One Chance (8 page)

For the most part, however, I struggled to fit in, and my house teacher's report told of me being “quarrelsome.” Everyone else seemed to have made friends so much more easily. I did try to get along better with the other pupils, but it was still difficult for me. Whenever there was a large group I retreated to safety, as I always felt that the crowd was against me. My reading was still very advanced, and I retreated into that frequently. This meant that my comprehension level was also very advanced, and I always got great remarks from Mr. Pullin for English, with many good ideas culled from my reading.

Redcliffe was divided into “houses.” They weren't physical houses: each floor of the main building was devoted to one house. They were named after different people, each a benefactor associated with the school. At the time I attended the school, first-year pupils were separated into James House. At James House, schooling was still quite old-fashioned. Discipline was firm, and corporal punishment was very much alive and well. If you were particularly naughty, you would end up in front of Mr. Graham, the stern head of house. Use of corporal punishment took the form of a beating from what was known as the “percy.” It was an old Dunlop plimsoll, or trainer shoe, and those who received the beating spoke about it with awe. The rest of us tried to make sure we avoided that particular punishment.

From the second year onwards, we spent our time at the main school building in Somerset Square. It was a 1970s building with
plenty of glass and concrete. I quickly gained a reputation with the teachers as being someone who could do very well when I applied myself. I was particularly good at English and German, and was usually at the top end of the class. I struggled more at mathematics and had to really apply myself very strictly at the sciences to make good progress.

I was relieved about one thing, though: that I wouldn't have to do any more needlework after the first year. I wasn't very good at it, and although it taught me how to sew a button, I didn't see any use for it. Instead, we did something called home economics, which involved planning meals and cooking. I actually enjoyed this, and made several different dishes including meringue, bread-and-butter pudding, and cottage pie. My favourite, though, was preparing mackerel. One Tuesday morning, we came in to find a mackerel at each of our work stations. We had to slice them open, gut them, and clean them out before stuffing them and baking them. This I loved doing, and it taught me to cook, which is something I still love to do.

By my third year, I was promoted to the top stream, as I had managed to improve my term-time work. My main problem was that I was never very organized and always did everything last minute. Contrary to what my teachers thought, it wasn't because of laziness, but rather disorganization. Not only that, I knew I tended to get my best work done when I was forced to do it in one go. This was how I always managed to get high grades in examinations. As a result, I tended to treat term-time work like exams and do it as the deadline loomed.

I often did my work on the bus to and from school. The bus would pass over many potholes and bumps, making my pen
jump up and down, and as a result my writing was often pretty illegible. Many teachers talked about my pen not being able to keep up with my brain. Throughout school, I continued to frustrate my teachers by doing little in the way of homework, yet breezing through the exams.

The bullying became worse in my third year. One particular PE day, someone in the changing room pushed me onto the wet shower floor. Then he put his foot on my naked back and shouted, “Paul Potts is dead!” Everyone cheered. It was so loud that it was heard by the teachers in the gym, who shouted for me to hurry up and get ready.

I wished I
were
dead. At least that would make the other students happy. I would stand in the playground watching everyone else getting on with their lives and with those round them, and ask myself, Why me? What did I ever say or do to the others that made them hate me? During another PE lesson, while I was taking another beating, I asked them this very question.

“Why do you hate me so much? What is it I've done to you?”

They laughed even harder.

“We hate you because you're Paul Potts and you're alive!”

Things didn't get better when I tried to be helpful by returning a textbook that my older brother, John, hadn't returned. It was a physics textbook my class was using, and I thought I was doing a good turn. The physics teacher, Mr. Samphire, had other ideas and accused me of having stolen the book the previous week. I explained the situation, but unfortunately Mr. Samphire did not believe me and repeated the accusation in front of the whole class.
Because I continued to assert that I hadn't stolen it, I was told to stand outside the class for the remainder of the lesson.

It was a games afternoon, and I was one of the last to approach the buses to take us to Brislington. What greeted me was horrific. There were two fifty-five-seat buses full of other boys. Every boy on each coach stood up and shouted, “Thief! Thief! Thief!” pointing their fingers at me. I got on my bus and received the same treatment. What made matters worse was that Mr. Samphire was on my bus. While fifty boys were shouting at me, both he and the teacher next to him just chatted away as though nothing was happening. All I could do was sit and listen to the shouts, waiting for the boys to get bored with it. It took some time and left me feeling very low, especially as the teachers on both coaches did nothing to stop it.

It wasn't just verbal abuse that I had to take on an almost daily basis. The threat of violence always loomed over me every day of the week—before, during, and after school. Like at Chester Park, I tried to find different routes home, but this was difficult as quite a few of the bullies travelled on the same bus route as me.

I tried hanging around after the last class, but often a large group would wait for me to leave. The only exception was on Friday afternoons, as that was when the second school choir practise of the week was held, and it was over an hour long.

On a day that was designated as a wet day, we were allowed to stay in our house tutor rooms, which enabled me to avoid the bullying. Otherwise I was an easy target. Quite often some of the girls in my year would stand up for me, telling the boys to leave
me alone. However, the boys dealt with this by saying, “Oh, you fancy him then, do you?” They'd turn on the girls and make fun of them, as if finding me attractive was a capital offence.

Many lunchtimes were punctuated by “mild” bullying—being thumped, kicked, and ridiculed—but often the bullying was very serious indeed. On one occasion, one of the unpleasant girls picked up a brick and threw it at my head, and I was only just able to dodge it. The boys found this hilarious, and gave the brick back to her so she could throw it again. She duly obliged, although with less accuracy this time, and I was able to escape by running away.

There were times when the attacks were truly malicious. On one occasion, one of the stronger boys grabbed me from behind, put me in a double armlock, and tried to push me through the science classroom windows. I managed to pull away, but not without gashing the back of my head on the corner of the open window. The four-inch cut required hospital treatment and several stitches.

