*An autobiography.**

I was born back in the day, actually, on the cusp of one day and the next, but I’d just made it on the first day. It was a Wednesday, not that I remember. It was a Leap Year. I’m a Generation Xer***, apparently, born under the sign of the Monkey in the Chinese Zodiac and Pisces in the other one. Also, apparently, Wednesday’s Children are meant to be full of woe, which I have to wholeheartedly disagree with. Not 100 per cent I must add, but wholeheartedly… there have been some woeful days, but that’s life.

I was a quiet, shy child, and I still am now (although minus the child part), and would often spend time travelling through outer space or down on the farm with Fuzzy Felt, or caught up in some great mystery with Scooby Doo and the Gang.

I hated my first day at school, I remember that. Having to mix with a group of people who I’d never met, who, to me had been there for years (it was probably their first day too, but that never dawned on me back then) looking at how they took command of the water and sand pits. I was left with the hoopla thing in the corner.

I loved learning. I remember that. I flew through the first two schools without so much of a memory, apart from my stay in hospital to have some minor cosmetic surgery due to teasing from some of the other kids (which I don’t remember, probably because I’d blocked it all out!).

When I started senior school, I felt really grown up. I remember that. Well, until I got through the school gates and saw everyone else was older than me, and I’d gone back to being a child again. It was during this school that the bullying began, and although I ignored it, and got through it, it has stayed with me ever since. Still, I was able to learn more, enjoying in particular the projects in English and French where I would write stories of me living on other worlds and in other times (the English stories were like that, the French ones weren’t as elaborate).

I was never given a chance in Music or Cooking (or Home Economics as it was called, but back then that name put me off that subject anyway), and I never gave myself a chance in PE, as I was un-coordinated at any kind of sport (although I did become quite good at tennis, I must say)

And I loved History and Geography. I would have loved to have learned more about the things I wanted to learn more about, but I suppose the teachers only had to cover the questions on the exam papers and that was it. I’ve carried those subjects with me to this day, and love nothing better than dipping into the past or nipping to a part of the world I’ve never been to before (on Google Maps, obviously!)

Oh, and art. I quite enjoyed art.

It was also during this time that I was introduced to fantasy and adventure, superheroes and detective mysteries, and to this day my mind is still caught up within that genre.

So, my Fantastical World started just a few years after I was born, which is probably the same for everyone else, and carries on to this day.

**Not an autobiography.

***And I’m still only 24 now, don’t let any title fool you!

Posted for Six Word Saturday.

34 thoughts

    1. Thanks, Val… they’re very interesting topics, aren’t they?
      There’s some kind of overlap between my reality and this one, but I’m guessing that’s the case with any kind of fiction writing. 🤔

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  2. I can relate to a lot of this, Tom! At school I always felt like everybody else knew where to go, what to do, and what to say, while I felt like I was perpetually lost! And I forgot my locker location / combination more than a few times… I was a major dork. (Not you, but me.) XD

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    1. Thanks, Jo… just a few more words than 6. 🤣
      As for the other thing, it was just part of the everyday, just another unenjoyable thing to put up with back then! 🙄

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  5. This Thursday’s child buried her nose in story books to get through most of those school years. That was my introduction to the world of fiction and fantasy. I’ve always wondered why they say school days are the best days of our lives, fortunately that turned out to be a complete untruth!
    I’d forgotten about Fuzzy Felt, thanks for the memory, Tom. Scooby-doo, yes, but I preferred Wacky Races. 🙂

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      2. I loved Geography for all the field trips! Science and art were cool but French was a nightmare due to a horrible bullying teacher who loved to pick on anyone quiet or shy. School was also where the Sci fi dreams began and still survive today! Only now I can write them in Russian and Ukrainian and I speak them both well enough to permanently silence the French teacher who rubbished my language skills 😏 School can shape us for the big wide world, but if it tells us we can’t do something that’s the time to when we do, do it! It’s the time to say “They threw me to the wolves and I came back, leading the Pack!” Seems like your School years shaped you well Tom, it encourages your wonderful imagination!

