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

'A noun names a person, a place or a thing,
Archibald, Caroline, London, bird, wing'
Once learnt never forgotten. Thanks Miss Douglas!

My first teacher in Primary 1, was Miss Ross who appeared to be about the age of my grannies - and she wore a hairnet. As I could already read and do sums, I don't remember learning anything in that class. Later, when I was a bit older, another teacher, Miss Forrest, read us a story called 'the Grammatical Kittens' which painlessly taught us the different parts of speech. The worst was Miss Reid who, when we were all singing, put her hand over my mouth and told me I was 'droning'. She also wore her fur coat in class when it was cold, although we had to leave our coats in the cloak room. Years later, I was astonished to hear that she had got married. Who, I wondered, could have married such a harridan! As we still had 'the belt' in Scotland I had my share of that punishment and was the last girl in my class in secondary school to have the belt for not doing my homework for the music teacher. A fair cop!

DanniRae I too had Wind in the Willows read to us at school. I’d arrived in England barely beginning to read then this book started me reading avidly at age eight.
At five I went to a convent school for a few months where the nuns were kind and there were TOYS to play with, so different from our mission school in Pakistan.

I like the references to Alison Uttley’s A Country Child, a book I also loved, after I thought I should have grown out of her Little Grey Rabbit books (though I never have grown out of them).

When my children were primary school age we tracked down the farm in Derbyshire she was writing about, and went to have a look. It was just as she described it, and the woods were just as I imagined them. A Country
Child was about her own childhood.

The books I remember being read to us at school were Milly-Molly-Mandy, the Just So Stories and a book about Marco Polo we all adored.

I must add another memory from primary school days ........ the teacher reading "Wind in the Willows" to us. I so enjoyed it.

My first teacher was Mrs Griffiths. I thought she was lovely. She was a substantial size and wore large floral patterned dresses. My Dad always thought it was funny that she was so big that the flowers were rhododendrons.
She had a party for us all in her own house each Christmas and her husband would dress up as a pirate and scare us all. How we loved it!
It was all so friendly and kind at that funny little school. My DGSs go to a very good school but it is huge and the relationships with the teachers seems much more distant.
PS I think nuns might have been nicer to little girls but they mentally scarred my DH for life! They were really nasty to him in lots of horrible ways whole smiling sweetly to his mother who wouldn't hear a word against them

Do you know, Sue, I hadn’t even twigged that she was a Victorian child, I just identified with her. It goes to show that what I’ve always said is true. My childhood had a lot more in common with my grandparents’ than with my grandsons’!

Maggie ... I read that lovely book too when I was about nine or ten and I identified with the heroine as my name is also Susan and I am also from the North of Englan (...although not Victorian of course!).

grannysue, your inviting everyone to your party reminds me of one of the stories in Alison Uttley’s A Country Child. I remember it being read to us at “going home time”, and I loved it, especially as we were country children ourselves.

What lovely/awful memories we all have had about primary school.
I went to a nursery at age four and only remember dancing to The Grand Old Duke of York song every day before hometime.
I was new to the school and didn't know anybody so on my birthday I asked the whole class of sixteen children to come to my party.
The little ones all told their mothers and my own mum was horrified when most of them turned up at our house on 'party day' !
Then i went on to primary school and remember our teacher reading Black Beauty to us every afternoon.
I loved sewing but was hopeless at it and often had a ruler across the knuckles for poor cross stitch.
Loved the top class of primary school as we chanted our times tables every single day - twenty, yes twenty times.
I am brillient with tables to this day....much to my grandchildrens' delight.
One boy in the class was emigrating to Australia with his family and I remember thinking that was very exotic.

I went to a village school in Merstham, Surrey and in the main I enjoyed it. I remember the head master was called Mr Agate and he was a lovely man. We did Scottish Country dancing and I was involved in the team that danced at local events. We wore white, cotton dresses (mine made by my mum) with a tartan sash.
The unhappy memories are being made to eat mashed swede at lunch time and chucking it under the the table instead. Having to go to the headmistress because I had to pay some money to the teacher and putting it in the wrong place in the classroom! Having my legs slapped for something I did. Can't remember what. Having a cold and putting my soggy hanky on the radiator to dry - Oh, the awful smell when I used it again, I can recall it to this day.
The awful smell of the milk when it was warm - yuk.
But, as I have already said, it was a happy time and I have really enjoyed reading everybody else's memories too.

I was taught by nuns, too. The words of Sister Jean-Marie still resound in my head - she told us (age about 9) that it would be better for Europe to join together and just be one unit like the United States. Big stuff for kids of that age to get their heads round, but I think it must have influenced me a great deal.

