The duality of gender in me

Having written a bit of an introduction last month which given the sluggish nature of the internet around here I thought I would write something about the duality of being as it affects how I am.

This is a fairly straightforward gender typical set of presentations of the sort I was used to in infants and juniors many moons ago.

Girls wore skirts (or dresses) and boys like me wore short trousers which back then believe me were short and at our school it was a fairly simple uniform with no caps and blazers and we did were dress shirts (or blouses for girls) rather than polo tops.

That presentation is fairly free of gender stereotypes other than the whole skirts/short trousers thing where girls in time become able to wear trousers and parental ("he's big boy now") pressure pushed older boys also into (long) trousers.

To be honest I had no big issue with with wearing short trousers and still do but I positively hate wearing long ones and did like to wear skirts too.

That was an issue then and even for a number today with fairly gender neutral uniforms that still is an issue.

Why not make skirts or skorts an option for both boys and girls?

As someone who is very much mentally a child the way I present is more in line with actual children, never "sexy" or "edgy"

All of that is gender presentation, the way you express it through dress but you may express it through play but how that balance between my masculine core and the feminine side alters in real time affecting how I see and feel things too.

It's not like you have a switch between the two but they move and blend making me, well me.

I'm just a sissy gurl really not a transgender.

Secrets

To say Enid Blyton wasn't an influence on me would be to miss something that overlapped the other big thing in my life boarding school life as I read one while at the other and a good number of her novels I read were about communities of children in boarding school like me, living in the country or as this series starts with children running way from uncaring and abusive even by the standards of the time adults who were responsible for them, making a new life with amazing resourcefulness.

 I did eventually get the Secret Island in hardback which isn't really an adventure book in the way all the others are but more an account of their lives giving you the background to the adventures to unfold as we learn about Jack, Peggy, Mike and Nora.

The Secret of Spiggy Holes is the first adventure proper  introducing us to important people such as Prince Paul of Baronia. 

As with the first one it took ages to find a serviceable hardback and like the other, it didn't come with the full colour dust jacket although the images in both are replicated as frontalis so it's just an irritant not to have the actual jacket.

This is a more modern edition, the 1991 omnibus published by Mulberry of the last three novels, the Secret Mountain, Secret of Killimooin and Secret of Moon Castle being held captive in the Secret Mountain, travelling the the Killimooin Forrest where they feel a ferocious band of robbers  hangs out and exploring Moon Castle looking for ghosts at the end of night.

Rugrats

One of the first shows I watched when I had Sky Television was Rugrats which was a cartoon versioned depiction of the world of the Infant/Toddler on Nickelodeon which at the time was just single channel.

It was interesting to watch for the explorations of those infants characters passivity to dominance from extroverted to very introverted and how the group interacted with Angelica often getting the upper hand.

I bought several dvd's including the full length animations for home watching as like a good number of us, we are watching very much from a more child-like mindset, seeing parts of ourselves reflected in it.

The Definitive Drifters

Some sounds it has to be said do take me back in time not least for much of that time I was glued pretty much to the radio listening to 'oldies' shows and then there  are some acts I recall as both oldies at the time but contemporary too and the Drifters are one. 

Let's say I've always been a fan of Ben E King's singing  and of such songs as Save The Last Dance For Me, Up On The Roof, Under The Boardwalk which was covered by both the Stones and the Undertones and Saturday Night At The Movies to the point of borrowing various hit compilations.

Equally for me I have childhood memories that included new songs recorded for the UK market such as Kissin' In The Back Row  Of The Movies, Like Sister and Brother, There Goes My First Love and You're Than a Number In My Little Red Book still very much the same sound but with more a poppy production that I loved to bits as new songs.

That was why I bought this 2 cd compilation because it's two thirds the classic late fifties and sixties classics very well mastered and a third those UK seventies 45's all one one album in chronological order too.

Our train set

One of the biggest dreams a child has as they start to get older is to have a train layout of his or her very own with a proper electric controller, a good length of track and some scenery which the boy pictured has in the form of a picture to the side of his layout.

They will slowly acquire a selection of locomotives and rolling stock which he has a place to store them when not in use and maybe might build some kits of buildings plus make trees to go on their layout.

Mine was in the loft.  

Although I was raised as a boy, their was no reason as a gurl not to have one as girls do have trainsets today and as a sissy I just love steam trains and engines as much as boys and girls.

Sometimes two interests combine into one topic and that is very much what we have here as Andy and I were keen Stamp Collectors who like the thematic issues issued by Royal Mail at the time.

I also love trains and the big news in 1975 was the Advanced Passenger Train which promised to reduce journey times

Naturally every new train had boys and men wanting models to run on our model railways so manufacturers produced scaled replicas for us.

Sadly that service introduced locally being a major rail hub and a centre at the time for producing engines met more than its fair share of teething problems and was cancelled by the mid 1980's.

Tammy is a gurl who loves hur trains.

Music and me

Music was and still is a first love of mine from the days I performed at school, recorded other peoples music sessions for the music teacher or sat in awe of the Church organist.

I listened to the radio a lot as a poorly boy where I might catch oldies pop shows,  "This weeks Composer"  or "Lunchtime Concert" on Radio three if not taking in an evening classical concert.

I also had a record and tape collection from an early age from pops recorded from the radio for me featuring "Bubblegum classics" like Sugar Sugar by the Archies, records either I bought or had bought for me such as those by T rex, The Bay City Rollers and The Beatles or classical albums donated by relatives to which I added over the years.

That's one reason from time to time I have a few music reviews on here because they are connected with past times and a past interest that goes into my future.

The Youngest Girl in the Fifth

Seeing Christmas  and New year is out of the way, here's the latest installment of a series of short bits on the stories I read at boarding school and this edition dates to 1970 and isn't in quiet so good a condition as the others apart from having the price in the old UK money that was changed February 1971.

I still have floating around my conversion device for old and new currencies I had as a young child.

The story is is set at an all girls boarding school where fourteen and a bit Gwen Gascoyne, is moved in the middle of the term from the Upper Fourth to the Fifth Form as her Principal, Miss Roscoe feels the work in the Upper Fourth is too easy despite her years.

In the World of the school girls she is seen as stand-offish, treated very much as an outcast by all except Netta whose malicious scheming nature leads Gwen into trouble and deceit.
All of this isn't helped by a spell of bad luck either!

Gwen comes into her own during an accident during an accident in her forms geology expedition and from then on begins to earn the respect of her classmates.

I always found Geology interesting as a child.