Thursday 5 November 2009

Is there a dark secret at the heart of Brian Coleman's Odious Toad comments?

I was intrigued to see Mr John Biggs comments about Brian Colemans description of him as an odious Toad. These were published in the Barnet Times today
However Mr Biggs, who is 51 and grew up in Barnet, did not understand another comment which Cllr Coleman, 48, made where he said Mr Biggs had a chip on his shoulder because he had never got over his grammar school education. He said he and Cllr Coleman had both attended Q E Boys School in Queen's Road, Barnet. The school had turned from being a grammar school to being a comprehensive by the time Cllr Coleman joined.
It lead me to wonder, do you think that possibly Mr Biggs had it in for the younger Coleman at school. It has been suggested to me that maybe Coleman was a bit of  a figure of fun whilst at school. It is not unknown for older boys to be a little bit beastly. As the schools status had changed from Grammar to Comprehensive, could it be that Mr Biggs used to tease Coleman about the "lowly comprehensive boys". I went to Finchley Catholic and that underwent a similar change. The older boys definitely thought themselves a cut above us "yobbo's". It never really bothered me, but I've never been obsessed with my status.

It wouldn't surprise me if Biggs was totally unaware of the effect these comments may have made. Could it be that all of Mr Coleman's, at time rather strange behaviour, was caused by the trauma of schoolyard bullying? A sobering thought.

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