We all have `em....... Primary schoolday memories,so how about sharing?

About this time of year there was what was called 'Tails Day'. Children brought sticky willy to school and stuck it to the backs of others including teachers. Some of the more daring naughty boys pinned messages to the backs of teachers' clothing . The treachers took it in good part even the head who was a formidable woman. She was obviously prepared for it on Tails Day when she went up the steps to the school and we all watched as one of the boys affixed the tail to her coat.

Once a month, on a Friday afternoon the headmaster, Mr Hartley, let all the boys dress up as Cowboys and Indians and do what cowboys and indians do (or did - since it is now totally non pc to play that particular game). The girls were nurses or filled some other ancillary, non-combative role, so we didn’t have any fun.

I was well over 5 when I started school and couldn't wait to go. Like so many then there was no nursery or pre school - I was just at home with my mother and 2 rather younger siblings - big sister was already at school.

One of the very first things we were told was that there was no need to ask if we needed the loo - we could just go. So I still remember feeling somewhat scornful of the girl who wet herself and sat in a corner crying!

When they thought we could read well enough to use it, we were given a hymn book for morning assembly. Until then we were told to 'sing to la'. I was so proud of getting my hymn book - felt so grown up.

It was quite a long bus ride to school - maybe 3 miles, and as I got a bit older I did it alone. One day, because of more dawdling than usual, I missed the bus I usually got with others - and didn't realise that there would soon be another. So I walked the 3 miles odd - dawdling and stopping to look in the window of the pet shop I'd passed so often on the bus.

God knows how long it took me - my poor mother was frantic, and IIRC had alerted the police!

I remember:

- being terrified of the nuns - I thought they had no legs as they drifted about in their black robes.
- being terrified of the wall carvings of the stations of the cross in the chapel- they were taller than I was and gruesome.
- finding some dead baby mice in the grounds and a group of us girls buried them with full ceremony.
- novice hiding behind a tree to smoke!
- taking our knickers down behind same tree!
- being rapped over the knuckles for things I could not help - e.g. not being able to answer maths questions.
- a teacher coming up behind me during singing, tapping me on the shoulder and telling me I had a beautiful voice - it was the start of a lifetime of singing lessons, singing in choirs, running choirs etc. A landmark day.
- being peed on by the boys who would piss over the wall of the roofless outside toilets as we walked past.
- accidentally bumping heads with a girl in the playground - she subsequently died of a head injury.
- ascension day trips to the local park.
- playing recorders - a group of us got together and used to play in the lunchtimes.
- Singing Together - remember that radio programme?
- plasticine - brown and filthy and revolting.
- sewing an apron - cross stitch on gingham.
- walking a very long way to school and back on my own - especially memorable on snowy days.

My abiding memory is that I really did not like school - neither primary nor secondary.

And, no prizes fro guessing why I am agnostic!

We lived eight doors away from the school, I started there age 3, all the children in the street went there too, I was in the same classes up to the age of 11 as 3 cousins, several cousins in forms above me. My father also attended the same school, I loved it in that school . The 3 and 4 year old children were in a building across the school playground from the 5 to 11 year olds, I felt so grown up when I moved across to the big building when I was 5. The girls playground was separated from the boys playground and we entered the school by seperate doors to seperate cloak rooms

Because of my father's overseas postings during my primary years I changed schools so frequently it's a wonder I learned anything at all.

1. A French kindergarten in Egypt during the 1952 revolution. I only remember our white dresses with blue smocking, learning to count with an abacus and being evacuated under gunfire. Two of the nuns were shot dead!

2. Chiswick House in Malta. Mum taught music there. I don't remember anything about the lessons but I still have my Coronation souvenir album.

3. Back to the UK and a horrible convent in Tring. The Irish nuns hated me because I wasn't a catholic and was a tomboy. If caught whistling I would have to stand outside in the rain and pray for forgiveness. Never mind purgatory - all hell broke loose when my parents found out!

4. The Gables in Linslade where I discovered books, books and more books. We were allowed to read at our own pace so I thrived.

5. RAF Khormaksar junior school in Aden. The only good thing about it was we were allowed to take our 11 plus early. The best way out!

6. The Isthmus school in Aden. Multi-national with high standards. Shame we had to return to UK after only two terms. My saddest memory is of a friend's mother being killed in a grenade attack on their restaurant and the kindness of the teachers. Thanks to facebook I've been able to stay in touch with a couple of friends and the headmaster's daughter.

Lots of memories mostly all happy ones. On wet playtimes we seemed to dance endless 'Haymakers' in the entrance hall to the music from a wind up gramophone.
The school was in the head mistress's house and we all used her bathroom! Once a week on Wednesdays she'd stand on the half landing as we processed past her. Girls had to curtsey and boys had to bow to her as she graciously said good afternoon to each of us. Funny little school but I was very happy there and learnt to read at 3. Yes really. It set me off on a path as a voracious reader and eventual novelist. Thank you Miss Smith and your lovely teachers.

