Post Twelve: Adventures in High School

Hello there, and welcome to Post 12 of The All Consuming Fire! Sorry it’s been a while, but I’ve been away, namely in Gothenburg where I went to see Iron Maiden. It was brilliant. So good, in fact, I saw them again in Glasgow and Aberdeen.

I’d love to tell you all about my Crazy-Globetrotting-All-The-Way-To-Aberdeen Adventure as much as I'm sure you’d love to hear it, but that’s not why you’re here, is it? You’re here by accident because you want to read about my Ill-Conceived-But-Heart-Warming-And-Very-Enjoyable-To-Read Silly Dating Adventure.

So, with that in mind, follow me. . .

I was struggling to get over Emily, and I kept running over our relationship in my head, like an old film reel showing highlight clips. I thought jumping straight back into the dating game would be the best way to help me move on, but I was wrong; it only served as a reminder of how good things used to be.


I simply wasn’t ready. So I decided to leave it for a bit, to take a break and recuperate, and stop thinking about our relationship for a bit.

The only problem with that is that I couldn’t stop thinking about our relationship. I was driving myself mental, dwelling on every little detail. It was a bit miserable. I needed something to take my mind off things.

Then one day, when I was walking home from work, I passed my old high school in Bishopbriggs. It had been empty for a while because they built a new one further up the road, and this one was set to be demolished. I’d finished my school sentence six years previously, but it was still weird seeing it empty, hollow, and, well, dead.

It was late March, and a matter of weeks before it was due to be torn down. I decided that it would be fun to go in and have a look. . .

. . . But I didn’t, not right away. I waited a few days because Tim and I had plans to hang out, and it wouldn’t be much fun breaking into our old high school by myself.

A few days later. . .

‘So, what do you want to do now?’ said Tim. We finished dinner  (a mighty gammon steak, chunky chips and baked beans, the meal of kings) and started playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘there's something I fancy doing. It’s a bit cheeky though, and we’ll have to wait until it gets dark. . .’

Tim looked a bit scared.

‘...What?’

‘I walked passed the high school the other day, and it’s all fenced up and empty and horrible looking.’

‘Oh. Are you saying you want to re-decorate it?’

‘No,’ I said, even though that would have been hilarious, ‘but I do quite fancy having a look around.’

Tim grinned. ‘Brilliant!’

The school was on a quiet street, but there was a row of houses on the other side. This needed careful planning.

‘Right, this sort of breaking-and-entering behaviour is probably frowned upon,’ I said, ‘so we’ll have to do it when it’s dark and the roads are quiet, and when people will be in their beds, not likely to be looking out their windows and watching two idiots try to climb a fence.’

I am not a criminal mastermind, but I felt that this was a sound plan.

‘So how about this,’ I continued. ‘We park in a side street, and wander over. That way, if anyone’s about, we can walk straight past. It’ll look odd if the car is parked right outside.’

I am brilliant.

‘Sounds good,’ said Tim, clearly in awe.

We left my place at 1am. Ideally, we’d have leapt out of a plane, parachuted onto the roof, then used our night-vision goggles to find a vent and creep in. Instead, Tim parked his car and we walked over.

‘Mike should be here,’ Tim said. ‘He’d love this.’

‘Aye,’ I said, ‘but he's working tonight. And there’s no guarantee we’ll even get in. Plus, we can come back if we want.’

‘True.’

It was dark and cold, just the sort of weather for late-night shenanigans, like in a James Bond film. And by that, I mean the secret agent-type stuff, not the getting-it-on-with-beautiful-women-in-casinos-type stuff.

After we made sure no-one was looking, we climbed the fence and landed next to the car park. The main entrance was boarded shut, as you’d expect, so we went to the left, heading towards the P.E. department, the door to which would have let us inside if it wasn’t buried underneath a million tonnes of rubble. Instead, we went into the nurse’s office, which was directly opposite. It had its plywood board-windows pulled off, so we stepped inside. It hadn’t changed at all, except for the bombed-out, war zone chic they seemed to be going for.

‘This is well cool,’ Tim said. ‘It’s been years since I was in here!’

