A man sitting at a breakfast table in 1976
Having left the school of West Buckland, in The county of Devonshire, in the summer of 1976. I was going to be allowed to study, and then retake my ‘O’ levels in the autumn of the following year, at the North Devon Technical College. Which is located in the North Devon’s county town of Barnstaple.
I had never liked West Buckland, it seemed to me to be a place of privilege, and authoritarianism. The idea that one person could be allowed to order another’s life, just because they were born on the planet at an earlier time, had always seemed to me to be a very unpleasant anachronism. This feeling may not be unique, but to me it was original, and from my point of view it would probably be responsible for colouring, and affecting most of my life.
This feeling of, and objection to the, “order of things”, had brought me into trouble, at school and would again, in the future at times, but once I was to find my vocation in theatre, it would subside to great extent and only break out very occasionally.
So sitting at the breakfast table in the Autumn of 1976 I looked over the prospectus of my new college.
My mother had been attending evening classes on Art at the college for a number of years. A subject that I had not, and never would have any interest in. Mainly due to my inability to draw even with the aid of a ruler, a half decent straight line. This I had proved many times at school, and would again for the last time over the following year, retaking technical drawing. But I digress. Turning the pages of this prospectus of evening classes, the phrase jumped off one of the pages….. ” Technical people required, no qualifications or experience necessary, to join the New Theatre Workshop”. Little at the time was I to know that this was to be one of the biggest pivotal moments of my life. I also of course had no idea what a Theatre workshop was…..
The following Tuesday I would stay behind after college finished, and go to the New Theatre at 7.00pm that evening.