Sister Jean-Marie was a hairy old woman otherwise, which is more the sort of thing stands out it memories from that age.

I’m so sad to hear of so many horrible nuns. The ones who taught me were wonderful, forward thinking women who were passionate about educating girls and encouraging us to excel in whatever we could do. I loved them and even wanted to be one (aged 7). That soon changed!

Taking my beautiful and precious toy horse in to show my friends and my teacher miss Hughes (miss shoes I thought for years) confiscated it and put it in her bedroom, for some reason she lived there, and although I was terribly shy I was so incensed she had taken it, I went into her bedroom and took it back. Absolutely terrified but no way was she doing that and panicked she would say something but she never did, brave six year old!

I started school a month before my fifth birthday, my mother walked me the first day and after that I got myself to school crossing the main road through our city.
In the reception class we wrote our letters on a slate using chalk, paper in very short supply immediately post war.
I do not remember a time when I could not read and would be sent to the Head Miss Elliot to read to her. I recall the Janet and John books but when I read to the Head it seemed to be much more advanced books, Bre'r rabbit being one of them.
Multiplication tables, mental arithmetic and spelling tests were done daily and the knowledge gained has stayed with me ever since. In the class after reception I recall each child being given a tin with small shells in, we used these as an aid to counting.
I think we were very well taught, my reading skills at five were way in advance of my GC and they do not seem to learn multiplication tables now.

I arrived in the UK from India aged 3 and by the time I started school I was a fluent English speaker. This was apparently so unusual that the headmaster used to bring visitors to chat to me.
I loved school dinners too and, because I did not eat beef, I was always given extra pudding by our lovely dinner ladies. Caramel tart and custard, drool!
We had a vile teacher at the school who was openly racist and would tell the immigrant children to "go back where you came from" . Her name was Mrs Gilchrist and everyone called her 'Fishface' because of her rather prominent, bulging eyes. I was so glad she was not my teacher!
The rest of our teachers were brilliant and I loved school.

I remember being sat in front of TV once a week for a program called Merry Go Round. It was a fact based program for school children. They ran a series of sex education programs /lessons that my parents forbid me from watching or taking part in . I was a laughing stock when I was led out if the hall by Mr Frog Eyes who declared “Gillybob, I have had a letter from your parents and you will not be taking part in these lessons” I was made to sit in the foyer for several weeks of these lessons and I was mortified .

What a brilliant thread Panache .

My memories of primary school are:

Mr Gibbons (4th year and head of all things PE related) having a “thing” with Miss Henderson (glamorous with long red hair) everyone knew about it. Did they think they were being discreet ?

Head teacher an evil “frog eyed” man who hated children . He made a boy called Colin wet himself infront if the entire school and never met him live it down for the rest of his school life. Nasty, vile horrible man.

The late line. Woe betide anyone who wasn’t over it before 8.55. No excuses at all. Mr Frog eyes would cane you (probably took some sick pleasure from it ).

Falling in a muddy puddle with my new mohair coat on and being so frightened to go home I decided to run away. Teacher found me and took me home in her “car” (such a rare treat). I was half killed for shaming my parents. So I was technically right to run away.

Lots more but I don’t want to bore anyone to tears.

Being late and having to walk across the silent playground.
The stinky toilet blocks and the bike shed.
The kids whose parents couldn't afford to buy them shoes so they wore plimsoles often in holes and ragged cardigans.
Chilblains.
Mental arithmetic first thing with a prize of a sweet if you got all the right answers.
Being read a story at the end of the day. Classes with more than 45 children.
School milk and the ink monitor who had to fill the ink wells each morning. Pens with nibs. Being allowed a fountain pen but having to buy one. Osmiroid 65. I think they cost 5/6
A new game in the playground each week which took awhile to learn. By the time I'd got the hang of cat's cradles or finger knitting or two balls, there would be a new game.
Autograph books.
Thanks for taking us down memory lane.

Does anyone remember the radio programmes about someone travelling back in time? We used to listen to them once a week, I particularly remember one about the stone age. I don't think anything stirred my imagination as much as they did.

What fascinating tales of early school life. I went to a small nursery school when I was 3 which was also for some reason an orphanage - I remember screaming and clinging onto my dad the next time he took me as the other kids had told me I would be left there forever. He took me home.

Next I went to a little private school which in my head was very dark but I was taught to read and write and also do sums.