‘Same here!’ which is an obvious statement. ‘I hope it’s as easy as this to get into the main bit.’

‘It will be man, we’ll be fine.’

We crept around the office, looking for anything that might be of interest. Which there wasn’t, unless you count broken glass and bits of plywood.

‘This is exactly like James Bond,’ I said.

Tim was silent, which must have meant he agreed with me.

We climbed through a window, or rather, a hole in the wall, because the window was all over the floor. We were outside now, and made our way to the side of the school, moved up some stairs, passed some bins that smelled like they hadn’t been emptied since I was in Third Year, and stood at the back of the building.

There used to be doors here that lead to the cafeteria but they were boarded up. In fact, all the doors and windows were boarded up.

We looked around. There was no obvious way in.

‘Hmm,’ said Tim.

‘…Yep.’

We looked around some more, and we even tried using a bin to climb through a window, but it wasn’t secure enough.

A few minutes passed. It seemed our night of epic adventuring was coming to a premature conclusion, something James Bond would definitely not approve of.

‘Maybe we should leave it, and come back with Mike?’ I said.

‘No way, we’re here now, we’re getting in,’ said Tim.

I looked around some more. There was rubbish and plastic bags and construction paraphernalia everywhere.

And then I noticed that a plywood board was leaning against another board, at ground level, where a window used to be. The board looked like it was placed there on purpose. The assembly hall was through that window, and from there, we could get anywhere in the school...

‘Here, check this,’ I said. I shifted the board and threw it at the side. It must have been placed there to hold the board that was covering the window in place, because the corner wasn’t nailed down. It was loose. Loose enough to pull back. Loose enough so that a person could fit through.

‘Brilliant!’ I said, because it was.


We went through, into the assembly hall. It was pitch black. Tim turned on the torch on his phone, because in all our ingenious, complex and cunning planning, we forgot to bring a fucking torch.

‘This is so cool!’ Tim said.

‘Yeah, totally.’

We wandered about the assembly hall. I don’t know when they shifted the students into the new school, but there was Christmas decorations and stuff kicking about, like an old tree, tinsel and an ornamental plastic snowman.

‘I remember that snowman!’ said Tim.

‘Yeah, me too.’

‘Right, well, I’m taking him up the road. We’ll leave him here and come back and get him.’

I looked at the snowman – snowmen technically, as there was a smaller one attached to a bigger one. He had child-like innocent smile, which must be why he got the job to be a Christmas ornament in a school. I bet he didn’t even have to wear a suit to the interview; it was a smile that could stop wars the world over! It was a smile that could turn a heart of stone into a heart of… um, muscle, I suppose. I agreed with Tim; we had to take him. There was no way we could keep him here, where he’d surely die during the demolition.

We placed him by our makeshift entrance, to make sure we wouldn’t forget.

‘Let’s see what else is about,’ Tim said.

I jumped onto the stage, and instinctively puffed my chest out and put my hands on my hip.

‘You look like a tit,’ said Tim, so I stopped, and looked around the stage.

‘There’s the old sleigh Mr. Izatt used to use, when he dressed up as Santa!’ I said. I would like to point out that - as far as I know - Mr. Izatt only did this at Christmas time.

‘Oh yeah, brilliant!’ said Tim.

After we were satisfied with the assembly hall, we went down to the PE department.

‘It smells exactly the same!’ I said, because it did smell exactly the same. The sweat from football and rugby and everything else must be embedded in the walls.

We looked around for some stray footballs or something, souvenirs to remind us of our High School Reunion. But there weren’t any.

We checked out the music department next, but no-one left any guitars kicking around. Nonetheless, it was still a lot of fun.

We made our way through to the foyer, the tiny light from Tim’s phone-torch guiding us. I used the light from my phone to help as well, but it was pretty useless. We crept along the corridor, past Mrs. Pears' (yes, really) old Maths classroom (which, for some reason, wasn't in the Maths department).

‘Let’s go upstairs,’ said Tim.

‘Hell yeah.’

Then I noticed some construction gear to the left of the stairwell, near the boys’ entrance (that’s how old the school was, it had separate entrances for boys and girls. Does that still happen?).

