Surviving School: Tales of Trauma, Friendship, and Unexpected Courage

Welcome to another episode of the Nighttime Scary Tales Podcast, where we explore the dark side of storytelling. Tonight, prepare for spine-chilling tales featuring original horror stories, eerie supernatural encounters, and real-life crime that reveals the darker aspects of human nature. Each story is designed to keep you on the edge of your seat long after it ends. We’d love to hear your thoughts! Share your most chilling moments by leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. More haunting stories are coming, so keep your lights on and your doors locked. Sweet dreams… if you can find them!

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Welcome to another episode of the Nighttime Scary Tales Podcast, where we explore the dark side of storytelling. Tonight, prepare for spine-chilling tales featuring original horror stories, eerie supernatural encounters, and real-life crime that reveals the darker aspects of human nature. Each story is designed to keep you on the edge of your seat long after it ends. We’d love to hear your thoughts! Share your most chilling moments by leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. More haunting stories are coming, so keep your lights on and your doors locked. Sweet dreams… if you can find them!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey guys, we got some new merch in the merch store.
That's all linked down below, or you might see some
of the shop pop up down below the video. Be
sure to go check it out if you want to
get some new merch. We got some new designs are
pretty sweet. The last day of school before Christmas was

(00:37):
always something I look forward to as a kid. I
loved Christmas in general, and it goes without saying that
I look forward to the day itself a lot more.
But I enjoyed the school Christmas party nonetheless. There'd be
a Christmas disco in a buffet, party hats and Christmas crackers,
even a few games like Past the Parcel and musical chairs,

(00:58):
all soundtracked by class said Christmas pop songs by the
likes of Slade and Wham, and things got slightly different
as we got older and progressed into secondary school. There
were no more Christmas parties in the afternoons in the
buffet with party bags. Was relegated to a few pigs
and blankets on your plate come lunch time, but there

(01:19):
was still a very festive atmosphere around the school. Some
teachers wore Christmas jumpers and were much more laid back
than usual. Others phoned it in completely and just let
us watch an hour's worth of a Muppets Christmas Carol, or,
in the case of our history teacher in two thousand
and three, the entire first hour of Saving Private Ryan.

(01:40):
But then, in that same year of two thousand and three,
the last day of school before the Christmas holidays turned
out to be anything but festive and joyful. I remember
it being a Friday in December of two thousand and three,
and this might sound like a bit of a time
warp to some of you, but I distinctly remember my
mates and I being really excited to play Call of Duty.

(02:02):
See the original game back when it was a World
War II shooter came out in the autumn of two
thousand and three, and that was the same year our
history teacher showed us a bit of Saving Private Ryan,
even though we were in year eight and the film
was fifteen, which was very cool of him. So, as
you can imagine, my mates and I were mega hyped
about playing a cutting edge FPS set during that period

(02:25):
of history, and was all we'd been talking about for weeks.
After lunch, spirits were still high as we sat in
geography class, as the teacher had yet again opted to
just put a film on and wasn't fussed about us
talking amongst ourselves. My friend Nick and I were gabbing
away about call of duty, and our desk was on
the right hand side of the classroom, next to some

(02:47):
windows which overlooked the school's main courtyard from the second floor.
That meant that as I was talking to Nick, I
could see over his shoulder and into the empty courtyard.
I'm mostly paying attention to him. In the courtyard, it's
deserted because classes were in session, so there was nothing
to distract me while we were talking. But then suddenly
a man I didn't recognize walked into the empty courtyard

(03:10):
wearing a dark jumper, jeans and would look like work boots.
I say, I didn't recognize him, but the school had
all kinds of ground staff and visitors coming through every day,
so it wasn't like the sudden appearance of someone knew
was going to alarm me, and I carried on talking
to Nick after diverting my gaze for only a moment.

(03:31):
But then instead of just walking across the courtyard to
wherever he was going, the man stopped and began looking
around like he was lost again. That behavior wasn't anything
I found particularly alarming. People unfamiliar with new places often
do stuff like that, don't they. But then, instead of
taking a look around and then heading off in whatever

(03:52):
direction he was headed, the guy just kind of stopped,
looked up toward the sky, and then started just sort
of staring at it. My attention was diverted from Nick
for a second time, but unlike the first time, I
gave the guy such a confused look that Nick turned
to see what I was looking at. We both looked
at the guy for a few moments, like what the

(04:14):
bloody hell is he doing? And Nick then made a
joke about a seagull doing a well aimed pooh, and
we sang I'm dreaming of a shy Christmas into our
teacher told us to stop swearing. I holsely thought the
fellow would have moved on by the time we'd been
told to shut up, But when I looked at the window,
he was still there, staring at the cloudy, gray sky

(04:35):
like he was hypnotized by it or could see something
no one else could. The spot where the guy was
standing was surrounded by buildings like the teacher's lounge, the
Modern Languages block, and the Geography block, which was where
me and Nick were. Then, as we're looking at him
wondering what the guy's problem was, a French teacher named

