The Music Corridor

My old school got demolished yesterday. It's been rebuilt, all shiny and new with steel and cladding in lieu of plywood and asbestos. They even demolished the old part - Haggas Hall - which quite frankly should have been listed. This, however, is not the history I feel most sad to lose.

Deep within the school was a special place, a place I felt at home after I'd been the most confused and lost I'd ever been. Strap in, you're about to hear a mental health story…

In 1995/6 I missed 6 months of school when I was diagnosed with clinical depression. I remember it very vividly, I was sat on a table in Mrs Sweeney’s classroom down by the PE rooms, next to the exit to the all weather pitch (famously known as the pitch that was crap in all weather). One minute I felt fine, the next I felt dizzy, panicked and unwell. I had caught a virus which subsequently went on to deplete my stores of serotonin. Goodbye happy. Hello depression.

I withdrew into myself, hiding in my bedroom, tormenting my family and the neighbours with Alanis Morrisette songs and feeling sad for no reason. I wanted to run away and hide. Eventually after several panic attacks at school I was dragged to my gp and reluctantly put on prozac. I missed 6 months of school during the start of year 11. I had counselling, presumably to check it was just a result of my virus and not some underlying mental health issues. I vividly remember having hypnotherapy, I had to open a drawer and take out whatever worries I'd stored in there. I remember saying to the counsellor “I don't know what worries I've put in the drawer - I'm just sad”

Eventually I was well enough to go back to school. I expected things to be the same but they weren't.  One of my formerly good friends had gone from loving horses and reading books to drinking and smoking weed - she wanted nothing to do with me. Many friends had grown up far quicker than me, while I just wanted to be daft and enjoy life they had found boys and were busy plastering on makeup and rolling their waistbands up.  Even my seat in English had someone else in it and I had to find a new one. I was lost.

That was until one lunchtime when my friend Helen said “come with me.” Then I wasn't lost anymore. I had found the music corridor.

Students were meant to go outside during lunchtimes, or the dinner hall, or to the chippy, or to the corner shop to try get twos on a fag. Basically anywhere where we couldn't get on the teachers nerves. They wanted to sit in the pastel pink smoke-filled teachers’ lounge and forget we existed for a whole blissful hour.

But not the music and drama teachers, the music corridor was open for students. They'd created a haven for the lost souls, we were welcome to sit in the corridor, practice in the practice rooms, sing in the music room, express ourselves in the drama studio. So long as we weren't rowdy we were welcome. We were the misfits, the odd bods, the lost souls. We were together. We were safe.

I have so many happy memories of that place, the creativity, the joy, the laughter. My heart is sad today for that the music corridor. It shouldn't be gone. It should have been preserved forever. I'm eternally grateful for finding it and many of the people I met there are still my good friends today. I just hope that the new building has a similar refuge for lost souls like me.