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

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

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.

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.

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.

Greyduster

Well done Greydyster for giving her her tea back !

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!!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I went to a convent school in Dublin. I don't remember my early years at school but I do remember several things after my father died when I was just gone 13. The head nun took me into her office and served me tea in china cups and scones with butter and jam. I was in seventh heaven but it did feel very awkward.

One of the other nuns hated the sight of me, for some reason, which I can't understand because I was shy, well-behaved and very timid. After my father's death (we were very poor) my mother bought a second-hand royal-blue gymslip, had it dry cleaned and put on new buttons in an effort to have me looking good for school. On the first morning of term we were all lined up on the staircase and this particular nun walked down the line inspecting us from head to toe. When she came to me she said 'of course Miss would have to be different'. The school gymslips were supposed to be navy, not royal blue. I was mortified.

On another occasion she asked me to read a part from Shakespeare in class and said 'and none of your BBC accent, if you don't mind'. Again, I was so embarrassed - and I didn't even know what a BBC accent was. I just had a generic Irish accent - in fact probably a slightly clearer accent than the other girls in the class.

And the bookkeeping class - I dreaded it because I didn't understand the difference between debits and credits. One day, she stood beside my desk hitting me on the side of the head with her silver ring every time I gave a wrong answer. I ended up with my scalp bleeding and had to hide it from my mother - I knew she had enough on her plate having just been widowed and left with three young children.

The other nuns were ok but I've never figured out why that particular nun disliked me so much.

As an OU tutor, I was told (about 20 years ago) by a woman in her 60s that I was the first teacher who had ever given her any encouragement or praise. What a sad indictment of education in the so-called'Good Old Days'!

annodomini - I had a Miss Reed too.

I was also no good at sewing. When I was about 10, working at a felt pencil case for over a term - a job which the teacher had set, mark you - she burst out with 'Are you still working at that soppy little piece of feltwork?' It turned out when I was 25 that I had no binocular vision, because of a disparity between my eyes, and it was then that I acquired my first pair of glasses. But I still can't sew, though I am much less clumsy than I was. I do think that children's vision should be checked for such problems - I could see the blackboard with no difficulty.

Yes, I had that board duster thrown at me for yawning in an English Lesson. The same teacher also used to ask me to stand up and read poetry to the class and ask for comments on pronunciation. When the comments were finished. He said they were rubbish as it was perfect. So I liked him. I am a Liverpudlian so be told I had a good speaking voice was reward enough.

I have never forgotten Miss Reed who, when we were singing in class, put her hand over my mouth and said I was 'droning'.

I went on supply in the early 70s to a.small.school.run by grey nuns in a Wapping, which was not as posh as now. Very Dickensian in fact. The head gave a savage rant in assembly about some children who chose not to go to mass on a Sunday but preferred to walk on the mud by the river looking for treasure. Sadly they drowned because they hadn't followed God and gone their own way. I was very shocked to hear her blatant propaganda.
The next week I went to a similar school with navy blue nuns Before school the head took me into her office and held my hand. She explained that a little.girl in my class had lost her brother recently. Would I please give her my special love and take particular care of her.

I never forgot those two women. One a real teacher and one who was not in my mind.

I was aged 8 in South Perth Australia. We had outdoor assemblies. I must have not been paying attention when the teacher who was taking the assembly called me to come up. I wondered why. This was in the late 50's. He got hold of my hand and slapped down hard with his. I still don't know to this day what I did wrong. Just wish I could go back to those days and slap him around the face. I wonder what would have happened then.

When i was at school we had a domestic science teacher whose hooby was needlework. I was always in trouble with her because I could not sew, (and still can't) !!. During one lesson she said loud enough for the whole class to hear "YOU will NEVER know what a needle is for will you?.

Move on quite a few years later when the same teacher appeared on a ward where I was nursing, and I was designated as her "named nurse".

I went to her bed during medication round and said to her, "Good Morning Mrs ???? Do you remember teaching me? Well I now know what a needle is for, and I have a very sharp one that I am now going to attach to your ...... syringe for your injection.

And at mine: "girls at ... school do not fraternise with workfolk". We'd a couple of workmen in upgrading the science lab and the area was taped off so we had to keep our distance.

But on the subject of the OP, what did teachers say: at DH's grammar it was "Intellectual cream of the district? Pah, skimmed milk."