The School With No Uniform

It was a Monday morning in 1990, the year that Saddam Hussein invaded our home in The Gulf. 

I was 9 years old. My brother Ethan was 7. My sister Claire was 3. My older brother Gideon - who liked to be called Ronnie - was not with us, but he was 14. My mother was 36 years old and struggling with the weight of an 8-month pregnancy. We were newly arrived in England, the country I was born in after my parents escaped the regime of His Excellency, President for Life Idi Amin Dada, The Last King of Scotland, in order for my father to complete his medical training in the UK.

My Dad was either 49 or 45, depending on whether you went by his actual year of birth, or the one he made up in order to shave a few years. 

“I wish I'd taken off 10 years,” he joked a few years ago when I asked him which year he was born.

This was common practice in the villages and towns outside Kampala, particularly where most people had no way of telling which year it was or what month it was. You lived season to season, moment to moment. You danced with the tension of embracing life in the lobster bowl, or scratching and kicking and clawing your way out of the cloying inertia into what you hoped was a better life.

My Father had managed to do this by pursuing a career in Medicine. Studying by candlelight. Soaking his feet in buckets of cold water fetched from a distant well to stay awake long enough to force more information into his cerebral cortex. Concocting ludicrously inventive business ideas in order to finance his daring escape out of poverty. And with a number of twists and turns - “That will be the title of my autobiography” - he achieved his goal in 1978.

And in 1990 he found himself living in a flat in Herne Hill with a pregnant wife, 4 kids, and unable to find a job as a Doctor.

But I was 9 years old, and not thinking about politics, or unemployment lines or the tension of being black in Britain or the cost of a pint of milk or antenatal visits or how to fix the leaking radiator in the hallway.

Instead, on that Monday morning, I was thinking about my first day at a new school.

It had been a choice between 2 schools. One with uniform and one without. And I had chosen to go to the one without a uniform.

At least, that is how I remember it.

Now, with a growing family of my own, I'm familiar with the sleight of hand and tap dancing that's involved in keeping a family together. Preserving your children's sense of autonomy in the face of ignominy. Cutting a biscuit into two triangles. Transforming crusts of bread into a Frank Wright architectural masterpiece. Asking leading questions to allow your kids the illusion of free choice.

Like “allowing" your child to choose The School With No Uniform because you can't afford the tuition fees of the elite grammar school, let alone the pristine blazer that was part of the uniform.

So I was thinking about my first day at a new school. And by thinking, I don't mean sitting at the kitchen table, spoon sculpting molten Weetabix, daydreaming about my first day at The School With No Uniform.

Instead, as was often the case, it was snatches of thought punctuated by the clamour and clunkiness of a big family trying to get out the front door in a hurry.

“Alex, help your sister wash her hands...Will anyone notice the rip on the end of my coat...Ethan, please put your shoes on...Will I make any friends…Don't want use yucky soap...I think I need to comb my hair again...Alex, did you pack the sandwiches last night like asked you...Maybe I can cut the other side of my coat to make it look better...Will someone please help me pick up the keys...I hope the zip on my bag doesn't get stuck again...Ethan, shoes, now! I don't want you late on your first day of school...

Somehow my heavily pregnant mother managed to get herself, a push chair, and three kids under 10 out through the front door of the apartment, down the steps, along the path to the creaky gate, left onto Strathfield Road, and finally on the way to The School With No Uniform.

Gideon, my older brother, was at a boarding school in Uganda, being looked after by my grandparents, a story for another time. And my Dad, I would later learn, was already at the unemployment centre, jumping through hoops in order to provide for his family.

We lived at 66 Strathfield Road, about eighteen doors along from 30 Strathfield Road, affectionately referred to as The Command Post. “Cahmandah Post,” as my Dad would call it.

Next to a bus stop, and right on the corner of Windermere Road, we had to turn left at The Command Post to go on the long road up to The School With No Uniform. And The Command Post was where my Dad's ornery, fault-finding big sister lived. 

A Senior Nurse at King's College Hospital, Aunty Lydia had managed to escape from the lobster bowl of poverty and village life resignation via a career in Medicine as a Nurse in the early 1970s. Flush with the beauty of youth, she never got married and continues to spend her life as a spinster in the UK.

Aunty Lydia taught me how to sit properly at a dining table, how to hold a fork in my left hand, and insisted that each of us measured up to her exacting standards. Aunty Lydia was the one who complimented my diplomatic skills and declared one afternoon that “Alex will be an Ambassador to the United Nations.” Aunty Lydia was the one who wielded favouritism as a tool to bring division between us siblings, as well as the one who had fought so hard to keep my Dad from marrying my Mum. “She has already had a child out of wedlock. You can't marry that one.” Aunty Lydia was the one who taught me about wolves in sheep's clothing, and that the same mouth that kisses you on the cheek can in the next moment have sold you for 30 pieces of silver. 

Thankfully, we were not accosted by dear Aunty Lydia, who no doubt was on a morning shift or waiting to hand over from a night shift at King's College. Instead, we were left to navigate crossing roads, avoiding dog poo, the assault of billboards attempting to incite children to nag their parents for things they don't need and can't possibly afford...and the muted apprehension about starting at a new school.