Proper infant school was at the top of my street. My first day we played with the water trough dressed in plastic (or maybe rubber) aprons and the sand pit. I remember looking at another girl crying and wondering what was wrong with her. I met my lifelong friend that day - we haven't seen each other in years but still write at Christmas. We had two teachers called Thompson so the younger one was Miss Brown Thompson - she was very strict and whacked me across the hands with a ruler as I couldn't sit cross legged (never could and still can't). The other Miss Thompson was lovely and taught us maths with little tins containing wires with coloured counting beads on from 1 to 10. One of my favourite memories is sitting in the classroom around the teacher who read us The Hobbit - my first introduction to fantasy stories which I still read.

Also remember the revolting warm milk which they put by the radiator in winter - I've never touched milk since. We had orange juice in the same bottles at the Christmas party.

Very tall stools in the PE hall - looking back they were probably low but to a small child they were enormous to climb up and also the benches we had to balance on and walk across.

At Easter we decorated hard boiled eggs - one year I did a daisy with white and yellow felt and won the 1st prize of a chocolate egg. One girl was obviously put out about it and told everyone it wasn't a real egg but a ping pong ball.

The toilets were outside and freezing cold in winter and when it was icy we also made slides in the playground then got told off for making it slippy and dangerous. There was a climbing frame in another playground which I fell off and hurt my arm - I was made to wear a sling and was so embarrassed it made me feel ill and I was sent home several times.

I left that school when I was 8 and we moved to the seaside. It must have been just after term started as I was the new girl in an already established class of kids who knew each other. Moving from up north where (in the early 60's) we had what was called Potato Picking Week as a week's holiday I was very upset to find this wasn't a holiday in Yorkshire. They also didn't understand me when I told them they'd get wrong for some misdemeanour they'd done. We had swimming lessons at that school in the freezing cold outdoor pool where we used polystyrene floats - I was pushed in the deep end and never did learn to swim there. There was an old mangle outside the changing room door where we had to wring out our costumes when we'd got dried.

Mostly I think I enjoyed early school life - I wasn't academic or sporty so didn't excel in anything. I was a shy only child but did have some fun times and have happy memories from that time.

Kindergarten, my first day, my Mum left me there after a long bus journey,I was devastated and cried, not knowing anyone, the Nun in charge of the little ones, stood me on a green mat in the hall where everyone went passed to their class rooms she gave me a huge shell which decorated the big fireplace where I was to stand, and told me to fill the shell!! I will never forget my first day at School, I was only five.

I shall never forget my Truly Fabulous Junior School teacher Mr Head when I was 10/11 years of age. He used to bring his guitar into class, and teach us all kinds of songs from Sea Shanties to Folk songs. He also wrote several songs for our school plays. Fantastic Man. My enduring memory though is when Mr Head took our class into the gym with his guitar to sing a sea shanty. He had the brilliant idea of us all holding the climbing ropes that were attached to the wall mounted apparatus, pretending to pull as we sang " Hooray, Up she rises".
We absolutely loved it. So much so, we got really carried away. We sang at the top of our voices and pulled for real.
There was a loud crack as the apparatus were pulled away from the wall.
Silence, and then a sudden departure back to the classroom.
I dread to think how Mr Head explained what had happened but it was never mentioned, or indeed tried again.
He left my school as I finished, to become a Headmaster elsewhere. Lucky, Lucky School.

Separate entrances and playgrounds for boys and girls - lots of games that involved long lines and spinning round, with somebody flying off the end and getting hurt.

Warm milk - a boy queuing up to tell a teacher he felt ill after it and being sick over the head of the girl in front of him. Milk with lumps of ice in it.

Busting the nose of a boy who was bullying another who came from my Durham pit village - we'd moved South and they made fun of our accent.

Sitting all afternoon in the school hall looking glumly at the pipes in the liver that I wouldn't eat, then getting a few swift whacks from the ruler to send me on my way home.

Being captain of the Aunt Sally team when we had an inter-school sports day - we came last.

The burns on my hand from climbing up to the ceiling on the hanging ropes. That rush of blood to the head from hanging backwards from the wall bars.

Having to walk a boy home who had diarrhoea dripping all down his legs....

Being hit in the eye by a snowball with a stone in it and having to sit at the front of the class until home time with my eye closed up and swollen.

A mother charging screaming into the hall and attacking our own Miss Trunchbull while we were eating our dinner because she'd been passing and heard her son being bellowed at and knocked around. The other teachers had to drag her off - we children loved it!

Queuing to have the rosehips I'd collected weighed and paid for. They went to make rosehip syrup.

Music and Movement on the wireless. Is it me, or were we always seeds growing into flowers, or acorns growing into trees (same thing really)?

A boy saying he hadn't been at school the week before because they'd run out of coal and his dad had put his shoes on the fire.

What’s so fascinating about this thread is how experiences differed. Some schools sound horrendous, bullying places, some very happy, and everything in between.