(04:56):
Miss Hamilton walked out of the teacher's lounge and did
a proper double take the guy still staring at the sky.
Nick and I were in stitches at this again, because
Hamilton was a dour woman, if ever there was one,
and seeing that dowerness directed at someone other than us
was somehow very satisfying. Most likely under the assumption that

(05:17):
this guy was supposed to be there, Miss Hamilton tried
walking straight past him, and at first the bloke didn't
seem to notice that she was there, But then suddenly
he spun his head around to look at her, and
everything changed in an instant. His eyes lit up, and
as he aggressively turned towards missus Hamilton, she stopped dead

(05:37):
in her tracks, and the man then raised something above
his head, and although I couldn't see exactly what it was,
Miss Hamilton certainly could. The sight of it caused her
to back up a few steps before she turned around
and legged it back towards the teacher's lounge as fast
as her legs could carry her, and the strange man followed,

(05:58):
not quite as fast as her, but still just meters behind.
In a split second, Nick and I went from laughing
and joking to oh, no, this is serious. Nick didn't
watch the whole thing unfold. He turned back towards our
geography teacher and was shouting, Sir, sir, someone's chasing miss Hamilton.
But I saw the whole thing. Hamilton only made it

(06:20):
back into the teacher's lounge by maybe half a yard
before the man chasing her started bashing at the door.
Was something I didn't realize was some kind of hammer
or mallet. But by then our geography teacher had seen
what was happening, and after telling us all to stay
put and not look out the windows, he ran out
of our classroom and ran downstairs to lock the door

(06:43):
to the whole geography block. He told us this once
he returned, so we all felt a lot safer, but
it was obviously still the matter of the guy walking
around trying to attack people with his hammer, and so
our teacher pulled out his mobile and called police. He'd
already told us to stay away from the windows. But
no one listened to him, and I remember at one

(07:03):
point the guy looked up at our classroom windows, right
at us, and the look in his eyes was so
freaky that one of the girls actually squealed in fright
before she backed away from the window. I don't blame
her for screaming, either, because not only was there a
look in this guy's eyes like he completely lost his mind,
but he looked deformed. He had swellings around his eyes

(07:27):
and cheek bones, things I now realized were the results
of someone hitting him in the face somewhere else while
trying to defend themselves. But at the same time, his
face was so eft up and his hair was all
wild and BedHead like too, that it looked like our
school had been invaded by some kind of hammer wielding
hills have eyes mutant. Our geography teacher, a guy called

(07:50):
mister Griffiths, told us all again to get back away
from the window, and then when we ignored him, he
literally roared at everyone to get out of the classroom
and wait in the corridors. I say this in half jest,
but I honestly don't know which freaked us out more.
At the time, some random bloke with a hammer having
a violent mental breakdown, or seeing a meek, gentle hearted

(08:12):
geography teacher like mister Griffiths suddenly scream at us like that.
It was so scary because it showed how frightened he was,
and a display of fear and authority like that ramped
up the anxiety levels by a good couple of notches.
We did as he told us, went out into the
corridor and waited there while trying not to freak out
too much. We could hear mister Griffiths talking to the police,

(08:36):
asking them to be as quick as they could because
the man would most likely attack the next person he saw. Apparently,
our teachers were all calling each other on their mobiles
and telling each other to keep everyone inside, so at
least for a couple of minutes, we all had the
impression that although the situation was severe, our teachers had
it under control, but that only meant that when chaos returned,

(08:59):
the fear so palpable you could practically taste it. Like
I said, we were standing in the corridor of the
geography block, which was only quite small, with two classrooms
on the ground floor and the two on the first
There was also an open l shaped stairway heading down,
so we were able to hear anything that happened down there.

(09:20):
So when we heard the sound of hammering then a
smash of glass, it took us seconds to realize what
was going on. The guy with the hammer couldn't smash
his way through the block's main door, but he could
smash his way through one of the windows, climb through
the empty frame, and then make his way to us
through the classroom's unlocked door. And to say that cause

(09:42):
panic would be a major understatement. We screamed back into
the classroom, telling mister Griffiths what we'd heard downstairs, and
he immediately burst into action. He told the nine nine
nine operators that the situation was becoming increasingly urgent, and
then directed some of the boys in our class to
clear the room before shoving his much larger and heavier

(10:03):
desk in front of the door to act as a barricade.
Another lad had the idea to shove the wooden door
stop underneath the door to provide some extra security, but
other kids still piled desks and chairs onto mister Griffith's
own and a mad panic, while others cowered in the
corner looked for windows to open his routes of escape.

