I agreed that, yeah, I had fallen off the wall. Even to this day I don’t know why I said that. I really don’t know. And life carried on like this. Eventually when I got to about eight they started putting me into children’s homes, they started putting me with foster parents, or with family friends. It was like I just wasn’t wanted. And so every place you go to, you don’t tell people the real you. I remember one time being with these foster parents and I was put in a local school, and I was telling everyone that they were my mum and dad, that I’d been on holiday to America with them, because I’d heard them talking about going to America, so I kind of took on that persona. Because really, at the end of the day, being that persona was better than being the real me and people knowing what the real me was. So that was the pattern for the next couple of years, up until I got to about ten, 11. And then went into senior school, and... I started to get noticed because of my football. People were very interested in the way I played and the things I could do. And so, people began to find out about me and a local club saw the way I was playing, now I was about 14, still being bullied at school, still everything going wrong for me. And I had this –it was fantastic– a well-known footballer, who’d reached quite good heights, turned round to me and said, ‘we need an attacking defender like you, you’re something that’s lacking in the game at the moment’. And I was so excited that this guy was now offering me something that was now way beyond anything I’d ever dreamed of, and obviously, they had to get my parents’ permission for me to do anything. And and it went to my parents and my parents said, ‘No. You can’t do this. You’ve got school to concentrate on.’ Like I was doing anything good at school anyway. I was like in a special needs class, I wasn’t going anywhere. And that really was a dramatic turning point in my life. I know my life had been really bad up ‘till then, but, you know, that was a dramatic turning point. Because everything from that moment went downhill. I lost it totally. I started glue sniffing, I remember at school being bullied, and it just went one day from me being bullied, to all the teachers not bothering about me, not caring about me. So I decided that I’m, I’m not going to take this any more, I’m not having this any more. I remember the 74 day it happened: I was in the classroom and the guy behind me, was just taking the piss out of me basically, really going at me. And I just turned round to him and I said, ‘Why don’t you just shut the fuck up?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, you’re getting big now are you?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, we’ll see who’s fucking big, who’s not big.’ And we went outside, and I remember just battering this guy stupid. I got into a stage where I just, I had hold of his ears and I just banged his head off the concrete. I was so angry, so mad. And then the teachers came and split it all up, and I was told, ‘what are you doing, you’re in the wrong’ etc, etc. and all that lot. And then the next day his mate wanted to fight me, ‘cause I beat his mate up. So I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, fair enough, no trouble there at all’. And I did the same to him. I beat him up as well. And I guess I was so excited by it all, that suddenly I was the top man now. That no one was going to bully me anymore. And so, I got to the stage where I just went round the school picking on bullies and beating up bullies, and looking at people in a different way. And while I’m walking around, I still wanted... I still needed someone to hug me, to have that close contact with me. But I kept that away, I hid that. Because now I was the big man and really I didn’t need anyone, mate, I was the top dog. And, it got to the stage where, in one of my school reports, I still remember it, a teacher had written that, both pupils and staff felt threatened in my presence. And, I felt really proud of that. That, yeah, you know, that was really good. And my parents never got to see that school report because I threw it away. And so it was still the case that, at school, I pretended to be the big hard man, that no one could hurt me, and then I’d go home to my parents and be this submissive, teenage kid, who would take beatings, and take stuff like that. And then when I got to 16, on my sixteenth birthday party, step-dad broke my nose ‘cause he said I was getting too big for my boots. So he just punched me in the face. The guy was like a 18-stone geezer, and to get a full punch in the face from him, yeah, broke my nose, blood everywhere, and I cried. And then shortly after that, I remember one night, I was always being picked on by my parents, always things being done bad for me, always being criticised, always being slagged off. And then one night I
Gillian Wearing
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