Growing Up

Mark Baggley: Sex Education

Mark was born in 1960 in Hull and grew up in Scunthorpe. Mark went to his local primary school and then was sent to a residential special school in Lincolnshire at the age of eleven. From there Mark went on to a residential special college in Coventry.

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Mark Baggley

Here Mark talks about his sex education in school.

Transcript

We had a talk about sex education, I think I was fifteen and a half, which was far too late and they took all the boys in one room, all the girls in the other room and to be honest with you, about the first 20 minutes we didn’t know what he was on about. I remember him saying, he said, 'You know when you see a girl on the bus' and we went, 'Never been on a bus. What’s different about that?' He said, 'Well you know how you feel when you see a girl on the bus'. Then ah! it took about 20 minutes to realise what he was trying to hint at. There was no discussion at all about sex or disabled people and sex or even relationships, you know, just in general. People were aware that often the kids went out with each other at school and stuff like that and I think generally everyone thinks, 'Ah, isn’t that cute'. To my knowledge nobody got pregnant at school or anything like that, but who knows whether they were just quietly moved or what happened I don't know.

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