‘Look at that,’ I said.

‘What?’

There was a sign-in sheet on the table, obviously belonging to the construction team. The last entry was the 18^th of March, which I only remember because that happens to be my birthday.

‘That was less than two weeks ago,’ I said. There was a pencil on the table. I had to do it. I had to sign the sheet.

The Mighty Batman! I signed. I wonder how the workers reacted when they resumed saw that Batman was checking in on things?

I can’t remember what Tim signed, but let's pretend it was Rapunzel Bananaflaps MacGubbon or Breece D’J Pancake (which is a real name).

After that, we went upstairs, to the library and English department. This part of the building was lighter, as, from the first floor up, the windows were still intact. This was good because it made negotiating the rubble a bit easier, but it also meant we could be spotted from the ground if someone happened to be out and about.

The library was in a complete mess, with ceiling tiles and upturned book shelves all over the place. We had a look around, but there was nothing interesting, not even any books. So it was just as exciting as it was when we were last in it, I suppose.

Then we went into our old English classroom, where we did Higher English (under the tutelage of Ms. Uys, which is pronounced 'Ace'. Yes, really. We had Pears and an Ace at our school.).


Tim and I sat next to each other during  5^th year English, which is why we didn't do too well. Mike sat behind us, which is why he did a bit better. What a square.

We walked along the corridor, into the Art and Maths department. There’s probably a joke there about why they put these two departments together to teach people how to paint by numbers, but I don’t think it’d be worth the effort to make, so I won’t.

We stepped into our first year Maths class.

‘This is the exact spot where I failed to learn maths!’ I said.

‘This is the exact spot where I got ten punishment exercises at once, for doing nothing,’ Tim said, which is true (I was there and remember it quite well. It was funny).

We left the rooma nd checked the Art classrooms, which was cool but there was nothing of interest. Then we moved up the next set of stairs, towards the Language and Computing departments, but the door to the corridor was blocked and couldn’t be opened. There was a warning sign that told us the area was being treated for asbestos.

‘Should we go in anyway?’ I said.

‘Naw,’ said Tim, quite rightly. We continued up the stairs, to the top floor, where the Science and Geography departments where housed. Like the P.E. department, it smelled exactly the same as it used to, of stale chemicals and Bunsen burners. And whatever Geography smells like.

We looked through the Geography rooms, but there weren’t any globes or ordnance survey maps to liberate.

‘Do you remember sitting here with Mike and everyone, talking shite and having a laugh in the middle of class?’ asked Tim.

‘Yeah,’ I said. I’ve never been one to fondly reminisce about high school, unless it was about a specific anecdote or friendship or girlfriend or something, but there were memories I didn’t know I had bubbling away.

We continued down the corridor, into the science department where, to Tim’s horror, we saw that the desks – oddly-shaped science class desks, with gas taps and stuff – were still in great condition. If I remember correctly, these desks had been put in not long before we finished school, which meant they were only six years old. Such a waste (though not as much of a waste as the outdoor games hall; that was about 7 years old before it was torn down the same time as the high school building. More information on this can be found here, if you’re at all interested).

‘Such a disgrace,’ said Tim, because he’s dead into desks.

We finished up, and headed back downstairs, still unable to access the floor below due to that pesky asbestos. We went to the ground floor, and went through to the corridor which housed the Technical, History and Home Economics department. We went into the home eekies class, as it used to be called (though I think that has been replaced with ‘home ec’ nowadays) and Tim was again appalled at the new desks, upturned and empty. These were even newer than the science desks, as they hadn’t been installed when I was here.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ he said, ‘that’s good craftsmanship right there.’

God, Tim loves desks.

We had a look around, saw some rat poison in the pantry, which explains a lot, and saw some chopping boards, which we took, because apparently you can never have too many chopping boards. They were heading for the bin anyway, so we didn’t feel guilty. Anyway, if we left them, Tim would have moaned about the excellent craftsmanship that the machine that mass-produced them spent hours putting in.

