Weldin'
I went to an all-girls grammar school known for its ‘if boys can do it, then us gels can do it too, by gum!’ attitude. Whenever a newspaper was running a story on ‘gels doing frightfully well at all that learning malarkey, gawd love’m’, a photographer would usually be dispatched to our school pronto to do some shots of us typical school lasses BEHAVING COMPLETELY NORMALLY doing NORMAL THINGS GELS DO AT SCHOOL. Therefore, over the years, my schoolmates appeared in various broadsheets fiercely frowning in concentration at maths equations on blackboards, fiercely frowning in concentration at test tubes, fiercely frowning in concentration as they kicked a football, etc.

One day, my time had come. I was told that a photographer from the Independent was coming to take some snaps at our school, and wanted some shots of a girl doing some welding in the Technology department. ‘Just pretend that you weld all the time, and that it’s completely normal, my teachers said. ‘Get in!’ I thought, ‘I’ve never welded before – I bet it’s a right laugh!’

So the photographer gets in, stinking of last night’s beer as all photojournalists do, tells us he’s got ten minutes, and then points the camera at me expectantly. My teachers are waiting in the wings, and they spring out, jam the visor over my head, light the blowtorch, shove it into my hand, and then hold a piece of metal near the flame. Snap! goes the camera. ‘That’s fine’ the photographer says, and then he sods off back to London.

My parents are Telegraph readers (hardcore Tories, the both of them – the shame!) but every day for two bloody weeks they buy the Independent (for those not in the know, a newspaper made entirely out of woven organic wholewheat and GM-free ‘concern’), in a massive case of political affiliation treachery, until there – on the front page no less – is a little thumbnail of me, fiercely frowning from what you could see of my face behind the visor, welding. The story (about whether girls should be educated the same as boys) was in the Education supplement inside.

I bet you’re wondering what this has to do with being on telly? Well on breakfast TV that May morning they were doing a run-down of the main stories in the papers, and if memory serves me correctly the newsreader held up the front page of the Independent to discuss Ian Paisley’s denouncement of the Bloody Sunday inquiry as "a witch hunt of Protestants". So there I was! On telly!! A little thumbnail of me being held steadily at the BBC camera. Next to Ian Paisley.

I wished with all my might that somehow a TV crew or cameraman would take a picture of me whilst I was watching that bit of the news, with that little picture of me on the screen. And then someone would take a picture of me looking at that, and then take another picture of me looking at that…
(Wheezy Luv-ah is pootling about on, Fri 12 Jun 2009, 17:18, 1 reply)

I mostly like this story
The bit I don't like is the thought that when I was at school, the Independent didn't event exist...

(I can remember the first ever copy coming out - 'A photo on the front page? It'll never catch on!' LOL)
(Capo, Sat 13 Jun 2009, 8:04, closed)