My invigilator really took the biscuit

My Leaving Cert: Ray D'Arcy, broadcaster.

I suppose needing to go to the toilet during the English exam but not wanting to be the first person to put up my hand is one of my major memories of sitting the Leaving Certificate exam itself.

Oh, and a particularly rude invigilator who didn't close his mouth as he munched on his biscuits - I can't say definitely whether they were digestives or ginger nuts - until we all told him to shush by imitating him.

I was not a messer but I wasn't a "goody two shoes" either. Our class was known as quite a boring class. I suppose certain classes had a certain atmosphere about them, and that's the one ours had. I also was somewhere in the middle with regards to being a crammer at exam time.

I do remember I used to be convinced that one of my schoolmates, Paul Heffernan, had the entire course condensed down to one word. He went on to do law, so he must have learned his study techniques early on. Being from a family of nine children in a small house, I was finding it pretty difficult to find the peace and quiet to study. It was mayhem!

Although I can't remember exactly how it came about, it was arranged for one of the De La Salle brothers at my school, St Joseph's Academy in Kildare, to let me into the school in the evening. So there I was, sitting in an empty classroom between 6pm and 9pm, with my face down in the books. I suppose it was pretty ridiculous now that I think about it I was already supplementing my income during fifth year by DJ-ing at discos etc, and I kept that up at weekends during my Leaving Cert year, doing the odd function here and there. My favourite subjects were probably maths and science, and I had medicine down as my first choice, with communications at what is now Dublin City University second.

When I was 10 I had a good experience of St Vincent's hospital, so that influenced my choice of medicine. That and the fact I came from a small academic school, where the attitude was if you have the points for a course, you should do it, which, looking back is pretty ridiculous!

My interest in communications came from doing the local discos and pirate radio. I also remember meeting a doctor at some function I was doing. When I told him I had medicine down, he said the Leaving Certificate would be the hardest exam I would ever do. Given that he had gone through all the years of study that it takes to become a doctor, it was not really what I wanted to hear!

My favourite teachers? They're all alive except for one! But there were certain teachers that brought the subject to life. I remember our geography teacher had us up to Leaving Certificate level almost by the Inter Cert. One of his favourite teaching techniques was to let us finish his sentences for him. He also used to grab you by the locks when he thought necessary!

I can't really remember the weather on the day of the exam itself. But I do have a memory - though it could be of my Inter Cert - of the day it finished that it was peeing out of the heavens. I had on a pair of flared navy corduroy trousers (they're probably quite trendy now) and remember standing in a shelter soaked through.

I'm a big worrier, but thought my anxiety would go once the first exam was over. You know, once you get the first kick of the ball out of the way in a big match and all that. But it didn't! The day before the exam I went to the local cinema to take my mind off it. But I do remember some sleepless nights going over maths formulas and other bits of information. I also recall making a silly mistake on Pythagoras's theorem in the exam itself. It still hurts.

In the end, I missed out on medicine by just one point (the points system was different then). I also mistakenly thought that I would easily get onto the communications course I wanted if I missed medicine. However, it turned out that English was a crucial result for me, in some ways. I ended up getting a D, but I did not realise at the time that you needed an honour in English to get onto the course. So off I went to Trinity to study psychology. Maybe the fact that I needed to go to the toilet so badly during English explains why I didn't do as well as I hoped!

Things have changed so much in the 24 years or so since I sat the exam that any advice I can give is pretty outmoded. But the thing about it is that it really isn't the "be all and end all".

The further away from it you get, the less important it is. Life experience comes into play more and more. However, I suppose in some ways the Leaving Certificate was a pivotal moment in my life: if I had got what I wanted in the exam, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you today.

In conversation with John Downes