When Rosie told me what it actually meant I thought it was absolutely hilarious. We had a comparable demographic in England yet the word Chav was nowhere near as inventive as the word NED. You have to applaud the clever use of the acronym. I mean Non-Educated Delinquent is brilliant in capturing everything about them. Classic. It was comical that some actually referred to the term NED to describe themselves. And how correct they were. One of them actually screamed down the corridor at me, ‘Don’t fuck with the NEDs.’ Middle fingers on full display. I didn’t believe their referencing the word was self-deprecation; they didn’t strike me as being that ironic. NEDs. The name tickled me.
I didn’t hate them. Hate wasn’t the word I’d use. I certainly disliked them, I even pitied them at one point, but hate would have been too powerful an emotion for me to express. I wouldn’t have given any of them the satisfaction of having my hate. I found them benign. More than anything else they annoyed me. That was on a good day when I could actually understand what the hell they were saying…oh, it was the usual thoughtless stuff; it didn’t extend beyond sexual preferences, religious bigotry, my clothes or what football team I supported. It was funny because it seemed to vex them more when I informed them that I didn’t like football. Apparently this is just not acceptable behaviour in Glasgow. Everyone has to be labelled, tarred or pigeon holed. I refused to be branded in such an infantile way. They categorised me regardless of my beliefs and preferences, however. My first experience of a lose-lose situation.
When all the slagging started I assumed it was because I was English, but I quickly learnt that it wasn’t. They viewed me as an easy target. A guy isolated in a big new school, in a big new city. Someone searching to find his way. I was a sitting duck to them. Easy pickings. Fodder.
I didn’t say anything in my defence as it was made clear to me in no uncertain terms that I’d be better off ignoring them. We did have a similar level of ignorance, prejudice and intolerance in England; Glasgow didn’t have a monopoly on brainless delinquency. I wasn’t much of a fighter, but I knew when and where to speak my mind, or to challenge sensibilities. I also wanted to maintain my dignity. What was the point in any case? Was I that special person who was going to ignite the flame of reason in their heads? Were we about to arrive at a common understanding through a succession of long-winded and exhaustive negotiations? No way. Be a man, walk away, takes the bigger and braver man, and all that jargon. Fundamentally I valued my own aesthetic too much to step over that line.
It started pretty much as soon as I arrived in the school, give or take a few days here or there. It wasn’t something I was used to in my last school. If anything problematic occurred it was settled rapidly through fisticuffs, or one swift fisticuff. That’s how I settled it in the past. An old teacher told me to belt the bully if he was becoming too tiresome. I did. We played rugby at my last school, so you could say there was an inherent level of aggression that permeated. And, in many ways, an honour to settling scores with fists. However, I didn’t think I would have taken on that advice here. That past, that experience, seemed like a lifetime ago.
I was thankful that Rosie was around. Not that I used her because I was getting a hard time. She was my girlfriend and we were together. Hard time or not, we would have still been together. Another thing to remember: I wasn’t singled out. They harangued the life out of most folk. At a rough guess there were about ten of them. Sometimes there would be just a handful. They were always in numbers and always a threat. I kept saying to myself, a year up here, tops. I had a thick skin and was very determined. My determination wouldn’t overstretch any boundaries. I was in control of the situation. There was no point approaching a teacher, it’s not as if they were oblivious to the situation either, they buried their heads in the sand and pretended that nothing was happening. Anything for an easy-life approach. Probably the reality is that half of them were NED intimidated too, especially the female teachers. They may have found their swanky cars scratched from boot to bonnet had they confronted them.
There were a few comments about Miss Croal. Water off a duck’s back. I heard the rumours. It’s not as if I wandered around the school like Helen Keller…what could I do? I let them wash over me; I started to realise the moments when to turn my iPod on, block everything out. My main concern was trying to alleviate Rosie’s fears. I was also worried that Miss Croal would be victimised because of what people were saying about her, about us, that the school’s superiors would get wind of it and make life difficult for her. In a sense I was thankful that the majority of the defamatory comments came from the NEDs because their opinions and beliefs didn’t exactly hold any weight or have any credence in the school. To quote the local parlance, they spoke pure pish. No, I’m not suggesting I was blameless. Not for one minute am I doing that. I’d admit that there was a part of me that enjoyed the attention, the ambiguity of the situation and, in a perverse way, the potentially dire consequences of the remarks being true. It’s good to be noticed. After all, we are all narcissists at heart, are we not? I could have dined out on the tale in years to come.
To my recollection, Miss Croal and I never fully discussed the situation. There was nothing to discuss. Nothing. Our relationship continued in a similar vein. But that’s not to say that it wasn’t hanging in the air, it was, but we never addressed it. The elephant hovered. I carried on with the study classes and my time spent in her English class was as it was: unfulfilling, unremarkable and uninspiring. That didn’t make her a bad person or a bad teacher for that matter. The problem could have been me. I understood she was pitching her lessons to a class that was inferior to my academic prowess. That’s not snobbery or arrogance on my part, that’s reality. I wasn’t challenged. Thousands of students like their teachers and vice versa.