Infants school - Sitting outside in the summer sun on the grass listening to a story. Being chosen to be Mary in the Nativity, Head telling my mum I was the best they had ever had and my mum being cross with the photographer who never turned up to record the beginning and end of my acting career. She never forgave him either! Dancing to the hornpipe for all I was worth on my last day and thinking that I'll never do this again!

My adored teacher in Upper 2 (I think that’s Year 5) settling down to read one of my compositions saying with a smile as she read the first sentence, “Oh, I think I’m going to enjoy this!” It was about a girl called Beryl who had a pink velvet dress ? This was 1949 or 1950, when pretty materials were still in short supply.

The next year, top year of junior school, the headmistress taking a lot of convincing that I had really written a poem I had submitted for the school magazine myself. I had. It was rather better than Beryl and the pink velvet dress, though possibly not as much fun.

Envy of a girl (we were all girls) who had hand-written a whole book about a pony, illustrated by herself, brilliantly in my view. I wanted to be her. I was bad at drawing.

I went to a little two classroom infant school when I started age 4 1/2. My first teacher was Miss Little, she retired when I was 7. I used to walk as we lived nearby. I went down the road, around the corner, up the hill and past the old workhouse, then across a field, down the steps and into the school yard. The old workhouse was demolished to make way for a new junior school.
I moved into the junior school age 7. It was very old fashioned, having a separate boys and girls yard on opposite sides of the school. A year later we moved into the new school ?. Mr Bell was the headmaster and we were all a little bit afraid of him. He was very stern, and had white hair and a ginger moustache.
My favourite teacher was Miss Liverick, she taught at the school for only one year as she went off to get married! I had the best results in the end of year exams when she taught me. Happy days.

My mother could not look after me when I was 5 because of an accident so I was sent to boarding school where a cousin about 4 years older was there also. At the end of term the nuns used to put a luggage label around my neck and put me in the guard's van with the parcels. My mother was furious when she picked me up at the station about 30 miles away from the school. In those days neither parent drove.

The next primary school my dad's cousin taught me and I could see the smirk on her face when she gave me 6 of the best on the palms of my hands using a leather strap as was done in Scotland. I never mentioned it at home or I may have received the same on my rear.

Myself and a boy in my class were the only two Catholics in the school and we were allowed to leave whatever lesson to attend church. We both just wanted to get out but did not dare not to turn up at church or there would have been hell to pay at home.

After passing my 11+ I was sent to another boarding convent and we went to church at least x2 day and I could recite the entire Mass in Latin.

We had to curtsy to the Mother Superior but on the whole it was a happy life there.

The nuns finished me with religion and I now only go to church for weddings and funerals. There were at least two priests in the family on my mother's side- my father was Church of Scotland.

Blooming nuns!!

I went to a small village C of E school and have mostly good memories of my time there.
Every morning we had bible lessons for an hour this meant learning a verse from the bible off by heart and then reciting it to the teacher.
Every friday the vicar from the C of E church would come in to talk to all pupils who attended church,the rest of us who attended the local Baptist Chapel had to sit in another room and when we asked what the Vicar talked about we were told they weren’t allowed to tell us.

I stsrted school after Christmas and it was snowing ,I was 2 months shy of 5.I wore a red sirene suit over my grey skirt that had straps to hold it up and my hand knitted cardigan made by Auntie Jeannie.My teacher was a Miss Watson and she had on a fantastic "sticky out" skirt with loads of petticoats ,the skirt was black with yellow umbrellas ,I can still see it when I close my eyes.I loved primary school .Friday afternoons the partitions between the 4 classes were opened and we had a film .Usually something far too old and serious for our age but we loved it.I remember the Viollette Szabo film "Carve her Name With Pride" and a film about nuns smuggling children out of nazi Germany .Visits from missionaries and little cards to mark up our pennies for black babies.When the card was full we were allowed to choose a name for the baby we were sponsoring.There must have been a lot of little African babies with very Scottish names ...lol.From there I too attended a convent school ,couldn't leave fast enough,left before my 16th birthday ,had my own business at 21 .

Funny (or not) how some of us have awful memories of nuns. I laugh when I see them portrayed as kindly benevolent souls in TV dramas.

I suppose there were some nice ones

Lots of nice ones Merlotgran I have fond memories of many of the nuns.My lovely granny also went to convent school and used to tell us stories about the nuns picking up their robes to play skipping ropes and football with the girls .My granny wanted to end her days with nuns because she had loved the ones at school .And we did find a lovely home in a convent for her.Old devil nearly got chucked out for sending the doorkeeper to place bets on horses for her and keeping brandy for her coffee in her bag ....lol.Growing old disgracefully.

