ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
When John Wilmott was 14, his older brother Mark was sent home from school for the last time.
He was only months away from sitting his final high school exams when he was caught smoking and drinking alone on school grounds.
Rather than provide counselling or even a swift, over-the-top punishment regime, his boarding school came to the conclusion that he’d be better off back at home in his parent’s Betoota Ponds sunroom.
Though John’s education was much less eventful at the bourgeois hellhole of an institution, which cannot be named due to legal reasons, Mark’s experience certainly rubbed off on him.
“It was all downhill from there,” said John, now a 19-year-old copyboy here at The Advocate.
“Mark never sat his high school exams and ended up bouncing from one predatory diploma-based ‘college’ to another,”
“We don’t see or hear from him much during the year but he always manages to come home for Christmas. Last thing I heard was he’s keen on joining the military, which’d be good I guess. Christ knows what he does now.”
Arriving back in town this afternoon, John seemed brighter and cleaner than he typically looked of a winter’s day.
Speaking to our reporters earlier this afternoon, the now 23-year-old said that he hopes his fuck-up days are behind him now – something he’s keen to prove by bringing presents home with him from the Far East.
“I’m living on the Goldie now with a few mates, working at a real estate agency,” he said.
“Doing leasings at the moment, which is bullshit pay for bullshit work. Might even go back to the Polytechnic in Miami and do my high school equivalency. I’m doing my best to get back on my feet, that’s all anyone can ask of me,”
“Saved up for a bunch of presents as well, hopefully, the folks’ll see I’m starting to take a bit of responsibility in life.”
But as John came home early from work today, he saw the presents Mark brought with him from the coast under the tree.”
“Jesus! You can tell which ones he wrapped!” he laughed.
“Ah.. yeah. Shouldn’t laugh. Mum still buys my presents for the family and wraps them, too.”
More to come.