I wish I could tell you the colour of the main school gate. I wish I could tell you about the gravelstoned playground, the smell of the chestnut trees, playing with conkers, eating chocolate cake with chocolate custard in the school dinner hall, boys brigade on a Thursday and buying 2p sweets with my pocket money, becoming popular in class because of the academic rigour of home life and my school back in Kuwait, going to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the cinema with Cody Barton and Devin Firth, having a vision of my baby sister Janey before she was born on the same day as Gandhi, Mrs Carter playing guitar and teaching us a politically correct version of By the rivers of Babylon (“How can we sing King Alfred's song in a strange land…”)

All of those things happened, and a million other ones as well during the one year that I spent at The School With No Uniform. And I wish I could tell you about them. But I can't. Because I don't remember the details. Thinking back on that time feels like riding with Monet along the Seine while wearing a pair of smeary glasses. With them on, my vision is clear but obscured. With them off, it is unobscured but blurry. The images seem to swim onto the canvas of my memory like an impressionist painting that never had the chance to properly dry. But in the blurry impressionistic mess of brush strokes and colour, every now and again, an image stands out in clear focus.

For me, that image is of my first day, and of Daniel.

Daniel was the boy assigned to me on my first day at The School With No Uniform. And he was tasked with showing me around the school and helping me familiarise myself with this new environment.

What I remember of Daniel was that he had blonde hair and wore glasses. He was a nice boy and I remember feeling relief at having made a friend who didn't seem to mind that my hair was curly or that I wasn't wearing the latest high tops being shown on the billboards. "Maybe he'll be my best friend like George was,” I probably wondered. George was a boy from Lebanon who had gone to school with me at English School Fahaheel when we lived in Kuwait. We would run across the gravel stones of the playground at break time, across to the sandy playground, screeching the Arabic theme song of the cartoon version of Sherlock Holmes. “Shah-lohck Holmes, atza a ten sahib!” I loved George dearly. And our plan was that when we were grownups, we would live in a really big house. He and his family would live upstairs, and me and my family would live downstairs. Or maybe I would live upstairs with my family, and he would live downstairs with his. It didn't matter. The main thing was that we would be living in the same house and be best friends forever. That was the plan right up until the summer holidays of 1990. That was the plan when we said “Bye” and “See you next term” as he and his parents returned to Lebanon for 3 months and Ethan, Claire, Mum and I went to visit my grandparents and Gideon in Uganda, with Dad to follow us a few weeks later.

And that was the plan that was ripped to shreds when Saddam Hussein decided to invade Kuwait when we were away on summer holidays. I didn't have a postal address or a telephone number or even a surname for George. He was just George, my best friend. And in the moment of being told we couldn't go back to Kuwait, my childhood friendship and dreams were steamrolled by the more pressing questions of whether my Dad was still alive and what we'd do if he wasn't.

My Dad managed to escape with another Ugandan Doctor when Saddam opened up the border for Indians and Bangladeshis to leave the country. Dad hid his British passport, flashed his Ugandan passport and coal-black skin at the border and was allowed to drive through into Iraq, minus a few things that the border guards decided to pillage from the car he was driving.

Dad somehow drove our white Toyota Cressida through Iraq, down to Egypt and then shipped it to Uganda while he made his way by plane to meet up with us.

From there we made our way to the UK, to 66 Strathfield Road, and to my first day meeting Daniel at The School With No Uniform.

Daniel showed me the classrooms, the dinner hall, the library and important things like where the toilets were and where we had to go for assembly. And even though I had heard the Teacher ask Daniel to show me around, the way he talked to me and pointed things out to me made me feel that Daniel wasn't just doing this because he had to. He was helping me because he wanted to. Because he liked me. Because he wanted to be my friend. My best friend. Like George. And in the midst of quietly rejoicing at having made a friend, the bell for break rang and Daniel and I walked outside, which is when it happened.

With no warning, and with no pre-meditation, amidst the happy sounds of shrieking primary school children, Daniel suddenly spotted some children about 50 metres away, and took off towards them in a dead sprint, leaving me behind.

In less than a second, I went from feeling happy about my new school, to feeling as if my entire world had been blown to bits by a heat-seeking missile.

Daniel has gone off without me.

Daniel has left me behind.

Daniel has gone off to play with his friends.

I thought I was Daniel's friend.

I thought he liked me.

I thought I was special.

At almost 38 years old, I can look back and see little-me subconsciously trying to process a myriad of emotions all at the same time.

Embarrassment. Shame. Betrayal. Abandonment. Rejection. Feeling tricked.

And all of this within the context of being raised in the context of 2 parents who had survived poverty, rape, assassination and two dictatorial regimes in two different countries.

I had learned to be thankful, to not complain and to always be prepared to run at the drop of a hat.

And having only discovered that I had a big brother when I was 6 years old, I'd learned to be the responsible one, the big one in the family who helps to hold it all together.

So with all of that swirling round in my 9 year old heart, I did something I never usually did.

I burst into tears.

There in the middle of the playground, with my hands by my side, my face crumpled and I started to cry.

I still remember the feeling of thick warm tears streaming down my face.

A little black boy with curly hair, on his first day at a new school, standing alone in the playground, crying.

Somehow, in the middle of sprinting to his friends, Daniel turned around and saw me crying. 

And as soon as he saw me in tears, he stopped in his tracks, walked back towards me, took me by the hand, and led me to meet his waiting group of friends.

There are many things that I seem to have forgotten over the years. Many faces, places and details that feel muted or dimmed by the constant urgency of trying to survive, trying to escape into something better. Some days I feel as if I'm simply trying to store my memories in other people's minds, taking countless photos just as a memorial that something happened.

But even though I didn't have a camera, and I don't even remember the colour of the main gate, I have never forgotten my first day at The School With No Uniform.

A day when a 9 year old boy with black curly hair burst into tears in the playground, and another little boy came back to hold his hand and let him know that everything was going to be okay.