In line with most other posters here, I came to Ch from a primary school where no-one else came close and found myself amongst several hundred creatures most of whom were 'goddesses' in some fashion, unreachable, far above us and unfailingly inspiring whllst be simultaneously fear indusing and crushing! Even my peers seemed more brilliant, shining, musical, maths, science, endless! I only understood in my second year that my english skills were good, possibly very good; maybe I would have been more relaxed if I had understood the ramifications of that. Average at everything else I decided to become a distance runner, mainly as I was far too bulky (unformed I recall was one teacher's description) to sprint and spenty the whole of one (very long it seemed to me) summer of evenings spent pounding around the track at Hertford, then persuaded the powers that be to add something like 1500m to interhouse sports day. I was so ready to finally be seen to be 'good' at something I was crushed to be run off the track by a Sarah, in 7s I think, who took off like a hare and burned me out! After that I probably spent my whole time at CH falling back on being funny or totally out of order. As an adult oddly that whole experience has stood me in good stead - better than being special at school and then having to come to to terms with the fact that in the real world of business and work, no-one really cared!
And yes, my house is still full of books, overflowing in fact which is what I should be doing today (housework, sigh) instead of playing on here but as per another thread - my skills therein were quite undone by CH!!
