As I sat on the bus, I heard the teenage boys around me talking about the battle they would have with their rivals.
Knives were talked about. I sank into my chair, terrified. Later, in a clumsy attempt at chivalry, the same boys showed the “fancy” girl – me – which school entrances to use to avoid the “dangerous” students.
This was the early 1990s and the thought of a knife was shocking. Especially perhaps for a naive former schoolgirl like me. Like everyone, my school days shaped me for the rest of my life, but I suddenly found myself from a sheltered childhood into rather rougher waters.
These days, as a romance novelist, I create my own worlds where I have power over the environment in which characters play out their lives—but in real life, I don’t always feel in control.
Not everyone is defined by their childhood, but I had a particularly harsh adulthood. While other students at my sedate private girls’ school in North London were finishing school in Europe at the age of 16, I was plucked from my privileged bubble and sent to the local school.
Romance writer Bettina Hunt faced a particularly harsh adulthood when, at the age of 16, she was plucked from her privileged private school bubble and sent to the local school.
Given that Labor plans to impose VAT on private school fees, which, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, will see up to 40,000 pupils move from private schools to state schools, my story is clearly cautionary. From ages 11 to 16, I learned in small classes taught by sweet teachers who gave the impression that they wanted the best for us.
It wasn’t perfect. Located on a residential road there were no playing fields and we had to go to the local cricket ground for sports and to Alexandra Palace for ice skating. There was some low-level meanness: when I got the title role in Oliver! At the age of 11, my classmates were sniping.
But it quickly disappeared when I told a teacher, and I never feared the consequences of “telling on” a classmate, as public school children later told me they did.
Then disaster struck. My parents, who owned their own retail business, were hit by the recession of the early 1990s and ran out of money for private education. Fees have also gone up. There was no other option than to send me to a secondary school, a 35-minute bus ride from our house.
I cried on the last day of school, and over the summer the nerves started to kick in. But it wasn’t until my new school handed me a card on the first day that I truly understood how different my environment was.
The place was huge and the crowd of children felt overwhelming. There was no way I was ever going to know the names of the kids in my class, let alone the entire school.
Every time I walked into the sixth grade building, I saw new people. Of course there were boys too, which was a whole new dynamic. I had brothers, so I wasn’t intimidated, but the noise in the hallways made me nervous every time I walked from class to class.
The school was one of those old-fashioned buildings to which they had added many pieces, fragmentary, shabby and temporary, prefab classrooms that then became permanent. It wasn’t so much unfriendly, but newcomers were viewed with detached curiosity. At my old school, everyone who was new was assigned a mentor.
No one was actively mean here, but it was very impersonal. I quickly lost the feeling of being special.
With so many children, it was difficult for teachers to focus on individuals or even, it seemed, to sympathize with them.
Today, Bettina writes, I find it incredible that anyone can afford to send their children to private school. It cost my parents about £600 a term in the 1990s; now it is ten times as much
I remember breaking my finger and getting it taped, and then getting in trouble for not taking notes in class. I felt indignant; I was a conscientious student, but I couldn’t write. Still, the teacher snapped at me for not participating.
I think what surprised me most was the attitude towards learning. I assumed everyone wanted to be there, but there was so much messing around. Our media studies teacher had just come out of training and only lasted a few weeks because of the humiliating teasing he received during his classes.
I couldn’t believe that students would be so rude to a teacher, or show such disrespect for authority.
The worst part was that I had to do my law A-levels at another school. I was the only girl and traveled on the bus with the boys.
Teenage boys are cocky and took great pleasure in telling me about a gang that wanted to have a Montague/Capulet style fight with them. This second school was in the same neighborhood where I lived, but it could have been in another universe. It was in a rough area and the buildings were shabby and worn, with rubbish blown into every corner.
During recess the hallways were crowded with students pushing and shoving, and once in my haste I was knocked against the wall and hit my head quite hard.
I had never experienced anything like this before. I was used to politeness and standing aside. I’m not quite 6 feet tall, so it felt really unsafe.
The most terrifying thing was going to the toilet. I was told to get ‘the key’ from the office. It was baffling, but they told me it was due to vandalism.
I was terrified – this was the 1990s, when everyone knew about that Grange Hill episode where Brian’s head was flushed down the toilet! It never happened to me, but every time I went I was terrified it would happen.
One girl was constantly late because she was both working and going to school. In my naivety I thought, why are you working instead of going to class? I now wonder if maybe she had to help support her family.
Nowadays I find it incredible that anyone can afford to send their children to private school. It cost my parents about £600 a term in the 1990s; now it is ten times as much.
If you haven’t been to both a private and public school, you don’t understand the huge differences there can be. It has affected my outlook on life; I am a very reserved person, always wary of new environments and aware that they can become dangerous.
I’m quiet until I’ve assessed a situation – you don’t easily forget the threat of a knife fight – and I’m cautious around new people.
With costs as high as they are today, private schooling was not an option for my two boys, now eight and sixteen. But I spent months researching the right school, studying policies around behavior and fighting, and asking other parents about the prevalence of knives. and safety in the toilets.
Looking back, I am sure that I was deeply influenced by the transition from private to state at an impressionable age. In some ways yes, for the better. I definitely became more aware of those who weren’t as happy as I was. I learned that bad behavior is not always the result of innate character, but is often related to economics and background.
I have learned that many children in larger classes simply do not learn as well as children in schools where grades are low.
But it also made me timid. The wariness I felt stayed with me. As an adult, I become anxious and panicky quite easily when I hear shouting or boisterous behavior around me (especially in enclosed spaces). I am aware that a situation can change at any moment.
I don’t blame my parents, or the teachers either. In London’s state schools of the 1990s, children simply needed thick skin, and I didn’t have that. Nowadays, I suspect they need an even tougher requirement, and that’s something to remember if you find yourself paying the amounts for college fees and wondering if it’s worth it.