Well ... like Terpe - albeit in a thread completely unrelated to the present context- I, too, have a confession to make! And that is - UNLIKE you, Graham - I failed what, in post-war Scotland, at least (right through until the late 1960s) had been known as the 'Eleven Plus' [or Qualifying] Examination. Consequently - between the impressionable ages of [almost] 12 and 15, respectively - I had the disadvantage of attending what was then called a 'Junior Secondary' School (equivalent in standard, I believe, to a 'Secondary Modern' south of the Border - and certainly of a rather more lowly standing than the Grammar Schools in England & Wales) where I struggled with a 3-year [non-academic] Technical course ... for which, someone like myself - whose strengths THEN, AS NOW - lay in his LITERARY abilities - was totally unsuited ... one, moreover, that I hated!
"Aww, diddums", some might [unkindly] respond. "Poor you ... stop feeling sorry for yourself!". But I kid you NOT... those three years turned out to be a living nightmare ... the most miserable, unhappy I'd spent throughout my entire schooldays ... in that, I was constantly branded as a "swot" and bullied
while simultaneously bearing the brunt of the technical staff's wrath - not to mention getting "my fingers warmed"
- as a result of my ineptitude at woodwork.
So ... it was only after Perth College had opened its new campus - located less than half a mile from my home - during the mid-70s that I finally made my mark academically, attending evening classes and thereby gaining the Scottish Certificate of Education at Higher Grade in the *subjects I'd been proficient in at school fifteen years previously - *principally, English & History.
By then, of course, I was already in my early 30s - and such qualifications counted for very little career-wise; indeed they were regarded as being "ten-a-penny" at a time when the vast majority of younger people remained at school until reaching the age of eighteen as decent jobs became increasingly scarce!
Ho, hum ...
