school days

It's allright Les, I know it's true, (note my age !).

Times were hard after the war, especially for those kids who's Dads never came back.

Truth is though Brum, even when talking to my boys about what it was like they actually start laughing thinking I am just copying what they have heard on these other progs. still when it comes down to it, it's no use dwelling on these things, just lucky we can laugh it off

I knew a few lads when I was at Harrogate that for the first time in their lives, they were having 3 meals a day & a bed of their own to sleep in.

Yes Jimsigs, that is exactly right, wouldn't have minded if I was sharing with some piece from down the road

thats true jimsigs . the first time i ever got three meals a day and my own bed was when i took the shilling , during the war years you were lucky to live in a house with electricity , nowdays every body has all the luxuries going , ginger

Les Pattenden wrote:

Truth is though Brum, even when talking to my boys about what it was like they actually start laughing thinking I am just copying what they have heard on these other progs.

In a similar vein. My two flatly refused to believe that we kids wore short trousers all year round until we reached 2nd year at the Sec Mod. They used to rub the back of my knees red raw.

Aaah, chilblains, aaaah, hot aches !

Now you're talking Brum, trouble is, tell the kids and just give them a laugh

Tell you what, on reflection I always found odd about school. If I got my maths wrong, a not uncommon occurrence, the deputy head used to thrash you with a stick. He was a mental case for sure, used to delight in breaking kids fingers with his cane. He was a bully, and needed psychiatric counselling I think. Anyway I joined up in September ’67, I was 15 and 2 months old. Now in the army their job was to reach me how to kill people (as well as set the tappets on land rovers) and if I got stuff wrong no one was allowed to beat me !!! Amazing. I thought the food was brilliant, hot water, showers, warm at night. Bliss

Yes Steve I know where you are coming from

Cripes, it's like reading something written by Dickens here!! it's fairly common knowledge that British schools were 'tough' and big on 'discipline' but what I am reading here is barbaric! A smack across the back of the head to make a student attend to his studies is one thing (but still verboten in this day and age); literally beating a child is quite another.

Of course, it was also a time when the neighbour lady could swat you one and if you went to your mom or dad about it, you'd get another for whatever it was you'd done to cause Mrs. H to swat you to begin with! Try laying a hand on a neighbour's kid now and see what it gets you!! A lawsuit.

By the time I was in a British school circa 1972 much of that had ceased, although a clip across the back of the head wasn't unusual and a few of the teachers could richochet a piece of chalk from the front of the classroom, off the desk in front of you, and bean you right square in the middle of the forehead. I was in awe of such skill....

School lunches....gag!!! Some bloody awful stew thing, or what was -- I suppose -- supposed to be lasagna or some sort of cheese concoction, usually burnt and foul, disgusting stuff and starchy as all get out, all of it.

I was in 6th Form, and a prefect, so I suppose our lunch was marginally better than what the lower grades got but I don't really recall. I just recall it as being evil!!

The one thing I will say, though, was given the focus of learning, my study habits improved immensely and, upon my return to Canada and finishing Grade 12, I graduated with 2nd Class Honours as a result of my year at Cornwall Comprehensive.

I was struck by the difference in focus immediately. In Canadian schools of the era, yes, we also had annual exams...a really big deal!....but the focus was on the exams testing us on what we had learned over the year and how well we had managed to comprehend it. Whereas at Cornwall, it seemed, the focus of teaching was to prepare the student for sitting his/her O and A levels and lessons were definately geared to what was in the syllabus (London syllabus, if that makes any sense to anyone. didn't to me.....). Everything was aimed at what would be in the exams, how to write a successful essay for the exams rather than learning to write a successful essay, period. This is what will be in your O or A level exam, here is what the examiners are looking for, and we were taught accordingly. It did seem rather bassackwards to me, but I suppose the argument could be made -- and was! -- that the system I was used to was the one that was bassackwards! :-)

The upshot was, I learned how to study properly. Something I was never good at previously. How to organize my lessons myself, set priorities etc. There was considerable emphasis on that in the British school I went to. Less so in any of the several Canadian schools I attended over the years (something like 10 different schools in 13 years of education (did my Grade 9 twice...back in the days when one could actually fail a student and require him to repeat a grade!)).

Loathed wearing a school uniform, by the way!! hated it. Yuck. Blazer, dress shirt, school tie, grey flannel trousers, black Oxford style shoes (polished, of course!).

