What your teacher said to you that they wouldn't get away with now.

During my first term at grammar school the English mistress made my life miserable. Ella Horrell was her name. She looked at my surname in the register and she said she remembered my father. She never ceased to pick on me after that. The maths master was horrible and threw bibles, board rubbers and chalk. We thought he murdered his wife who was found dead at the bottom of a step ladder.

Later when at school in Wales the head mistress shouted at a few of us in assembly. We never knew why. Then went down to the sea and walked in and drowned herself.

Do any left handlers remember being made to use their right hand at primary school. It was the only time my mother bothered to go to the school. My aunt and grandfather were both ambidextrous as a result of having to use their right hand.

My domestic science teacher took a dislike to me never did work out why. She once took me to task in front of the whole class when I was about 15 . She shouted that I was so stupid I would end up with a filthy kitchen full of cockroaches (Think this was the worst insult she could think of) I shrugged it off in front of my friends as you do at that age. However I have never forgotten what she said and I have become obsessed with keeping a clean house ever since and that was over 50 years ago. Have often thought she may have had mental health problems. The next year I went on to receive an A in my GCE exam in Domestic Science.

Our deputy head declared a particular child 'thick as a brick '
Said child, now 21, has just graduated with a first.
Our teacher expected us to lay our hands flat on the table while we chanted times tables 'One two is two'again 'One two is two'go on 'two twos are four ' again 'two twos are four ' etc in the half hour before assembly.
Anyone who moved their hands was likely to have them hit with a ruler.
I am very good at times tables

I went to one of the first Comprehensive Schools and the teachers were very keen on saying that certain pupils were only fit to be factory fodder.

I used to think that was really daft because in those days factory workers were well paid, they had a job for life, chances of promotion and a pension when they retired.

When I was about 7, I had nits. I had nits a lot. The 'nit nurse' sent me home with a note for my mother several times. However, we were rather neglected as children so the nits remained. One day someone came into the classroom and called out my name to go with her. There was a blue van outside the school, I was put into the van (on my own). I was terrified. The van then drove off and when it stopped, the van door was opened and a woman in a white overall told me to get out of the van. I was taken into a very clinical room that smelled of methylated spirits. I was what I would assume 'deloused', put back in the van and taken back to school. There was no explanation. That was it.

In my third year at senior school I cut my hand so deeply that I had to be taken to A&E to have it stitched. While waiting in the domestic science kitchen for transport to be organised, the domestic science teacher insisted that I have a cup of sweet tea - "good for shock" - and I told her I couldn't drink tea with milk in it, as it made me sick. "Rubbish" was the response "drink it up now". So I forced it down - and brought it back up all over her shoes. She never forgave me for first bleeding and then puking all over her spotless kitchen and treated me, thereafter, like something that had come in on the bottom of her shoe!

I am amazed that we did not end up filling every psychiatric hospital in the country the way that we were treated at school by some of the teachers.

I went to a Catholic boarding school when I was 12 and loved it- nobody hit me or threatened to and there were no sarcastic remarks- bliss.

Reading all these stories of such awful treatment of children by supposed learning professionals, wouldn't it be something if - like the whistle-blowers of today who try to bring to 'justice' famous pop stars etc because of their sexual assault - if these bad teachers were called to account?

Of course, it'd never happen (anyway, many are dead by now) but at least some, like Nanlounet got their revenge!!

Well done Greydyster for giving her her tea back !

Greyduster

From the age of nine to eleven I suffered at the hands of three teachers. The first was a woman near to retirement. She thundered down the aisle one day with her cane. She began to beat me around the upper body and head. I had no idea what I'd done to deserve it. I think I went into shock afterwards, yet my mother did nothing when i told her. The next time we were in assembly and my friend whispered something to me which made me giggle. A young male teacher made us stay behind and he thrashed us both. By eleven I went into a new class. Again the teacher was male. He caned us almost every day for spelling mistakes. All this had a terrible effect on my education. Fear is not the way to learn. When I look at my grandchildren, I would protect them at any cost if a teacher was hurting them. I can't understand why my loving mother let it happen to me.

It's extraordinary that after all these years - I'm 69 - those incidents are still so clear in our minds. I was timid, shy, never answered back, always did what I was told - and yet one nun took an instant dislike to me and made my life hell. I shook every time she came into the room, knowing that she would pick on me again.

When I was 22, married with my first child, my mother suggested I should bring the baby to the convent to let the nuns see him. They were all cooing over him when Sister Augustine walked in - and I started shaking. But as an adult, she couldn't do anything to me and I refused to let her hold him - I said 'you made my life a misery and you will not touch my baby'. There was a stunned silence and she walked out of the room. I was still shaking (mainly at my own temerity) but I did feel better afterwards.

I've thought since that her attitude may have been a bit of reverse snobbery. Most of the children in the school were rough and tough and I was the exact opposite - I was aware that I stuck out like a sore thumb - and maybe she wanted to cut me down to size. I don't know.

If you were ever sent to the headmaster to be caned - I was only once (the only time I was caned) - he always said "this will hurt me more than it hurts you!" What??? . We all worshipped the ground he walked on, though. In our leaving year, he invited six of us to supper at his house. I met him again, some years later, after he had retired. I was on leave from the Army, having just been promoted. I didn't think he would remember me but he did and he was kind enough to ask me to his house again. He dragged out his recordings of Churchill's wartime speeches but Mrs E rescued me after the first one by taking me off to help bring the supper in! I was so sad when I heard he had died, but he lived to a good age. There were always teachers who were too free with their use of the cane - and not only when we were at school. When we took our son to see the boarding school he would be going to after primary, we were on our way to the head's office when we saw a master giving a lad a thrashing outside one of the classrooms. Not just a 'hold your hand out' jobbie either. DH mentioned it to the head and asked if it was normal to beat someone like that. He said it wasn't and that he would be speaking to him about it. DH said if he ever punished our son like that he would have him arrested. It never happened, but in DS's second year the man was sacked.

We got caned quite a few times. I went to a Catholic infants and junior school. The nuns were 'cane happy'.