Childhood

I’ve nothing much to offer
There’s nothing much to take
I’m an absolute beginner
But I’m absolutely sane
As long as we’re together
The rest can go to hell
I absolutely love you
But we’re absolute beginners
With eyes completely open
But nervous all the same

Absolute Beginners, David Bowie, 1986

I’m not sure where my need for privacy stems from, but it has clearly been a part of my personality for as long as I can remember.

As a child and teenager, I exuded varying levels of sometimes misplaced confidence. Misplaced as I had had a challenging upbringing. I should have been an unassuming and muted student, but instead I became a disruptive, loud and annoying child and teenager, eager to be heard, with scant regard for who I irritated. It was attention-seeking behaviour, and I have now come to realise it was also a counteraction to a sometimes challenging upbringing at home and being bullied at school.

Had social media been a part of my life back then, I often wonder if my need for privacy would have ever taken hold of me. I can easily imagine an alternative me pouring out my soul onto social media. Friending all and sundry. A far cry from how I manage my social media accounts today. Which is to largely avoid it.

In some ways, I am glad I didn’t have the stress of social media and the constant validation that teenagers seek from it, to contend with back then. It would have been all-consuming I am sure, and I can imagine I wouldn’t have benefited massively from it.

As I exited my teenage years, I set about changing myself. I knew I was broken. I knew I had to rebuild.

I grew up in several towns in-between London and Brighton – and although formative years were spent bouncing from one town to the next every four years or so, from about the age of eleven we settled in an affluent commuter belt town about thirty miles outside of London.

As one of two children from middle class, self-made parents, educated privately at school, on the surface I had little to complain about. I’m very grateful for the opportunities that my parents provided for, but rudderless and clueless, I scuppered my chances, and ultimately this was a deeply unhappy period in my life.

Leaving that school and moving on to college, life changed rapidly for the better. And with a modicum of maturity and a little increased self-awareness, I started to discover the person I could be.

Bizarrely, the first change was when I took myself off to my first haircut. I was sixteen. I wanted shot of my much ridiculed mop of hair. One might call it a bowl haircut. I had the lot lopped off, and I replaced it with effectively a crew cut, and a striking new look.

It was a turning point for me. So much so that I became obsessed with my hair. That something as simple as a haircut could affect my life in such a positive way seems almost too ridiculous to believe, but it was true.

With the new haircut, I needed new clothes. I took myself off to the shopping centre, purchased a couple of new tops of my own choosing. This was living!

It was the mid-eighties. Frankie was asking us to Relax, Lionel wanted to say Hello, and George was carelessly whispering for our aural pleasure. It was a golden time for pop, and Grandmaster Flash was making waves and that emerging hip hop scene was about to explode.

College nights down at the local disco , complete with a slow dance at the end, to try and get a snog in. With my new haircut, getting that snog wasn’t as elusive as it had been, and this is where I met my first proper girlfriend, and the six-month relationship (hey – at that age, that’s long term!) marked the beginning of my journey from adolescence into adulthood.

Through this period, I met my closest male friend, Patrick. Highly intelligent, fiercely loyal, wickedly funny and delightfully mischievous, we became as thick as thieves. He knows me better than almost anyone. He is my sounding board, my confidante, my devil’s advocate, and I’d be lost without him. His childhood was equally complex as mine, and without a doubt this bonded us together.