(10:25):
It was probably the single most terrifying experience of my life,
just waiting for some hammer wielding maniac to make his
way up the stairs into our class room. Little did
I know it was about to get so much worse.
As we heard someone reach the top of the stairs
outside the door, everyone went quiet. Seconds later, we saw

(10:47):
the man's face as he peered through the little perspec's
window and the door, and one of the girls began
to scream again. His eyes were just horrifying. His gaze
looked hollow, like all sense of roosa had completely evaporated.
He didn't speak, he didn't smile. He looked at us
all for a few minutes, and then started trying to

(11:08):
open the door. This prompted more screams from my classmates.
And remember we're all only twelve and thirteen years old,
so we were really scared and completely out of our
wits and in no frame of mind put up a fight.
The man tried with all his might to open the
door to that classroom, but thankfully he failed. The barricade

(11:31):
was just too strong and no matter how much he
shoved or kicked, the door simply would not budge an inch.
In his frustration, he started smashing the door with his
hammer or mallet or whatever it was. And while this
caused more screams from the girls, I remember feeling this
muted sense of relief. No matter what was about to happen,

(11:51):
there was no way it was happening in our classroom,
and although it was scary, we were safe. The guy
hammered on the door a few more minutes, and he
managed to bash out the glass before attempting to reach
for the doorknob. Obviously there was no use to him,
and after a bit more hammering, I remember mister Griffiths
looking out the window and shouting, the police are here, children,

(12:13):
Everything's going to be fine. This man's not going to
be with us Mary much longer. And he was right.
Mister Griffiths had seen four or five police officers running
across the courtyard, and after they entered the geography block
via the same route as the hammerman, they baited him
downstairs and used a stun gun to subdue and arrest him.

(12:35):
We had to stay locked down in that classroom for
another hour, and then the head teacher announced that the
hammerman was safely off school grounds and we were free
to come out. What followed was total chaos because it
was announced that any kid whose parents could collect them
from school reception were free to leave as and when
their parents arrived. This meant that almost every kid in

(12:57):
the school was wringing their mum or dad, begging for
lifts from those whose parents weren't too busy to come
and collect them. It was easily the most unschoolike atmosphere
I had ever experienced while in education, and I just
never have imagined that not being a good thing, if
that makes sense, Something really and truly terrible would happened,

(13:18):
and the fact that no one on school grounds was
seriously hurt is nothing shy of a miracle in my book.
It turns out the bloke with the hammer had bashed
one other person before heading towards our school to look
for soft targets. Apparently it was a complete mental breakdown.
He had been a regular tradesman with a wife and
a baby on the way, and then one day he

(13:41):
just snapped and went on a hammer bashing spree that
ended in a school just a few days before Christmas.
It's scary to think someone can just go crazy like that,
and even scary to think that they'll target children when
in that state of mind, he was close, too very close,
and God knows what would have happened if he'd been
able to force his way into our classroom that day,

(14:03):
But that's exactly why I consider his failure to be
my very own Christmas miracle. In the summer before my
senior year of high school, I got involved with the
guy from school named Sean. Our friend groups had kind

(14:26):
of merged that summer, and two of our mutual friends
were dating, but what we had was very much a situationship,
and at first he seemed to understand that. Now. I
know that might sound cruel to basically tell him, I
like you, just not enough to be my boyfriend, But
we had senior year coming up, the single most important
year of high school, so I didn't want any distractions

(14:49):
once school started up again, And like I said, he
seemed to totally respect that at first, But when it
came to going back to school, it was clear that
he had no intentions of letting things go. At first,
we kept things professional and neither of us entertained the
idea of hooking up again. I could tell that he
wanted to, and I'd be lying if I said his

(15:10):
feelings were not reciprocated, but that was just the problem.
Shawn seemed like the perfect distraction, and at the time
when I needed one, like a hole in my head.
But then when it came to the holidays, he made
me a very attractive offer. He claimed that he was
handling his emotions, respected my desire to focus on school,
but thought that we might be able to hook up

(15:31):
again over winter break, and having him be that into
me was very flattering. I won't kid you, and so
I figured if he could continue to remain professional once
a school started up again, hey why not? All of
my other friends were either finding festive flings or hooking
up with their boyfriends, so a little company over the
holidays was very welcome. But as it turns out, I

(15:55):
made a huge error of judgment in thinking Sean could
remain mature about it. We ended up going on a
few dates around Christmas and New Year's and they were great,
but not long before we were due to head back
to school, he asked if we could have a little talk.
I knew what it was going to be about, and
so the prospect filled me with this kind of dread.

(16:16):
But I figured then would be as good as time
as any to set him straight regarding our relationship or
black thereof, but Seawan was persistent. He agreed that school
should take priority for me, but suggested that we could
undertake study sessions together so we could see each other
while school was still in session. Don't get me wrong,

(16:36):
it sounded like a wonderful date idea, but it would
be just that a date, and since being together would
not be conducive with concentration. It was a note from
me on that one. Shawn suggested that if I ended
up getting into n YU, he could move to n
y C so we could pursue a relationship there. I

(16:58):
know it wasn't the craziest idea in the world, but
the idea of him packing up his whole life for
my sake was just way too much pressure. It just
wasn't an idea I wanted to entertain. We were too
young to let our stupid crush dictate the course of
our lives. But Sean didn't feel that way at all,
and unfortunately we went on to have a huge falling

(17:19):
out over it. The discussion kept going around in circles,
it seemed, and the more it did, the more it
frustrated me. I kept telling him I need to leave
before I say something I regret, and he didn't let
me leave, so I ended up saying something that I
went on to regret. I said something and he said something.

(17:40):
Things got pretty heated, and then we both very angrily
agreed to call it quits. It wasn't the way I
wanted to end things with him, but he made any
kind of amicable split completely impossible. He gone from down
for something casual to thinking that we were soulmates in
six months and so. On the advice of a friend,

(18:00):
I decided to go no contact. But then, since we
both went to the same high school, that was much
easier said than done. We didn't have any classes together,
which I thanked God for at the time, but it
was inevitable that we'd bump into each other in the corridors,
and when we did, it was awkward. As how, he
tried to get my attention a few times, but I

(18:21):
knew that it wouldn't do him any good. I'd said
my piece and I had nothing left to add, and
the sooner that he got over me and moved on,
the better, I thought. Acknowledging him wouldn't have done either
of us any favors, So I kept my eyes forward,
kept walking, and prayed that he'd finally see some sense
and stopped trying to talk to me, but he didn't. Instead,

(18:42):
Seawan decided to start coming over to my family's home
to try and speak with me face to face, and
that only happened but one time, because when I realized
it was shot at the door, I told him he
had exactly one minute to make himself disappear before my
dad got to know what had been going on. He
said that he wasn't leaving until we agreed to sit
down and talk. So I stayed true to my word

(19:05):
and told my dad that a guy from school was
harassing me. He marched out toward the front door, and
I couldn't watch it first, so I just stayed in
the TV room and sat down on the couch with
my head in my hands, like this cannot be happening
right now. I have no idea what was said at first,
and I'm not sure I want to. But the moment
my mother and I heard my dad yelling, are you crazy?

(19:26):
Get the hell off my property, we knew things were
about to go south quickly. The next thing we heard
my dad get real angry, and then the sounds of
a struggle, so my mom and I ran outside to
see my dad basically dragging Sean back up our driveway
with a hand around his throat. He wasn't choking him,

(19:48):
and Sean was trying to struggle against him, but my
dad was way bigger and had no problem manhandling Sean
off the property. He was honestly mortifying in the extreme,
but a part of me was kind of good lad
things had come to a head, because at least after
that it would be over right. Well, Shawn let me
know that that wasn't going to happen by saying that

(20:08):
he was going to do something to me at school
before spring break. My dad said something about him not
coming to the house anymore or he'd really give Shawn
an ass whooping. But then he responded by saying something like, oh, yeah, well,
you can't protect her at school, can you. It was
enough to make my mom gasp, because in a way,

(20:29):
Seawan was exactly right. He just didn't count on my
dad getting him suspended for that week of school. Before
spring break, my dad caught up our high school, had
a long talk with our principal and the end result
was that Shawn would be suspended for those final few
days of school. He figured that that might give me
some peace of mind, and for a while, I guess

(20:50):
it did. I felt way more at ease at school.
I wasn't looking over my shoulder every five minutes, but
I still wasn't completely relaxed. And that's because I knew
that there was nothing anyone could do to stop Sean's
showing up on the last day of school. Outside school,
I mean, because he basically knew exactly where I'd be
and when, and this weighed on my mind the whole week.

(21:13):
And then on Friday, the last day of school before
spring break, I approached a guy named Ryan and asked
if he could do me a huge favor. I knew
Ryan from math, and we talked a little here and there,
but we didn't consider each other friends by any stretch.
He asked me what was up, and after gathering my thoughts,
I asked if he could give me a ride home

(21:34):
from school. Now, at the time, a girl asking a
guy for a ride home had become sort of a
byword for I like you, and since I was anxious
over the Shan situation, I was very quick to let
Ryan know that my request was only that, a request
for a ride home and nothing more. I know for
a fact that I was giving off major panicky vibes

(21:56):
because he had this big frown on his face before
he asked me what was going on, and he was
just being polite. He knew what had happened with Shawn
and my dad, and really everyone knew, and I guess
he just wanted to hear it for himself. But if
he didn't, well, I sure told him. After that, he
said he was game to drive me just about anywhere

(22:16):
and said to meet Tim at the back of his
locker come the end of schools so he could walk
me to my car. And I felt this wave of
utter relief wash over me. And then after thanking him
from the very bottom of my heart, I went about
my day feeling like a weight had been lifted from
my shoulders. I usually walked home, a route that Shawn
was very familiar with, so if he wanted to confront me,

(22:39):
I had no doubt that's where he'd do it. Schools
seemed like there'd be too many people around for such
a potentially embarrassing confrontation, so getting a ride home seemed
like it eliminated that possibility entirely. But let me assure
you seemed as doing an as load of heavy lifting
in that sentence. A few hours later, come the end

(23:00):
of school, I met Ryan and his locker, and we
made our way towards the student parking lot. As we walked,
I thanked him profusely for a second time, and then said,
how if he knew the kind of favor he was
doing me, he'd be charging me airline prices to ride
in that passenger seat. Again. I think Ryan knew exactly

(23:21):
what kind of favor he was doing for me, because
news about the fight between Shawn and my dad swept
through school like the September Sniffles. But he chose not
to make a big deal out of it, which I
thought was really sweet of him. I remember this feeling
of almost weightlessness, the impression that everything was going to
be fine, because there really were good people still out there.

(23:43):
And then a split second later I heard the rev
of an engine and the screech of tires. I turned
back to see a silver sedan roaring through the parking
lot in our direction. It was coming at us almost
impossibly fast, and there was a split second where I
really did think, Holy crap, this is it. I'm going

(24:04):
to die. But then the next moment, I was hurtling
to the left and hitting the asphalt so hard that
I felt a surge of pain shoot through my shoulder.
I fell between two cars, both of which protected me
from the silver Sedan as it smashed into them. Ryan,
on the other hand, was not so lucky. Upon seeing

(24:25):
the silver Sedan speeding towards us, Ryan's first thought was
to shove me out of the way, but in doing
so he made sure that it was far too late
to get his own self out of its path. I
didn't actually see it happen, but I later heard the
car hidden so hard that he went flying through the
air before landing in this just heap. But at that moment,

(24:47):
all I was interested in was getting as far away
from it as possible, either because it was about to
take another charge at me, or the driver was about
to get out of it and finish the job by hand.
As I tried to stand, the driver slammed the car
into reverse. I couldn't put any weight on my left
arm at all, so it took me longer than it
normally would have to find my feet and This gave

(25:09):
the driver time to reverse, get a decent run up,
and then drive at me once more in the hopes
of inflicting some kind of extreme physical trauma. I had
just made it to my feet before I slammed into
the rear of the car to my left, but by
that time I was mobile enough to jump back away
from that danger zone. I remember how after the smash

(25:30):
I looked into the driver's side of the car to
see who it was, but in my heart I already knew.
I knew who was driving that car from the second
I saw it speeding at us. It was Shan, and
he'd come to kill me. I just ran faster than
I ever had before in my life, and luckily, because
of how the parking lot was set up, Sean had

(25:52):
to navigate around the blocks of parked cars, while I
was quite easily able to get the hell out of
there by running through the smaller gaps. After that, I'm
pretty sure that he took off with the police looking
for him, whereas I ended up at the school. Nurse
before being taken to the hospital, and the doctor's at
the hospital had a bunch of questions from me, and

(26:12):
so did the copse. But all I wanted to know
was one thing, and that's how Ryan was doing. I
took a while to get a solid answer on that,
but when I did, I wept with relief. He was alive, barely,
but he'd managed to hang on. And it was me
that had been the target of Shan's attack, and I'd

(26:34):
walked away with nothing but a broken arm. Ryan, on
the other hand, had a fractured skull, broken ribs, a
pelvic fracture, and even a bunch of her neated diss
and a spine which I've heard can be incredibly painful.
That was the hit that I should have taken. And
that's not to say that I would have been as
fortunate as Ryan in surviving such unfortunate injuries. I owed

(26:58):
him my life, and now I'm set to spend the
rest of it with him in holy matrimony. We ended
up meeting for drinks a few years after we both
graduated because I wanted to catch up and buy some
cocktails for the man that saved my life. That became
a regular thing, and now I'm all set to become
missus Ryan. In the summer, checking on and Ryan turned

(27:22):
out to be one of the best decisions I'd ever made,
but as far as Shawn's doing, I couldn't give a
rat's ass, and I hope his time in prison was
hell on earth. He got fifteen years for attempted murder,
and I wouldn't be surprised if he was released before then.
But honestly, I don't know if that was the case
or not. I haven't checked because I don't care. And

(27:43):
I don't worry about ever bumping into Shawn either, because
if he ever chooses to show up at my family's house,
it'd be the last thing he ever does. I went
to high school with a boy named Ashley. Ash had blonde,

(28:06):
curly hair, a little bit of an overbite, and was
ever so slightly overweight. He could look quite slow, sometimes
staring glassy eyed and slack jawed at the blackboard each
morning during reception period, but in reality Ash was pretty sharp.
His grades were good. He went to chess club in
year seven and eight, and then he was actually on

(28:28):
the debate team for a while before things went pear
shape for him at school because, unfortunately, as well as
being one of the cleverest lads in our year group,
Ash was also a complete weirdo. To give you an
idea of just how weird Ash was. I was once
told that he had a deathly phobia of vinegar. Three

(28:51):
lads in my year group told me in the dinner
hall at lunchtime one day, But since they were laughing
when they told me, I didn't believe them and very
foolishly decided to test out their claim. A few minutes later,
Ash walked over with his dinner tray and then sat
a few chairs down from me. Then, after getting his attention,
I flicked a bottle of vinegar in his direction, causing

(29:12):
a few drops of it to land on the jacket
of his school uniform. At first, he seemed just a
bit confused and looked at me like have you gone mental?
And I was half expecting to see the lads that
had told me that he was scared of vinegar to
be pissing themselves, laughing like you gullible twat, But when
I looked over, they were horrified. Not a split second later,

(29:36):
the whole dining room hears this ear splitting screech. Ash
jumps up so hard his chair falls over, and then
he goes running out the dining hall with literal tears
in his eyes. He'd realized it was vinegar that I'd
flicked on him, and his reaction was to completely freak out.
Ash was a bit weird but also a bit of

(29:57):
a prankster, and so when he jumped up and ran
out screaming like he did, most kids assumed that it
was just some kind of joke. However, when we later
found out his reaction was genuine, Ash solidified his reputation
as being, to put it nicely, an absolute fruit loop.
I actually got into a bit of trouble over the

(30:18):
vinegar flicking incident, but nothing too serious, and Ash accepted
my apology, so there were no hard feelings. He continued
to put in a good performance at school, and he
got to be quite outgoing for a while and would
sometimes come and play football with us on the school's
astro turf. But then the school held a business studies fare,
and although that might sound like the most innocuous thing imaginable,

(30:42):
it put us all on the road to disaster. So
right as we were about to pick our exam subjects,
Our Schools started teaching business studies as a gcsese. They
tried it one year, but hardly anyone signed up, so
the next year they put on a little fare in
an attempt to drum up interest. Now I won't bore

(31:04):
you with all the little details, but the main event
was a talk from some prominent local business man, and
he spoke at length about the need for free thinking
and innovation, as well as the raw desire to go
out and make our fortune in the world. I think
it just went in one ear and out the other
for a lot of us, but in Ashley's case, he
took it to heart. He started buying blank CDs, burning

(31:27):
people's album requests onto it, and then reselling them for
like one quid profit per unit. It started with just
a few, enough to buy himself some sweets from the
school tuck shop, but then after a while even some
of the teachers were buying bootleg CDs from him, and
he'd sell maybe ten to fifteen a day. Well, as
some of you are probably screaming at the screen right now,

(31:50):
this was extremely illegal, and it wasn't long before ash
was called into the head teacher's office for a bollocking.
What he was doing was obviously wrong, but from what
I heard, the way the school handled it was ridiculously harsh.
I think the school feared some kind of lawsuit and
wanted to make an extreme example of Ash to stop
other kids from starting up illegal side businesses, because when

(32:13):
it came to his punishment, it seemed way out of proportion.
Instead of giving him a slap on the wrist and
telling him not to do it again, ashe was suspended
for two weeks, given four Saturday detentions in a row,
and had to write a thousand word essay on why
what he was doing was wrong. This was an insanely
harsh punishment as it stood, but what totally wrecked Ash's

(32:36):
head was the fact that less than a week before
he'd been encouraged to be innovative, freethinking and entrepreneurial, granted
the guest speaker at the Business Studies Fair. Didn't mean
start pirating music and selling bootleg CDs to every one.
But Ash was almost fifteen and everyone does daft, harmless
things at that age. Really, he should have gotten a

(32:58):
slap on the wrist, maybe one round of regular detention
at best, but for some reason they came down on
him like a ton of bricks. The whole experience must
have had a profound effect on him, because after that
he was never the same. His grades dropped dramatically, and
he became increasingly anti social, and he became the focal

(33:18):
point of a number of minor scandals. He got caught
smoking behind the school gym one lunch time, and then
another time teachers found a can of lagger in his bag.
And he'd also loudly argue with teachers pretty regularly till
I think even his parents got involved and began posing
punishments at home. And during his last year of secondary school,

(33:40):
which is tenth grade in the United States, Ash's behavior
started to level off. His exams were coming up, so
I think that's what had him knuckling down a bit
in terms of his academic performance. But at the same time,
he was still this seething ball of resentment who despised
almost everyone. And everything cut to early April, about six

(34:04):
weeks before exams, and we got a special announcement in
assembly come Monday morning. Someone had been stealing crates from
the school dinner hall and it was costing the school
money because the catering companies expected the crates back and
the company was charging the school a premium for each
one that was missing. The head teacher announced that though

