The Start of a Life by Peter Sturmey
In September 1970 a young boy stood next to his Mom and Dad’s goldfish pond with his sensibly chosen over-sized new school uniform, a new leather satchel and a gold-coloured pen from his Aunty Barbara. Three amazing things happened before nine o’clock that morning. While walking past the Science Block and enormous five-pound note fell from the sky in front of me (an augury surely). There were all these adults with mutton chop side burns and collar length hair, clearly friends of the teachers visiting for the day. Finally, after entering 1Z classroom and 31 boys running amuck for a while, the door was kicked open, an over stuffed brief case was hurled into the corner of the room and a thug with a foreign accent pointed at a suitable victim and roared “You boy! Sit down right now.” All 31 boys sat down immediately. That voice induced incontinence across the classroom from time to time that year.
I was already an unusual and intellectual boy. I explained the errors of the movie One million years BC to my mother, corrected my grandad’s mis- takes about operetta and opera, wrote books of biographies of classical composers copied from the Encyclopedia Britannica and books telling the stories of my family holidays in Cornwall. (I dragged my poor parents to Chysaucester and then explained the grassy lumps to them, disappointed that there were not piles of amphora sticking out of the ground waiting for me to pull them up). So, QM had plenty to work with from the beginning. But QM changed my life amplifying and expanding my interests. We had teachers who knew their subjects well and were usually motivated and good teachers. Thanks to Drac, Stiffo, Barney Rubble, Fingers and many others I learned to love learning, writing and researching; science of all kinds, but especially biology; languages and etymology; and classical music. During multiple trips to Farchynys. I learned to love travel and to love the wider world beyond Walsall. My interests today are largely those of when I was thirteen years old. QM also taught me the value of social comparisons too much. We always knew where we ranked in each class, in which set we were in and where we ranked in our class overall. It might have been better for me and everyone else in the long run if we had learned more cooperation and mutual respect. I was an average fish who underperformed in the big goldfish bowl of QM, but I always remember having a violin duet I wrote performed at a school concert as a real thrill.
A serendipity for my future was when Des Hart asked fellow pupil and life- long friend David Griffiths (now Lieutenant Commander RN, retired) and me to volunteer at a special education school in Bloxwich on a Wednesday afternoon. Whether motivated by the crushing injuries from practicing with the first rugby team, having received all my lifesaving awards or the pro- spect of a leisurely Italian ice-cream on the Bloxwich Road, I went. I cannot say now what it was, but this is what I have been interested in the last 45 years or so. Working as a camp counselor for children with special needs in the USA one summer set another part of my journey in motion.
At nearly 60 years old I have been a professor of psychology at Queens College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York for almost 20 years. (I am tenured, promoted and part of the furniture here.) Previously, I worked in Texas as Chief Psychologist at a couple of in what y’all call mental handicap hospitals during a class action law suit getting my hands dirty in the real world. I have had a productive academic career publishing 27 edited and authored books, 210 journal articles, 60 book chapters and over 300 presentations around the world, and have graduated nearly 20 doctoral students, but who is counting or comparing? I have a fun time traveling the Americas and Europe doing what many people might mistake for a well-paid hobby. I look back largely with gratitude.
If any other olde folks want to contact me, I am not hard to find.
