The boy passes as the older man, with a wistful expression, watches himself go by, carefree, swinging a stick and whistling softly.
I suddenly realised that is how I recall my memories. As my timeless older self, watching me as my younger self, quietly, and contemplating how I got here from there. I had no thought out plan. It was naturally assumed that I, as the eldest son, would take over the tenancy of the farm from my father in due course, as he had done from his father. My life was set on a course followed by thousands of boys before me. Life at home, at school, socially, everything was based on this assumption. Knowing nothing else, and enjoying life on the farm, I went with the flow.
A health problem, dismissed by all except my parents, principally my mother, meant that I was unable to fulfill any academic potential I might have had. I just scraped into Grammar School via the eleven-plus and was frequently told by my teachers that if I didn't try harder I'd be packed off 'up the hill' to the Secondary Modern. This sounded grim. I was left in no doubt that this was where the also-rans of life were sent.
I spent five and a half years bumping along the bottom of this 'Must try harder' situation, until one glorious day I was released. As my parents collected me from school in their car on that blessed last day, I remember vowing never to set foot in an educational establishment again. Now aged over seventy, I still feel this aversion to formal education very strongly, even though logically I recognise its benefits.
Throughout my time at school, no-one ever suggested to me that there were alternatives. Farming was a world unto itself and 'other people' got jobs. My job I regarded as more a way of life, one that I was born into and learned from day to day throughout life. It all flowed seamlessly together. The only formal bit of the process was a short course at the Royal Agricultural College (now University) in Cirencester. This drew together and enhanced knowledge that I had already gained from my father. After the prison atmosphere of school, the experience of college, albeit brief and interrupted by a spectacular bonfire accident, was strange and exhilerating. Lecturers actually treated students as adults rather than something the cat had dragged in.
Eventually I came out of the RAC with a piece of paper saying that I was safe to be trusted with a pitchfork, having mastered the skill of differentiating between one end and the other. Proudly I deposited this in an office file, where it has been ever since.
And so, as a fully rounded fool, I was launched upon adult life.
