Schooldays

When I was 16:

I went to an all-girls school called Surbiton High. I had Doctor Martin shoes, opaque grey tights with stitched-up ladders and a grey school uniform. I was always getting told off for having my shirt untucked, but how are you supposed to work a rolled-up a grey A-line skirt if you don't have the shirt untucked over the top?

I carried a packet of Marlborough red or Death cigarettes in my blazer pocket and was once sent to the deputy head after assembly for having one thumbnail painted black. She wasn't there so I successfully begged the chemistry teacher (Mrs Pettit, who had a small third front tooth growing between the big ones) to take it off with meths.

I grew my hair down to my waist because I wanted to be like my friend Jolene Rutter, who went to Tiffin Girls and caught the same bus. We listened to Appetite for Destruction on shared pink headphones whilst smoking the Death or Marlborough reds and waiting for the 216 in Kingston.

My alarm went off at 5.50am every weekday morning - the bus left Sunbury at 7.15 and I had a lot of hair to wash. In winter, I'd leave home in the dark and come home in the dark. I felt like a pit pony.

I had a massive crush on a half-Spanish bloke called David, who lived down the road from me and was at the sixth form college. He had long black curly hair, took acid and wore Robert Plant-style flared jeans. My passion was mostly unrequited, but I did get a snog in the alley by the old people's home when we sneaked off for a cigarette once.

On Saturdays, I worked in Lloyds Chemist down the road from my parents' house. I rode there on my shopper and once put green eyeshadow under my eyes to feign illness, although I was generally very conscientious. The window display was my pride and joy, but the days spent there were an utter waste of time - all the money went into a savings account and I later lent it to a boyfriend to pay his council tax and never got it back.

I had a "glandular fever-type virus" for two years and missed a lot of school. It could well have been brought on by a pathological fear of my psychotic form tutor/French teacher, Miss Scott. She would either wear red sandals and green tights or green sandals and red tights with a green and red tartan skirts. She was utterly, utterly terrifying.

My mum signed me off games for the last two terms of school. Polly and I sat in the library, drawing on our bags. Sometimes we legged it over to her house over the road to eat biscuits.

In the days before the sicknote, my classmate Claudia taught me that if you wipe a bit of tiger balm under your eyes and tell Mrs Wilke your parents are getting divorced, you don't have to do PE.

I met my first boyfriend, Tom, at the Flamingo in Kingston. I had a fake NUS student card so I could get served and we would drive straight into the pub carpark on his motorbike without removing the crash helmets, thereby ingeniously avoiding the bouncers. The Flamingo was full of long-haired metaller-types but the music was supplied by DJ Pineapple, who used to do kids parties when I was at primary school. I have a vivid memory of hearing Agadoo for the first time, played by him at Elaine Forder's birthday party. I was wearing my polka dot ra-ra skirt at the time.

Tom and I went out for a year-and-a-half. He had long curly black hair (a theme was emerging) and was half Chinese. He played the guitar, taught me how to make roll-ups and would come to my house and sit in the front room, blowing smoke rings. I can kind of do it, but never as good as he could. Still makes me feel a bit dizzy.

My drink of choice was snakebite and black or bottles of £1.99 (regatta special) Figaro white wine. Even the mention of the word "Figaro" burns acid holes in my stomach.

I had a friend, Rob, who only ever had 6p.

The first time my parents went away without me, I spent all the housekeeping buying the ice-cream van man out of fudge-flavoured Pizzaz lollies (there was plenty of booze in the drinks cabinet).

I spent most of my time sitting on a log in the park with my best friend Amy. If we weren't in the park, we'd be drawing on her bedroom walls or walking each other home for hours. Amy's parents let us have parties in their boat house. We used to get alcohol from her big sister Alice's venture scout mates and try to kiss boys in frayed black jumpers.

My room was so messy, I had a pile of clothes at the end of the bed that could be used as a second bedside table.

The coolest band I liked was Pearl Jam. The least cool was Extreme. I still know that the guitarist from Extreme is Nuno Duarte Gil Mendes Bettencourt, born September 20 1966 and I imagine I could still draw their logo. I was hoping to go out with Nuno at some point, but it never happened. I met them twice. I also met Aerosmith and Soundgarden. I was totally right about Eddie Vedder:


Hot

For my GCSE art exam, I made a hat for Picasso and a huge pottery face with teeth and tongues in the eye-sockets and an eyeball in the mouth.

I wanted to be an actress or a journalist. I didn't really revise for my GCSEs but I got four As, four Bs and a C for maths, the most hateful subject on planet earth that I was tutored in every week for two years. I still couldn't work formulas and had to enlarge the triangle on my desk with a ruler during the exam.

I was still writing tortured teenage poetry. It was fucking terrible.