World of Chig   

15.8.02

Half Life


Hearing and seeing all the news coverage today about the surge in A Level passes has really brought it home to me that nearly as much time has passed in my life since getting those results myself as my age was at the time. In other words, it's eighteen years ago today that a nervous 18 year-old Chig went back to school to see the results stuck on the windows of the school foyer, there for all the world to see, and realised that my escape from small town conservative living had been achieved at the first attempt. It was a gloriously sunny day, like today. I went back home, and pretended to be disappointed as I approached my Mum was in the garden. When I told her I'd passed, she burst into tears, and so did I. She was crying because I would be leaving home about six weeks later. I was crying at the thought of the big city and the excitement that was practically bursting out of me that I would be able to 'be gay' at last. I hadn't told anybody at that point, but I knew, from attending an open day and seeing a flyer on a noticeboard, that the uni I was going to had a L&G Soc, and my life could start at last. And it did!

Who would have thought that, 18 years later, the Junior Education Minister who's been all over the media today talking about the A Level results would be an old friend who I met as a result of achieving those very results myself? (We share an ex-boyfriend. No, not share in that way.)

Oh, I managed a BBCD, by the way. That General Studies B got me into uni with a point to spare.

· link

Home