Published on 12, July, 2020
I have noticed questions by carers about their children during lunch breaks. This got me thinking of my own experience.
I left school over 40 years ago and it is only in the last few years I realized I was autistic.
When I was at school a lot of lessons were quite formal which suited me. However when it came to lunchtime as all the schools I went to were nearby I went home for lunch. In the Junior school quite a few people went home for lunchtime which was nearly an hour and a half. Most occasions when I stayed it was for a club but I didn't like being at school for the whole day and especially the long lunch break.
I wonder if modern schools are more of a challenge for autistics.
Yeah it was pretty rough. Did people really used to go home for lunch at school? Like I went home at lunch a lot in secondary school, but that was because I hated it (bullied, few friends, had bad anxiety without knowing what it was and wanted to die a lot) and I realised that no one really noticed that I didn't show up to afternoon lessons. Tbh even after I started skipping school entirely it took several weeks for anyone to realise. I went straight from year 11 to a psych unit and the psych unit was 1000x better.
That's sad no one noticed you. Glad you got help later.
1960s - I lived just over a mile from my junior school and would get the bus home for lunch every day from when I was nine or ten. My Dad worked locally and he would walk home from his office. If I got home first by a few minutes I would let myself in and put the kettle on and make the coffee. We had about half an hour, just long enough for a sandwich or something on toast, a cup of coffee, then back to school. If there was time I would stop at the sweet shop. Often the kids who went home had a "shopping list" for the kids who were not allowed out of school.
Year six was great. Our school had been a Central school and still had a science lab, and as my geeky interest was chemistry that was great. A few of us were interested in chemistry, and sometimes we would bring test tubes of chemicals to swap. That was the year that my scientific exploits were relegated from the house to the shed after a very successful attempt at making hydrogen sulfide. I think if I had a guardian angel he was probably clocking up overtime.
Our class teacher was brilliant at maths, and at eleven we were doing algebra that was on the syllabus for year eight at a Grammar school. Other specialist teachers taught us science, "Nature study" and art. There was a proper art room and a library. So going to secondary school was not such a change.
In hindsight, I think that most of my friends were probably on the spectrum, although in the '60s none of us was diagnosed. When I was four the pediatrician told my parents "He's hyperactive. Some kids are that way, you will get used to it " This was before ADHD and Asperger's were widely recognized in UK. Fortunately, I had teachers who were good at keeping me and my small peer group of other "weirdly wired" kids engaged.
Then on to Grammar school, where again the geeks were tolerated, even encouraged. I could spend breaks in the library or attend one of the clubs, or the photographic society had a darkroom, a somewhat insalubrious shed next to the outdoor lavatories. I joined the CCF and spent lunch breaks and free periods in the radio room. There was a kettle and I self-medicated with strong black coffee and played chess with cadets from a neighbouring school on the short wave radio net.
So I was pretty lucky ...