The thing is sooner or later you’ll be hunted. Sooner or later they’ll sniff you out. In any environment, you get a sense of who to steer clear of. This new school was no different. They wandered around in packs. No less than four, no more than twelve. They looked malnourished and unkempt. What struck me was the state of their skin, it looked damaged and unhappy. The complexion of poverty. Two had distinctive scars straight down their right cheek in what appeared to be a premeditated assault. To my innocent and naïve eye it did, anyway. These scars were worn like badges and sent out a clear message of intent to onlookers. It worked, I was…terrified would be the wrong word to use…perturbed would be more accurate. I was perturbed by them, the scars that is. On the rare occasion I heard them chatting among themselves I found it nigh on impossible to understand what they were saying. The odd word here and there. Their tone and temperament, on the other hand, was easier to decipher. I stayed clear of them.
I tried to make myself invisible around them, to draw no attention to myself. Did it work? No chance. As an Englishman in a Scottish school, I may as well have hung a red neon sign on my back saying English guy! Feel free to kick the shit out of him. At first it was stares and internal questioning. ‘Who the hell is that?’ ‘When did that prick come to our school?’ And they were not wrong about the use of our; it was their school, too. They controlled it. They provided its foundations. They controlled where other students wandered…as well as some teachers. They controlled the atmosphere of each lesson. After that came the odd bark, ‘Haw fanny man, wit ir you doin up here?’ ‘Git back tae yer own country, ya bawbag.’ Never once did I retaliate or make, what could have been, a misinter-preted gesture. Usually I plugged my earphones in, and blocked their comments out. As long as they remained just comments I could handle it, no problem. Keep eyes on the floor! Keep eyes on the floor! Keep eyes on the floor! My mantra when they were about. What galled me most was that these lowlife bastards drove fear into the vulnerable and insecure. Sought out and preyed on the weak. I was determined not to appear weak.
I was warned in advance by a few good souls in the school. People who obviously knew what they were capable of. I listened. I understood.
‘See those NEDs, man?’ Conor Duffy said.
‘NEDs?’ I asked.
‘The mad squad, the wans wey the trackies oan an the greasy napper.’
‘You mean funny mad, or mad mad?’
‘Listen, Clem, me old son, the mad squad ir the only wans in this school tae watch oot fur.’
‘Really?’
‘A’m tellin ye.’
‘So NEDs would be like chavs where I come from?’
‘Dae these chavs carry?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Knives, chibs, screwdrivers…dae they carry?’
‘I suppose some of them do. My last school didn’t really have a problem with chavs or NEDs.’
‘Thir the same hing, then.’
‘Like I said, we didn’t have a problem with them.’
‘Well this wan diz. We hiv a major problem wey NEDs,’ Conor said. I sensed the anger in his voice as well as a little seduction. Or maybe it was the way his dialect, put on or not, danced around and escaped from the side of his mouth. There was a perceptible pride to it as well. Like the pride of attending a school that so happened to house the maddest guys in mad town. My feeling was that Conor would be dining out for many years to come on his stories of surviving a school riddled with a NEDs plague. Tales would be fabricated and stories of fraternising embellished. Who knows, perhaps he could put together some sort of survival manual in the future.
‘Well, I’ll stay clear of them,’ I said.
‘Dae that, ma man.’
‘To be honest, I doubt I’ll have any dealings with them, Conor.’
‘Make sure ye don’t coz these mental bastards would hiv nae qualms aboot chibbin an English guy like yersel.’ Then came a theatrical pause. ‘Nae qualms at aw.’ He did a mock stabbing motion with an imaginary knife. (He was in the exam class for drama). That’s how I learnt what chibbing was. The verb ‘to chib.’ I liked it. But I couldn’t foresee a context of when I could, or would, use it.
‘Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.’
‘Aw it takes is a wrang word or lookin at sumbudy the wrang way.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Seriously, man, tread carefully aroon those psychos.’ Then Conor’s little friend entered the conversation. A feeble-looking guy, who had a ton of goodness about him, and not much else by the state of his dishevelled clothes; he was affectionately referred to as Wee Sean.
‘They need nae excuse, dude.’ I sniggered at the use of the word dude, which triggered Wee Sean’s I’m-as-serious-as-cancer persona into action. ‘I’d advise you tae keep yer trap shut aroon those mental loons.’
‘I intend to.’
‘We’re nae tryin to frighten ye ir anythin like that, it jist thit they might take exception tae yer accent.’
‘Cheers.’
‘Nae bother, dude,’ Wee Sean said, evidently content with his role as security consultant. My face must have contorted into a symbol of worry.
‘Don’t panic, Clem, me old son,’ Conor said, with an air of reassurance.
‘No, I’m okay. Seriously.’
‘Look, thir in the remdems anyway so ye won’t hiv much tae dae wey them.’
‘Remdems?’ I asked.
‘It means remedial.’
‘What, all of them?’
‘Ivry last wan, dude,’ Wee Sean said.
‘Listen, forget that, dae ye play fitbaw?’ Conor asked me.
‘I’m afraid I don’t. Rugby was what we played at our last school.’
‘Nae luck,’ Wee Sean said.
My negative response hammered the death nail into the conversation. That was me firmly out of the gang. Not that I wished to join it in the first place, but if I had any aspirations to be a part of it there was no chance. Above all else they probably thought I was gay. Not liking football has that effect on other males. It seems to be the main contributing factor to being homosexual. A prerequisite for entry into the gay set.