No, its not a "state of the education" type post that Pete1950 can get stuck straight into....far from it...there was another post "one hit wonders" which took me right back to school and in turn the stuff we got up to. When me and my mate talk about it in front of my kids - theyre always on at me "tell us something funny from school dad..." Me and my 2 brothers went through the same school, they came out armed with x amount of "o" and "a" levels, I came out with virtually bugger all apart from a load of typing exams, yeah, I know, typing, but the only reason I took it was me and my mate were the only lads in the class of 30...gotta see the reasoning... and ironically at the time it actually got me into a half decent job (booksetter - typing out books for print), my brothers went to uni and came out with a shed load of debt... Anyway eg one of the things my dad told me was that before a lesson started in his class one of them would hollow out the teachers chalk and put a match head in the end....which I thought was pretty ingenious.....simple but effective. For me memories come from trying to get the most food at lunch time for the least amount of cash...eg you and your mate go to the supermarket, get one unsliced loaf of bread, then proceed to the chippy and get one back of chips, break the bread in half - eat the middle, half a bag of chips inside, stuffed for the rest of the day with enough to then buy 3 or 4 mars bars on the way home...awesome. Telling first years that "The head wants to see them..." and then seeing a line of 1st years outside the head's door... While I tell my kids what I did get up to - in a way I kinda instil into them a sense of personality and a little bit of fun - hey, theyre kids...if I had to go through school again it would be pretty well the same way..
I did my English 'talk' we had to do in the last year on Archery. I'd been doing it for about 6 years by then and had permission to take my target bow and American compound bow for props. One of the maths teachers had taken up archery the year before an ran an archery class in the canteen after school. It happened to be on the day of my talk so he asked me to come and do a demonstration. I decided to use the compound bow and shot an arrow at their targets only 10 yards away. The straw targets were the old worn ones from my club so not up to a full on grizzly bear hunting bow. The arrow went trough the target, through the catch net, through the canteen serving hatch and into the wall at the back of the canteen kitchen..........demo over
Yeah - usually the more fun times were around fireworks night as mini rockets were pretty cheap (pack of 10) and can be fired off the hand....also remember my mate calling me from the other side of a dog-legged subway to which I stupidly ran through turned the dog leg to find air bomb my mate had just chucked in from the other side....couldn't hear him for about an hour or so...
Or, wofhters (that's how id spell it anyway) break a paper clip in half on the bend and you have 2 "rounds" - u shaped....couple with an elastic band makes a formidable but not very accurate weapon....go out at lunchtime to the stationers, sit there, with bag of chips and loaf of bread splitting paperclips and filling your pockets. Funny because in school there was a bit of card by the main front door with an elastic band and wofhter sellotaped to it saying "if anyone is caught with the above they will be in detention all week....my mate had the paperclip...got caught 2 days later with pockets full of split paperclips....5 days of detention...
Not pranks exactly, but happy memories. In the senior class at the village primary school (circa 1977) you knew you'd come of age when you landed the job of mowing the headmaster's lawn on Friday afternoons (11 year olds and a petrol-powered rotary lawnmower, no recorded casualties). If he was in a particularly good mood, the Head, a former WW2 Spitfire pilot, would wedge an old light bulb in the plum tree and organise a bit of shooting practice with his air pistol. Another special privilege was to be sent to the village shop with an envelope containing cash and a letter of authorisation to collect pipe tobacco, a 2 oz tin of Gold Block which was smoked continuously on playground duty and on special occasions, in class..
This all reminded me of one of my good school memories, around one November 5 ... We were walking along a bone-dry Chichester stream bed, early morning. There was a ground mist rising up, perfect for disguising the lit bangers we were dropping as a gift for the kid behind us. Every so often, "Fucking HELL!" was heard up and down the line. Fabulous memory
Which leads me to remember a school trip to france for 3 days - 1. Bangers of all different sizes....in fact so many were on sale and so cheap we would light whole strings of them....I quote my mate "fuck me it's like being in china town!!" and also surprisingly customs boarding our coach and not realizing that virtually everyone had a tube of smarties -with a switchblade inside...
Parents evening: My mate was given the job of directing traffic (Parents) into the carpark and would direct them straight out the second exit back on to the road: Detention.
New metal guillotine in the woodwork and metal shop.....started a nice business making throwing stars and case hardening the ends in the forge. My own one had my initials stamped into (not a very wise move) as that evening I finished my "Special" my mate threw it in the local youth club and after it cut through a single strip light with 2 flourescents attached to it (que kids running everywhere screaming in the dark) my throwing star was embedded in the roof....then que 2 lads on each others shoulders trying to retrieve in the dark...
Which also reminds me of the metalwork teachers catchphrase (thick cockney accent) geddit in the forge lad, geddit in the forge....
putting drawing pins on our geometry teacher's chair. she was dead fit and with massive knockers to boot. when she jumped up you could see them nearly bounce out. gave us 13 / 14 year olds something to dream about!
Bolt bangers. Remember them? They made the old dears jump on the walk home from school. And rook scarers. We used to prise off the plastic end caps from the poles of road signs, drop a lit rookie in and bang the cap back on. They went about 50 feet. Spuds worked well too.
heh - our games teacher was fit...she deliberately used to stand right above us when we had swimming lessons with one of those high pleated skirts on....she ended up getting seen to by the biology teacher on our school camping trip - I think theyre still together now and she's the deputy....I think...
One of our games teachers use to have a strange way of explaining things. Games lesson: trying to explain how to take hurdles properly (not that anyone was taking notice...think, winters afternoon, games kit on (not been washed for ages cos you kept forgetting to take it home...manky - just want to be warm and inside...) anyway....so he starts.... "I run to the first hurdle and then "bang!" my foot is there and my other foot is in the right place to take the hurdle...."bang!" and im over the hurdle....he repeats shouting to himself as he runs off down the field...comes back up points to my mate and says "right....you've seen me do it - off you go" My mate just starts shouting at the top of his voice.....bang!, bang!, bang!, bang!, bang!, bang! whilst running off into the distance knocking hurdles over and falling over at the same time....priceless that is!
At middle school the biology teacher kept ducks and chickens round the back of the classroom and encouraged the kids to get involved. We discovered he also had an air rifle hidden away in the back room where he kept the feed and by lucky chance a chicken pellet fitted perfectly. :Woot:
