Teenage Years

By the time I became a teenager my interest in wearing female clothes had grown and continued to do so. During the summer school holidays I was often alone in the house as so able to indulge myself by playing with my sisters clothes. Like many young crossdressers I rapidly developed a skill for putting everything back exactly as it had been. From just wearing underwear in the past my interest had grown so that I was now wearing a dress, tights and shoes. Unfortunately I never had a chance of obtaining a wig and although I tried makeup once or twice I was too scared I would not be able to remove it all and would get caught out. 

I did OK at school, but I never liked it, I would often be told these were the best years of my life, well I can tell you they certainly were not. I didn't realise it at the time but I was dyslexic, it was known about in those far off days, but nobody in my school realised I suffered from it, or if they did never did anything about it. I found English particularly hard, very poor spelling, misreading words and constantly dreading being asked to read something aloud as I would almost certainly misread a word and the class would erupt into laughter and I would be treated as an idiot by the teacher, not a pleasant experience! Reading was always a struggle, so other subjects were difficult as well, the main problem was I would have to read everything at least twice for it to register in my brain which meant everything was very heavy going. 

Only a few years ago I discovered that people who suffered with dyslexia often had poor hand eye coordination, this revealed  a lot to me as it explained why I was hopeless at ball games, any ball game, football, cricket, golf, snooker, pool, tennis, everything. The result of this was that I disliked most forms of sport, mostly because I could not connect with them, this was not helpful for a young lad in those days, in the winter you were expected to support a football team and in the summer you were expected to support a cricket team, as I was not interested in either I would be singled out as very odd and often had to suffer the consequences. Most of the time this was not anything violent more being 'outcast', as a result I was often on my own, and to be honest for the greater part was happier that way. Being a 'loner' also fed into my crossdressing which of course was also a solitary activity. 

I hated each day at school, being a crossdresser as well didn't help, although to be honest at the time, I had no idea what I was. This all led to me 'playing truant' for two periods of time, the first was for about three weeks the second was, form memory longer, but I can't remember now how long it was. First time I was found out and in big trouble, but I got over it, the second time was harder, I was in serious trouble! When my Dad found out he took me into a bedroom and slapped me around the face. First with his right hand, as his hand connected with the side of my face it knocked my head sideways, his left hand followed and knocked my head back the other way, the final blow came from his right hand again. The pain seemed to last for hours, there were no marks on my face but it was tender for a few days. My Dad was not a violent man, I don't remember him hitting me before this and he never hit me again, I think he was so annoyed that I had played truant again he just could not control himself. The funny thing is the school made no attempt to ask my why I had been truant or any effort to get to the bottom of what today would be regarded as a serious problem.

When I was sixteen I left school and worked in heavy engineering, a very manly trade and not the sort of place you would want to admit you were a crossdresser. With work taking up a lot of time I just never had the time to crossdress and so, apart from the very occasional bout of dressing, my life moved on and I then had a period of over twenty years when I didn't crossdress at all.