Of course, I wasn't stupid enough to tell the teachers or my parents what actually happened. I had been warned of the consequences that would befall me if I did. I told the teachers I had been walking by the open window without looking and caught my head. All the time, the bully stood behind me acting like a concerned bystander. He was of course making sure I didn't tell the truth.

Some lunchtimes, I would find refuge in the music room. Wednesdays were an escape because that was the first school choir rehearsal of the week, but otherwise the music rooms were out of bounds. Rehearsals were also held after school on Fridays. I did
manage to get a tacit agreement that I could be there from the head of the music department, Mr. Weaver, and from some of the girls who were choir monitors, and who became good friends of mine. This meant I could avoid the playground more often.

That aside, I never felt that the support from the teaching staff at Redcliffe was sufficient. Towards the end of my school career, the lack of support was more obvious. Once while I was being kicked in the back and my possessions thrown around, the teacher simply told me to take better care of my books, without a word to the boys who were throwing them.

This time, I did try to speak to the head of sixth form about the treatment I was getting. As usual, I was told to ignore it and not to react. In the end, speaking to the teachers about it led to a note on my locker saying that fifty students would wait for me at the end of the day, and I'd be in a coffin after they finished what they planned. I avoided school for two weeks. I didn't speak to my parents about the bullying or how it made me feel. This made me feel all the more alone, but I believed telling them meant I was admitting I was worthless. By not talking to anybody about it, neither my parents nor any other member of my family, I could pretend it wasn't happening.

Sitting back and taking the physical and mental bullying was to have a massive effect on me. I gave up on my personal appearance, which simply made the bullying worse. But I couldn't see any point whatsoever in caring about how I looked, because I knew it wouldn't make a difference in how I was treated. In fact, absorbing all the abuse made me feel like
I
didn't matter.

I wanted to end it all, but knew from primary school when I tried to fall down the stairs that I didn't have the nerve to go
through with it. I was trapped in a world I didn't want to be part of—and there was worse to come.

On Tuesday and Friday evenings from the age of twelve, I went to Sea Cadets. This was like a junior version of the Royal Navy. My attendance resulted from our family's love of Portsmouth and our frequent trips to the Navy Days at Portsmouth Naval Base. John and Tony also attended, although Tony didn't appreciate Able Seaman Potts being in charge of his division.

We were based at Hotwells at TS
Adventure
, which was close to Cumberland Basin, the main entrance to Bristol Docks. It was what the navy calls a “stone frigate”; in other words, a building. It still had a mast, but this was for ceremonial purposes and parades.

Sea Cadets meant lots of “spit and polish,” with John and me spending hours getting our hobnail boots reflecting like mirrors and our brass buckles shining like gold. Tuesday was cleaning day, and we would wear our No. 2 dress blue shirt and trousers. Friday was parade day, which meant wearing No.1s: full sailor's rig jacket, bell-bottoms, lanyard, and collar, complete with white cap. Our outfits always drew a lot of attention when John and I got on the bus.

I had to work hard for my seamanship badge, as I wasn't that good at rope work. I found knots quite difficult, apart from the basic reef knot I had learned in cubs. But I persevered and eventually got my badge. This meant I was eligible to get my leading seaman's badge once I had passed the “at sea” course. The course involved a trip to Weymouth and a trip on an MFV, a merchant fishing vessel of Second World War vintage. The
intention was to sail across the channel to Alderney and Jersey; we would all take turns to both steer the ship and look out for fishing buoys, which could get snagged in the ship's propellers.

When the time came for the trip, the seas were rough with force-seven gales. This meant that our journey to the Channel Islands would not happen. Our ship went up and down like a small bucket, which led to some cases of sea sickness. I wasn't bothered by the motion, being the only one of the Potts children who suffered no motion sickness. I found it quite amusing how the others were retching over the side.

I was fifteen at the time of the trip, and was going through the worst of the bullying at school. It was a five-day trip, and there were twelve boys on the course. Amongst the civilian helpers was a former Royal Navy captain from our unit, a man called Mr. Burton-Barri. I was one of the first to rise in the morning, and I always found Mr. Burton-Barri sitting in front of my bunk, watching me intently. He would say nothing except for a moody “morning.” Mr. Burton-Barri was average height with greying hair and a similarly greying beard. He looked every bit the salty sea dog. Initially I thought nothing of his gazing, and assumed he was just waking himself up.

At the time, I had started smoking cigarettes sporadically, although I hadn't formed a habit. I didn't really inhale fully, and wasn't really sure why I had started other than the fact that John was smoking. On the trip, Mr. Burton-Barri started giving me a few cigarettes to smoke, which I saw as harmless, although I did notice that he only gave them to me. Over the next few days, he gave me so many cigarettes that it gave me a headache, and I stopped smoking as a result.

What I didn't notice, even though all the signals were there, was that I was being groomed. At the end of the week, Mr. Burton-Barri asked me if I would stay on for the day at the unit and help give the place a spring cleaning. For some reason, I didn't even react when Mr. Burton-Barri told me he had been warned about getting too involved with cadets. I should have walked away, but instead I was sucked into allowing him access to me that was both inappropriate and abusive.

It started with Mr. Burton-Barri sitting me on his knee in his office. I didn't know what was happening, or why it was happening. I just felt paralysed. Nobody saw, as it was only the two of us in the unit at the time. While he had me on his knee, he made a suggestive comment about having seen me get out of bed on the ship and thinking that I was excited around other boys. Then he kissed me on the lips. It didn't stop there. He found excuses to have me visit the uniform store, and there he kissed and touched me inappropriately. He touched my thighs and between my legs, grabbing my genitals but not getting the reaction he was looking for.