Mum's cheating ruined childhood

IT MADE ADULTS HATE ME

- JANE O'GORMAN

I HATED school. I always felt like an outsider.

One teacher ruthlessly picked on me and the school secretary gave me a hard time. I felt that other parents looked down on me and I was never invited to classmates' houses to play.

Now I've discovered why. My late mother went through the male staff like a dose of salts.

Not only did she have a longrunning affair with the headmaster, but she also had flings with a PE teacher, the school caretaker and the head of the Governors.

She hung around the school on the pretence of organising fund-raisers and caused havoc.

The school secretary was obliged to hold calls and bar visitors when Mum was in the headmaster's office "having a meeting" and deeply resented me for coming from a "dirty family".