(34:25):
they didn't yet know who was doing it, they had
inevitably find the culprit and they'd be severely punished. But
I remember everyone being incredibly confused of all the things
to steal, why steel, wooden, fruit and vegetable crates? And
in any case, who was the crate thief? And this
went on for weeks and there wasn't much the school

(34:46):
could do about it. They bought a special wheelibin to
put all the empty crates in, but whoever was stealing
them started coming to school with an Allen key, where
they just unlocked the wheelly bind and steal more crates.
Everyone knew it was happening, but it was probably the
most boring mystery in the history of time, so nobody
really gave a toss apart from the school. But then

(35:07):
one morning I solved at least half of the missing
crate mystery all on my own. Our school had a
breakfast club, and in the run up to the exams,
I decided that I'd start going to get some extra
vision in with a bacon buddy and a cup of tea,
and Ash was almost always there first. In fact, the
one time I arrived bang on seven o'clock, he was

(35:30):
sitting on one of the benches outside the dining hall,
looking like he'd beaten me to it by at least
five to ten minutes. Because no one really gave a
toss about the crates going missing, I didn't devote too
much thought to it either, But later that morning, when
Ash reached into his blazer pocket to fish for change,
I saw what looked an awful lot like an alan

(35:51):
key in his fist before he quickly dropped it back
into the pocket. On the way out of breakfast club,
I caught up with ashly asked him why he had
an alan key in his pocket. He tried to deny
it at first, but when I asked if it was
him stealing all the crates from the school bins, his
smile told me all I needed to know. I swore

(36:12):
I wouldn't tell any one it was him, but then
I had to ask why steal crates meant for the
dinner hall's catering company, and why steal so many that
it required a special mention during that weekly assembly. Ash
just gave me a sly wink and told me you'll see,
and then walked away. I remember telling only one of

(36:33):
my mates about it, only after swearing him to secrecy
on his mom's life. And then when I told him
ashe was stealing the crates, he says, is that it
I thought you were about to tell me something like
life or death. He was perplexed as to why the
whole thing even interested me in the first place. But
when I explained how ashe wasn't just stealing crates, he

(36:54):
was planning to do something with them, my friends started
to understand my fascination. We thought that there was a
good chance it was some kind of money making scheme,
but then having him say you'll see didn't make much
sense if that was the case. If he was just
selling the crates, what was there to see. We didn't

(37:16):
find out what he meant until the last day of school.
But if I'd even gotten so much of an inkling
as to what he was planning, I'd have gone to
every length to stop it. So the last day of
school was Friday, the twenty fifth of May, and as
you can imagine, we expected a great deal of high drinks.
There'd be pranks, water balloons, everyone would be signing each

(37:37):
other's shirts and what not. But what we didn't expect
was to turn up to school and see a huge
wooden behemoth standing proudly on the sports field. The sports
field was way out behind the back of the school,
whereas the dinner hall was near the front, and so
when I arrived at school I didn't see what many
others did that morning until much later in the day.

(37:59):
The first thing I personally noticed was that Ash wasn't
at the breakfast club, but that didn't mean anything to
me at the time. It was only later on that
I heard rumors of a big pile of wooden planks
on the sports field. But it wasn't until lunch time
that me and my mates were able to walk down
to the field to see what was going on. It

(38:19):
wasn't just a big pile of wood It was a
big pile of wooden crates. And when I say big,
I mean really big. It was at least two or
three times as tall as me, maybe thirteen to fourteen
feet high, and it was even wider at the base.
It looked like a giant, rough pyramid. Than as people
got closer, they started to smell the fumes. It was

(38:42):
a bonfire, a massive bonfire made entirely of wooden fruit
and vege crates. And by the smell, some one had
poured a lot of petrel all over it, or at
least some kind of flammable liquid to aid in its ignition.
There was just a handful of curious kids standing around
by the time we got there, but in the minutes
that followed, the situation escalated dramatically. Within just ten to

(39:06):
fifteen minutes, the crowd surrounding the bonfire swelled from about
a dozen to between two hundred and two hundred and
fifty kids. News of the bonfire had spread like wildfire,
excused the pun and I think our school's teachers were
too busy trying to put out other more metaphorical fires, because,
as I said earlier, prank season was in full effect.