Not many merlotgran- I do not remember any decent ones. At my boarding school there were mothers and sisters- the mothers appeared to be teachers whereas the sisters did the cleaning and cooking. They on the whole were decent but they were not allowed to speak to us or us to them. Most had lovely smiles which made up for a lot because humour was not on the list there.

I was sent to primary school a year early at just 4 and never fitted in. I can remember standing by the wall at playtimes and wishing they would let me join in the games, especially fivestones. The classes were huge as the village hosted an entire evacuated school ( I started school in 1940). We had big bomb shelters dug into the playground and poppies grew all over the sandy soil that was mounded over the shelter roofs. A favourite pastime was to pick the poppy buds and unfurl the petals one by one.The lavatories were outside and horribly smelly; we weren't allowed to use them during classtime so accidents were sadly common. I remember the boy who lived across the road wet himself and was sent home early in his very obviously wet shorts, so humiliating for him. The teaching standards weren't very high and only two of us passed the 11+. I started at the grammar school 5 miles away only a few weeks after my 10th birthday---and didn't fit in there either. The only thing that gained praise and approval was being sporty and I was a rabbit!

We lived in a small farming village and most days there would be a child missing because they were required on the farm.

The Head was terrifying and the teacher in the year below the Head actually washed someone's mouth out with carbolic soap when he was heard swearing.

I started school on my 5th birthday and was taught by Mys Barraclough. She liked me because I did as I was told and got on with my work. She was then able to send me to the village shop for her shopping - I remember tarantella tomatoes.

At 7 I went to a better school and lived with my Nan and Pop during the week, travelling to their house, by bus, on Sunday night and home again, by bus, on Friday evenings. I had no friends in either place except our next door neighbour's daughter who was the same age as me and who I still keep in touch with.

As a result of the 'better' school, I passed my 11+ and went to a modern grammar school. I hated it!! There was absolutely no humanity there at all. Then the wonderful Mrs Rook came along and I learnt to love words!

I went to an East end of London school a huge forbidding place on a main road and all my memories are in black and white of very strict teachers, desks in rows and a tarmac playground. When I was 10 we moved to Essex and I went to a village school. I was miles in front of everyone in all subjects and everyone hated me. We did needlework(horror) and country dancing (quite nice) which were not done at the London school where the emphasis was on the 3 R's. I was only one of 3 who passed the 11 plus (the only girl). They made me stop doing the lovely looped writing I had learnt in London and do a plain kind of writing called I think Marion Richardson - it ruined my writing and I have had a bad 'hand' ever since.

Same here with the handwriting, Teetime. I'm left handed and my looped writing sloped backwards. That wouldn't do!! We all had to have the same style. That Marion Richardson had a lot to answer for

Infant school:
Fat crayons ( which I loved and once ate some of a purple one)
A sand tray in the classroom
Singing songs
A long walk to school

Junior school:
Still the long walk to school
Lots of singing, both hymns and old songs
Spelling tests and writing essays
Throwing and catching small bean bags
Sponge with pink custard
Lovely teachers

Senior school: shudder!

Your posts have indeed made me realise my Primary School
days was certainly not too bad at all,it has certainly gone up a few notches in my mind.
I rather think after hearing these tales involving Nuns, I shall never again think of them in the same light!
There was no pre school back then and there was just the one school which took you up to your 11+ level.
Thinking back one of our horrors were the toilets......outside with one set for the girls and another for the boys.......they were not very hygienic and furthermore the boys had spy holes!!
Some of us were big for our age and experiencing our first periods so this was indeed one problem that was very embarrassing for us now almost "young ladies"
This handwriting issue was rife there too hence I was always having my knuckles rapped!
Food Glorious Food........not!
I can almost smell the cabbage now and to this day I have difficulty in eating it...........and yet I suppose in war time we really were very fortunate and never went hungry.

Good old days? Not exactly,but certainly there was plenty to be thankful about.

I was one of the first pupils at my primary school. It was built on the field diagonally opposite our house where my older brother and his friends had played.
There was still a large playing field and I have happy memories of lunch times spent "on the field".
I remember the school hall with it's parquet flooring. This is where we had assembly and when it was your birthday you were called up on stage, given sweets and the whole school would sing happy birthday to you. I learnt to read Janet and John and generally had a great time.
We would practice our handwriting by copying news for home from the blackboard and were allowed to draw a colouful pattern around the edge of the page. The head was lovely but excentric. She drove a 'bubble car' and styled her hair like Princess Leyla (Star Wars)
Aged 7 I had to move to the junior school which was a bus ride away. I did the journey by myself as mum was working full time by then. In contrast to the infants school it was an old building with just a concrete yard to play in. There were brick air raid shelters running down one wall of the yard which we were forbidden to enter. There were outside loos and if you needed paper to use you had to go to the person on duty and ask ! You would then be given your 4 sheets of Izal.
The classrooms were each heated by a large coal boiler. The windows were set deliberatley high so we couldn't gaze out, nothing to see anyway.
I was quiet happy there.