There was one person who kept coming back to mind, who at the time set out to humiliate and upset me and generally send my life to hell in a hand basket.
He was a teacher who taught me French when I was 12 years old, he detested me from the moment he laid eyes on me.
In my first year of senior school I was a bright eager little thing who enjoyed her lessons particularly learning to speak another language ( I think it may have helped that I had a little crush on the tall dark and adorable French teacher) subsequently I tried really hard and came top of the class in my end of year exams.
My second year of senior school started and the pupils were moved from mixed ability classes to ability based groups and as I had done well in the French exam I was put into the top group.
When the first class of the new term started I noticed it was full of children who I didn't know well and I felt vulnerable and unsure of myself. Mr Phipps (yes I will name and shame you) came into the class and my trip to hell began.
Our first task was to tell the class in English what we had done that summer (and for homework write it out in French). The furthest I had been that summer was my grandmothers house(divorce x no money + mum at work = no vacation to write about). Joy oh joy he chose me to go first. I innocently started to tell him about my summer holidays and how I had gone on bike rides with my brother, gone to see my grandmother, the look of distaste on his face was so evident I thought I had misunderstood what he had wanted me to talk about.
He cut me off after about 5 minutes of talking and said 'Let us move on to someone who actually had a summer break this year' I didn't know what I had done wrong. Most of the other children in the class then went on to talk about going to France or Spain etc. during the school break
It was downhill from there, he would single me out to speak in French and then belittle my pronunciation and accent, my homework was ripped apart and covered in the dreaded teachers red pen comments, he often reduced me to tears and wouldn't let me go to the bathroom to wipe my face or dry my eyes. I remember sitting with my head on the desk crying.
I really do believe he delighted in humiliating me in front of the class. I think he disliked me simply because I was not part of a 'go abroad type family with a mummy and a daddy'.
This went on for the full school year. The year end exams rolled round again and le diable was not there, he had had to go into hospital or something (my voodoo doll must have worked ) another teacher came in to moderate the spoken part of the french exam.
Surprisingly I did quite well again. The results were given to us on the last week of the school term by which time my tormentor was back.
He read out the results and said to the whole class "coming fifth from top this year is...........
I would like to say that he apologised profusely for doubting my intelligence and that the year ended on a concilliatory tone but alas it did not.
The following year I was not in his class and things returned to normal for me but I will never forget how he made my life a total hell that year.
If your still out there, still torturing young girls RETIRE!
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