(39:30):
Everyone was so excited for some riotous act of rebellion
on the last day of school, and when ashe delivered,
they flocked to the sports field at the first available opportunity.
By about twelve forty half the school had encircled the
bonfire in the expectation that some one was going to
light it, and before long some one did. I don't

(39:52):
know who had the lighter on them, but some one did.
And then seconds later, a kid in year ten was
approaching the bonfire with it along with a rolled up
bit of paper to act as kindling. He approached the
pile of acred smelling crates to the cries of do
it set it on fire? And then, after a bit
of theatrical nervousness, the kid lit the paper, leaned down,

(40:15):
and then started trying to set the pile a blaze.
There were a few moments of doubt, and then a
cheer as we all saw a rush of flame in
the core of the pile. The next thing, there was
a flash and a bang, and then the crowd surged backwards.
I remember how at first the sound of the explosion

(40:37):
cost most of the girls present to start screaming hysterically.
I mean, obviously the boys are screaming too, but it's
the ear splitting sound of the girls that really stuck
with me at the time. There were crates flying through
the air, pieces of shattered wood flying even higher, and
some of these pieces were actually on fire too, so
they'd leave these trailers of smoke in the air as

(40:59):
they flew fell. It was pure chaos, and naturally kids
were scared, so they were screaming. But then I also
remember the distinct movement when the screams of terror were
replaced by the screams of pain. I had been a
few rows back as people gathered round the bonfire, so
I quite literally had a meat shield of other kids
in front of me when the explosion happened. So when

(41:21):
it did happen, it sent all kinds of sharp wooden
splinters into the kids in the front row, as well
as a bunch of the kids in the second row too.
The result was almost twenty to thirty students all lying
among the grass surrounding what by then was a blazing inferno,
and almost all of them had suffered horrific injuries. Everyone

(41:43):
had white shirts on, because since it was summer, almost
everyone had left their blazers in their lockers. So imagine
all that blood against all that shredded white linen, and
how much more pronounced it was compared to if we'd
been wearing our own clothes. Kids had suffered cut from
flying debris, burns from arrant embers, and the shock of

(42:04):
the blast itself. One girl's hair was almost completely clinged away,
and she was shrieking in pain from the burns to
her ears and scalp. What had once been a joyous
atmosphere had been transformed in a split second into one
of blood, smoke, and terror. It was like something from
a nightmare, but it was real, and for some of us,

(42:28):
the reality of it kicked on sooner rather than later.
Sometimes when I ponder on the nature of humanity, I
remember how some kids reacted after the explosion. A lot
of kids ran all the way back to the main school,
some because they were scared, and others because they wanted
to inform teachers, who would in turn some in emergency services.

(42:48):
I think both options have their merits, and I don't
blame anyone who ran because they were scared, because I
was there and it was one of the most horrifically
frightening scenes I've ever witnessed. But not everyone ran. I
remember standing there, probably gopping at the aftermath, in complete horror,
when one kid, David Oakes, ran past me and towards

(43:09):
the fire. He stopped, turned back and shouted give me
an effing hand, will you, and then carried on towards
the fire to help drag victims of the explosion away
from it. And I snapped out of my days and
followed David and then helped him drag or carry those
who couldn't walk away. From the fire. Their shirts and
pants had been ripped, and there was blood all over

(43:31):
the grass, and one kid named Stuart had a huge
splinter sticking out of his leg. He wailed in agony
whenever we tried to move him, but wouldn't have a choice.
It was that or burned to death that the fire
started spreading across the grass. Not long after, the first
teachers arrived with first aid kits in hand, and a

(43:51):
teacher started directing us on how to best care for
the injured before the ambulances arrived. It was an incredible
display of bravery and mental fortayitude, one I'll remember for
as long as I live. But the atmosphere very quickly
turned from compassion towards those affected to anger towards those responsible.
Ashe had decided to stay in bed for that last

(44:13):
day of school after hearing about the bonfire explosion, his
parents came home early from work and were about to
rush to school to see if he was okay when
they suddenly realized that he was in bed. At first,
upon seeing that he was fine, they must have been relieved.
I can only imagine their reaction when they realized ashe
staying in bed all day meant that he'd most likely

(44:36):
stayed up all night and that the bonfire had no
doubt been built and then soaked in petrol. During that
same period, as you can imagine, the parents of wounded
children went a heads to roll. So it was only
a matter of days before Ash was questioned and then
arrested by police on suspicion of arson and g B H.

(44:56):
We were convinced that he was going to get sent
to prison or something. But not only did he never
admit to building the bonfire, but the police didn't have
a scrap of evidence that he was the one responsible.
Everything hinged on Ash admitting it. Then when he didn't,
the police had no choice but to let him go.

(45:16):
They did everything they could to try and get c
C t V footage of him doing just about anything,
stealing crates, building the bonfire. I heard they even canvassed
petrol stations in the hopes of catching him buying petrol.
I imagine they tried a ton of other stuff too,
but none of it worked. And although most are ninety
percent sure that it was him that built that bonfire,

(45:38):
ninety nine point nine percent in my case, ashe was
never punished for it, there was only the lingering suspicion
that he was responsible. But even then he can't share
all the blame. Ash didn't set that bonfire aflame. He
didn't even have to hand any one alighter either. He
simply planned it, built it, and then trusted that a

(46:00):
bunch of naive, excitable children wouldn't be able to help
themselves once they saw it. And he was right. Hey, friends,
thanks for listening. Click that notification. Bound to be a
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(46:22):
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