The troublemaker

Greg Valerio finished his last day of school with the words “Valerio, you’re a natural-born troublemaker. Just make sure you make trouble for the right reasons!” ringing in his ears. Nor was this the last day of term – instead, it had been the day when the school’s patience had run out. A difficult relationship was coming to a premature end. School, for Greg, as for so many lads, had been a difficult experience – and one that had got worse as he got older. Brought up in a solidly middle-class area, he says, “School was a farce, with its pressures to qualify with straight As, sit the Oxbridge exam or end up working for IBM. This mantra was continually preached in classrooms and assemblies, yet how could I take this seriously when one of the female teachers seduced my classmates, and another sold some of the best dope in the district? My disaffection with the school was reciprocated, because the senior staff didn’t like me much either.”
So Greg greeted expulsion with joy. “I was absolut...