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        1. WRONG PLACE FOR REPLY! Sorry about that – was supposed to be a reply to the blog post not a comment reply! Oopsy😳I blame it on my phone. Can’t easily tell where I am and its already disposed of original comment without warning!!

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                1. You can say that again!! I had been using the laptop 💻 for your posts and one or 2 others because the phone app demanded I sign in to my account before I could comment, but then refused to acknowledge that I had, and continued to demand it🙄The updates seem to have fixed that, but now it needs an update for my comment placements!😜

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                  1. Hehehe! The comment placement issue has less to do with the fingers, and more to do with the eyes… and updates don’t help that. Just had a new Android update, my comments still go to the wrong place at times… although my eyes are more peeled to spot it now…

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        2. Coming back the leader of the pack sounds good for someone who’s been written off, Icewolf! How cool that you can speak Russian and Ukrainian… I struggle with English at times! But you showed that French teacher – good on you! 👍🙂

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            1. I ‘learned’ French and German at school, thought I was good at both too… wasn’t really 😕
              I need to work more on my confidence now, I seem to have backtracked a little, but then again I currently don’t really do anything where confidence is needed.

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              1. I was told you had to be good at French to be able to master German…so I’m quite sure you WERE good at both, and still are regardless as to whether you’re a tiny bit out of practice or not😀
                Confidence comes naturally with experience and as you mature through life – when you get to my age the things that caused confidence to lack or wane don’t matter so much anymore😉
                Talking of German, I’ve been playing around with Norwegian which is also a Germanic language. I’m surprised how many German words it uses…I’ve got to like it because besides pretending I’m a viking 😄 I can laugh at myself growling out the vocabulary and sounding like a wolf! 🐺 (It’s pretty growly to speak😉) It does no harm to not take yourself too seriously sometimes and it is another way to help build confidence!

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                1. I only did French for the first two years of high school, and then German for the last three. I was OK with the basics back then, but wouldn’t be any good now, a hundred years later.
                  I do quite like the Nordic languages, but I know I wouldn’t be any good at them.

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                  1. I tried German out for size a long time ago but it didn’t hold me for long. Negativity hangover from school didn’t help. But, if you did it for 3 years it’s likely more engrained and lying dormant than you realise even if the years have passed. Norwegian differs, to my mind, from other Nordic languages because it seems far more like German – so far. For that reason I initially dismissed it. On giving it a 2nd chance it’s “grown on me”. More growly than other Nordic languages I considered, I would say, but also appealingly sing songy sounding unlike the more guttural German – upward intonations at the end of sentences. The little German I’d done, and thought was long forgotten kicked in pretty quick because of the similarities so you’d probably do much better than you think 🙂 I read the other day it’s supposed to be one of the easiest languages to learn 😊 So maybe check it out for yourself and be a Viking!!😉

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                    2. Oh yes…your Inner Viking!🤣 I had been thinking 🤔 around the subject of how to introduce that one as a new Inner in my part 3 that has yet to materialise😉😆I’m sure it would like a voice…I think you should definitely give Norwegian a try😃My personal efforts on this front have stalled temporarily as I’ve been wasting time trying and failing to organise a 3-night city break somewhere, like Iceland 🇮🇸 . It’s not going very well. Iceland is the 3rd most expensive place in the world and I’d need a bank loan to go assuming the plane ever got off the ground😵‍💫And they don’t like their tourists much either…4th visit to the “give up and don’t bother, stay in UK” moment, so guess I must take the hint life is giving! Stay home and practice being a Viking!

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                    3. Yep, I think his name is either Thòm or Thørm or something! Iceland has always been a place I’ve wanted to visit, maybe, one day!

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  6. 🤣😂 LOVED this Tom…. argh those days in school… especially the first days… Your art has certainly held your attention throughout the years Tom.. and Looking at your Youthful image, you have kept your smile in tact…. Well at least until your next art lesson.. 🙂
    Great read Tom… Love it.

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