by my 36 year old brain.
My 8 year old brain has paid for its arrogance. It looks like an idiot compared to my wise 36 year old brain, which could also choose to reel off loads of facts that it knows, but that weren't known by its 8 year old incarnation.
Evenso, I think I might spend tomorrow telling children that they are animals, just to see re-live the experience and see those disappointed and terrified expressions.