We headed to the History department next, and I remembered how Mike and I used to sit next to each other drawing silly cartoons when we should have been learning about the Industrial Revolution.

‘Let’s go to the Tech department,’ said Tim, salivating at the prospect of desks and tools and stuff. In fairness, I was excited too; I used to love Craft & Design at school, even if I wasn’t the best at the actual Craft part of it.

We looked through the work rooms, which had the same old desks, and into the class rooms where we did all the writing and designing. Then we nearly fell down a hole that was in the middle of a corridor.

‘What’s that?’ I said.

‘Eh, a hole,’ said Tim.

‘Oh.’

It seemed to be a maintenance hole that went a few feet into the ground. Tim shone the phone-torch into it, but it didn’t look worthwhile to explore.

We left the Technical department behind, but not before Tim grabbed a lone T-square and I took an old Stars In Their Eyes video. Stars In Their Eyes was the school Christmas talent show that resembled the British TV programme of the same name.

‘This was filmed in 2003, the last Christmas show before I left,’ I said. I said I, because Tim had left our school at the end of 5^th year, to do is 6^th year in St. Andrews.

‘Awesome,’ Tim said.

‘Totally, because Mike and I were the curtain guys! We moved the curtains in between acts; you’ll see us at the end of this video!’ It was extra-cool because some of our female friends performed The Cranberries song Zombie this year, and they’d be on the video too!

I pulled the cassette out. This was brilliant! And then it was not so brilliant because the cassette inside it was from the previous year.

‘Rubbish!’ I said.

‘What?’

‘It’s from 2002. It was in the wrong sleeve.’

I was heartbroken. Tim, however, wasn’t:

‘Wait, was that when we were in 5^th year?’

‘Yeah, it must have been.’

‘Brilliant! That’s when Mike and me did our song!’

He was right; this was the year that they performed the Weird Al Yankovic song The Saga Begins, a Star Wars-based parody of the Don McLean song American Pie.

I was crestfallen. I wanted to see my 17-year-old self move some curtains.

Oh well, at least we’d get to see Tim and Mike*.

We continued on our journey, reaching the crush hall, knowing it was coming to an end because there wasn’t much else to see.

‘Hang on, I said.’

‘What?’

‘I need to pee.’

We started to walk towards the bathrooms.

‘Wait,’ I said.

‘What is it now?’

‘Why are we going to the boys’ toilet? The girl’s one is right there.’

‘Isn’t that a bit weird?’

‘Nah, no-one’s here,’ I said. ‘Plus it won’t have been used for months.’

I ventured into the girls’ bathroom, which I have never done before, and urinated. It was a long-harboured fantasy fulfilled alright.

The toilet was next to the cafeteria, so that was our next port of call. We went behind the counters, into the kitchen. This was uncharted territory; we’d never been here before. It wasn’t that exciting though, considering it was about three feet from where we’d been many times before.

Tim was ahead of me, creeping slowly.

‘Watch your feet here, there’s loads of broken glass,’ he said.

Then I noticed a small football near me, though I could barely make it out. I hoped it was a football, and not someone's head.

‘No worries,’ I said. And then I kicked the football towards Tim, which landed onto some glass with a loud crash. It made Tim jump, and possibly shit himself.

‘What the hell was that?’ Tim didn’t say, because his language was a lot more colourful.

‘A football,’ I said. ‘Probably.’

We left the cafeteria, and headed towards the 6^th year common room. The memory of Mike nearly being decapitated when the metal blade of a shovel went flying past entered my mind. Good times.

Except the common room wasn’t there any more; it was replaced by a much smaller music room.

‘Well that’s disappointing,’ I said.

‘Aye.’

We left the crush hall, visiting the boys’ toilet on the way, just because it was there. We were now at the boys’ entrance, where The Mighty Batman! had been working with his construction mates.

‘Well,’ I said.

‘Yeah.’

‘We should probably go.’

‘Aye.’

‘This was brilliant.’

We finished the best day of high school with the snowman, a T-square, the video of a talent show that I wasn’t in, and some chopping boards in tow.

*To this day, we still haven’t watched the video. None of us owns a VHS player.