Don't forget the black board rubber, that's what we used to get thrown for non attendance, not to say all teachers were like that, in my senior school there were two teachers who used to dish out severe punishment, then there was the English teacher, he was brilliant, very quietly spoken, used to read us lots of stories but should you be one of the so called "Hard Men" of the school, watch out, I have seen him pick up pupils by the lapels and smack them against the wall several time, whilst gently talking to them about the error of their ways. I just have so many such memories and yet I really enjoyed school

Oh yes, I well remember one of those zipping through the air towards some errant student.

The one teacher I remember well was a Mr. Gibbons, who taught English (Chaucer....in the original!!). He was definitely 'old school'. Picture a much older, and scruffier, Severus Snape, (minus the 'Prince Valiant' hair-do!) and overgrown eyebrows with tufts of hair springing off them (why he never trimmed that off is beyond me!) and that would be Mr. Gibbons. A dry wit, almost sardonic, certainly a master of sarcasm. Referred to us as Mister so-and-so or Miss so-and-so, and rarely -- if ever -- by our given names! Very bookish, always a bit dissheveled, crotchety but boy oh boy did he know his stuff!! I'm sure he could quote the full works of Chaucer, in the original, from memory. And clearly loved the damn stuff. we didn't....I still don't!

He also taught Shakespeare but didn't seem to have as much an affinity for Willie as he did for Geoffery. I actually quite liked Mr. Gibbons, but he'd never have abided any of his students getting familiar with him! Not at all. He was, as I recall, also the Assistant Headmaster....

brum we wore old leather boots without socks and short trousers in all weathers , it did narf get cold around the knees , ginger

Here we go again, back to Monty Python, but it's true to say that most of my Junior school years it was a pair of crepe sandals, which as a young boy i used to wear out fairly fast so then it was layers of cardboard to stop me feeling the road with my feet, this of course wasn't too bad until it rained (looking back it's a wonder we survived lol)

gingerjim wrote:

brum we wore old leather boots without socks and short trousers in all weathers , it did narf get cold around the knees , ginger

Bloody hell Ginge !

At least we wore socks ! They used to be held up by a bit of elastic that were called Garters.

We were allways being told "Pull your socks up boy !".

Whilst at school, did anyone go on education trip holidays. Our school in Cheltenham used to visit alternatively Sandown IOW and Lyme Regis before WW2. I went on the first one after WW2 to Sandown in 1948. It was for 10 days and comprised of all the age old ideas to widen our education. We had PT every morning on the beech and were split up into four house with a prefect in charge of each. Competition was rife and prizes were on offer on our return for sports, sketching & camera pictures. Not many had a camera in those days and since I was no good at sport, I had a go at sketching scenes etc. The highlight of the trip was a visit to Portsmouth Naval docks. amongst the ships there we saw HMS Vanguard, USS Valley Forge (American aircraft carrier), a German capured submarine and of course HMS Victory which was being re-rigged for the first time since 1908. Still got the little handbook and some photographs as a reminder of far off school days. By the way, the trip cost four guineas and since my Mother could not afford that, a favourite Uncle stepped in.

Only one I can remember Jim is a trip to Italy, needless to say my Mother could not afford that, however the few in the School (it had to be a school trip that included all years) that did go I remember came back with lots of flick knives and other things they thought cool in those days

gingerjim wrote:

brum we wore old leather boots without socks and short trousers in all weathers , it did narf get cold around the knees , ginger

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My mother bought all our clothes from the Army surplus store, I went to school dressed as a Reichsleiter SS.

At least you stood out Shelldrake. What a picture.!!

jimsigs1 wrote:

At least you stood out Shelldrake. What a picture.!!

Nobody bullied me!!

Shelldrake, Was your teachers name Schicklegruber by any chance ?

my mother bought all our clothes from the second hand tot stalls , mind you more 6th hand than second hand , ginger

Times were hard then gingerjim. I suppose we were a little luckier. My mother used to search out the cheapo shops for our clothes. I was in short trousers until the age of 13 so I suppose that saved money. Remember my Dad coming home from the Middle East in early 1945, buying Harris Tweed coates for my Sister & I and Dents leather gloves. Never felt so posh in all my life.

I remember Jimsigs, one of my brothers got married around 1952, it was Boxing Day and I am in the line up in my School Blazer (it was the only one I was ever given) Freezing and Green Sleeves

I was always dressed in hand me downs, and as the ones older than me were girls i got some very strange looks, and some good offers while waiting for the bus to town.