Author Topic: The Drawing on the Toilet Wall  (Read 584 times)

biglouis

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The Drawing on the Toilet Wall
« on: Jan 13, 2021, 05:20:24 PM »
When I was about ten and a half years old, something happened which was to change the course of my entire life, and my personality. It began when I became friends with a girl called Dorothy Amson.

My sister was a pretty child. However Dorothy was probably the most beautiful child I have ever met. She had huge blue eyes in a heart shaped face. Her hair, which she wore in two long ringlets, was naturally bright auburn. Mostly she wore a little felt bonnet with pink velvet roses on each side.

Dorothy was an adopted child and her parents were Jehovas’ Witnesses. They were very strict with her and she was allowed little freedom. On Sundays they attended services twice and she was only allowed to read religious books. I was one of the few children with whom she was allowed to play. In those days there were no organized “play dates”. You went to your friends house and knocked the door. When the parent answered you would politely say “Hello Mrs Amson, can Dorothy come out to play?” Most of the time the answer was no. So our play time together was mostly stolen on the way to and from school.

Like all children we had our secret little place where we met. Ours was a secluded little path which ran alongside the railway track. It had a stone wall which we used to run along and hide behind when an adult came in sight.

Despite her physical beauty Dorothy had a mind like a cesspit! She was what my mother described as an “inside angel and an outside devil”.

To give some example of my own naivety regarding sexual matters, I had never heard the work “f**k” which I learned first from my friend.  My father was from a rough lower working class background and had spent time working on the docks as a casual labourer. However I never once heard him use that word.

This was the era when the spies Burgess and Maclean famously defected to the Soviet Union. I recall remarking to my mother “I see that Burgess and MacLean have f***ed off to Russia.” There was a shocked silence, and my mother asked “Do you know what that word means?” “It means they ran off!” “No, it’s a filthy word and don’t ever let me hear you say it again or Ill tell your father.” I still had no notion of what the word actually meant. However my friend Dorothy was able to tell me! Where she learned the “facts of life” and the robust language used to describe them in such a repressive background I never found out.

Late one afternoon, Dorothy and I were in the school library. She had found a medical atlas with a revealing diagram of the male anatomy. We were giggling over it, while she explained to me what men “did” with this part of their body. We were still sniggering when the school librarian came to lock up and shooed us out of the room.

Still giggling together, we crossed the school yard to the girl’s toilets. The walls were lined with dark brown tiles to waist height, and above that was whitewashed brick. Dorothy produced a couple of coloured crayons.

“Lets draw”. And we did.

I drew stick figures, like those which advertised "The Saint" in the detective films. They had little halos. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw that Dorothy had drawn the outline of a male figure similar to what we had seen in the medical book. It had an erect member and was urinating into a bucket.  After a time, we got bored and left the school. We really paid little attention to what we had done, or the possible consequences. The school yard was completely empty as we ran out the gate and continued our play.

Next day when I arrived at school my friend Norma B ran up and grabbed me by the arm. “Come and see this!” She dragged me into the girl’s toilets. There I was horrified to see that a crowd of children was standing in front of the urinating male drawing that Dorothy had created. They were taking it in turns to pass comments. Just then the class snitch happened to walk past. It was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and later it was to land me in a great deal of trouble. That, and my own naivety.

Later that morning Mrs Williams, the head teacher, came into the classroom and instructed all the boys to leave. She then demanded “Does anyone know anything about a filthy drawing someone has done in the girl’s toilets?”

Margaret B, the class snitch, put up her hand. “Please Miss, I saw BL showing it to all her friends.”

Mrs Williams called me to follow her and led me into an empty classroom next door.

“Well BL, what do you know about this?”

Looking back from the perspective of years, if only I could have been a little more worldly wise. I would have said something like “Please Miss, I didn’t know anything about it until my friend Norma B showed me.”

The teacher would then have sought out Norma B, who would have named the pupil who drew her attention to it, And so on, down the line, until she came to the first child who had discovered it that morning. There she would have drawn a blank in her investigations, for no one had seen Dorothy and I leave the previous evening.

Instead, like an idiot, I confessed “Miss I drew the saint figures, but not the dirty one.”

“But you must know who drew the dirty one?”

“Yes miss but I cant tell you. That would be snitching.”

Mrs Williams then began to bully me, telling me that I was already in a great deal of trouble for defacing school property. She kept repeating “You will tell me, you will tell me. Your parents are going to have to pay for the damage. And you’re not going home until you tell me!”

I had visions of my parents being called to the school, and another beating from my father. Eventually, shaking and crying, I told her that Dorothy Amson was the artist of the obscene drawing.

Ordering me to remain where I was, Mrs Williams walked abruptly out of the room. I was left alone.

It seemed a long time before she returned, carrying a bucket of water and a scrubbing brush. She told me in a menacing tone that she had spoken with Dorothy, who admitted to drawing the stick figures. However she insisted that I had drawn the obscene one. The head teacher was satisfied with the other child’s story. I was going to take the bucket and scrub the filthy drawing from the wall.

But first she was determined that I was going to confess what I had done.

In vain I protested my innocence. Her mind was already made up. The beautiful face and melting blue eyes of my erstwhile friend had wrought their mischief. A plain child with cropped mousy hair, I stood no chance. To this day, I can still recall some of that fateful exchange.

I remembered reading somewhere that a liar would be unable to look her accuser in the eye, and would always look away. Only an honest person could meet your gaze. Knowing that I was innocent, I looked the head teacher full in the face and declared.

“I didn’t do it Miss, I’ll swear on the bible”

“What a dreadful thing to say. Do you know that God is listening to you now?”

Then, as though she could read my innermost thoughts.

“I know what your thinking BL Your thinking that if I look Mrs Williams in the eye she will believe me. But I can see the lie in your eyes.”

This was the point of submission. I was ten years old, and this powerful and frightening woman could somehow see what was inside my mind. It was a terriflying experience.

She bullied and browbeat me until I confessed to something I had not done, just to get away from her.

It broke me.

Later, when I came home in tears, my mother believed me. To do her credit she did visit the school and remonstrate with Mrs Williams. However a working class woman had little chance against a highly educated teacher. Mrs Williams simply argued that if I was truly innocent I would never have confessed. My grandmother wanted to get her solicitor to contact the school governors but for once my father put his foot down. My grandmother only desisted because she realised that to draw the matter out would simply upset me more.

In the meantime I took to my bed with a kind of mini breakdown. I refused to get up, or eat or wash. I don’t remember much about that time.  Shortly afterwards I sat the 11 plus, and failed. I think my parents were relieved. They could never have afforded a school uniform for the grammar school I had selected.

When I eventually emerged from this period and went to my new school  I had learned some valuable lessons about life and the harshness of the world

The meek do not inherit the earth. They inherit the dirt.

Truthful people who play by the rules are not always believed. Those who are believed and who escape without punishment are often the clever liars and manipulators.

In reflection I can honestly say that this experience wrought a change in my personality. I was no longer a people pleaser. I became much more outspoken, stubborn and self reliant. I cared less and less about what others thought of me and concentrated upon my own ambitions and desires. The shiny innocence of childhood died amid the fear and confusion of that classroom, never to return.

I also became an atheist. I could not believe in a god who had allowed an innocent child to suffer.

I do not blame Dorothy Amson for what happened.  She was a child too. Her personality was the result of a twisted and repressive upbringing.

Some years later our paths briefly crossed again. I was in my twenties. She was no longer beautiful. Her skin was all greasy and pimply and covered with thick white make up in an attempt to cover them.

She looked like a whore.

I pushed the memory to the deepest recesses of my mind until many years later. In the 1980s survivors of extreme school experiences in the form of abuse began to speak out and demand reparation from the appropriate education authority. In some cases the person who imposed the abuse was still living as an aged and respected figure in the community. Unfortunately, my enquiries showed that Mrs Williams had long since died.

Had it been otherwise I would have pursued her to the very Gates of Hell.
Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools.

Michael Rolls

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Re: The Drawing on the Toilet Wall
« Reply #1 on: Jan 13, 2021, 05:35:26 PM »
Really sad experience
Mike
Thank you for the days, the days you gave me.
The older I get, the better I was!

em

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Re: The Drawing on the Toilet Wall
« Reply #2 on: Jan 13, 2021, 05:42:35 PM »
But a good short story! Thanks,BL.

zoony

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Re: The Drawing on the Toilet Wall
« Reply #3 on: Jan 13, 2021, 05:44:25 PM »
Well done BL.. 's a good job men can't pee with an erection.. I think it would be termed an auto-Golden Shower.. ;D
"Listen to the wind, it cleans the mind."

"Never use money to measure wealth, son"

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biglouis

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Re: The Drawing on the Toilet Wall
« Reply #4 on: Jan 16, 2021, 08:11:14 PM »
I know all about golden showers zoony. I once worked on a telephone chat line and it was an interesting education in what some men like to have done to them. I used to do the S&M calls.
Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools.

zoony

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Re: The Drawing on the Toilet Wall
« Reply #5 on: Jan 16, 2021, 10:17:12 PM »
Not sure about 'interesting' but it does point to some point of arrested development.. Mind you, there's been very little new under the sexual sun for many thousands of years.. Just never as available as now..
"Listen to the wind, it cleans the mind."

"Never use money to measure wealth, son"

                                           cowboy wisdom.

Jacqueline

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Re: The Drawing on the Toilet Wall
« Reply #6 on: Jan 16, 2021, 11:51:54 PM »
My convent school was really strict too.

A girl was expelled for bringing into school one of those biros with water casing, turn it one way a clothed lady, the other way she was naked. 

In infants school, we were about 6 years old, a girl stole something can't remember what, the nuns tied her hands behind her back, made her stand in the corner with her coat on for seemed like all day and told her the police were on their way to take her to prision. I'll never forget it. 

i knew another girl who came from an extremely strict family, like Dorothy she was all sweetness and light, but I knew she stole money, I never told on her though.

I suppose if Dorothy had been found out god help her with the Jehovahs, I suppose you can't really blame her for not telling the truth and landing you in it.
But that does not excuse that teacher for bullying you into a false confession.

I hated school, when I hear of children today missing going to school because of lockdown, they wouldn't have thought that if they had gone to our schools.  Although I think teachers and schools have gone too far the other way with very  little disapline, nobody would want to go back to some of those sadistic teachers who walked around with canes and ruler in hand and terrified their pupils leaving some with lifelong insecurities.

You are a strong person BL, you have had a successful life despite that awful experience.  Pity Dorothy stuck in with Jehovahs, and maybe Karma even  caught up with Mrs Williams.