Best years of our lives?

Oh crikey yes. My junior school headmaster was pure evil. He looked like a frog with bumpy skin and eyes that bulged out of his face when he was angry, which was most of the time. He always wore the same grey pin striped suit and had a distinctive smell when he entered the room (whisky and cigarette smoke I think). He didn't cane girls (as far as I can remember) but had no hesitation of smacking little boys. On one occasion I remember he pulled a boy out from my class (we were about 8-9) and he was so frightened he wet himself. That evil monster never let him forget it for the rest of his time at the school.

After he had spent his days terrorising little children he would get into his Jag and drive home, hopefully to be beat up by his wife !

I was terrified of my Maths teacher when I was in school, he was a real tyrant. Many years later I met him at a reunion when the school closed down, he was the tiniest little man I've ever met and he was lovely.
My history teacher used to set us reading tests and then perch on the edge of the desk and pick his nose. I'm sure he thought nobody ever looked up from their books and saw him at it. Disgusting creep.
I got sent home from school for having gold buttons on my new school coat.
I once got detention because one of my teachers had driven past me as I was walking to school eating an apple. I was told that eating in the street was extremely bad manners and reflected badly on the school! Strangely it stuck with me, to this day I am very uncomfortable eating outside and I hate seeing anyone eating in the street lol.

He once pulled me out of class when my parents had forbidden me to take part in the sex education lesson and made me sit at my desk in the school foyer. I could feel his presence through the wall and literally shook for that entire hour every week for the 6 or 8 weeks that the lessons lasted.

It's amazing isn't it how these people had us quaking in our shoes, it makes you wonder why they went into teaching or if they just didn't like kids

I went to a Catholic infants and junior school. It was terrifying. My first day (aged 5), I was so scared I wet my pants. The teacher stood me on a chair in the middle of the classroom and said to the other children 'look what this dirty little girl has done.' At 7 my head was alive with lice. I was put into a big van on my own, taken away, was met by people in white coats at some sort of clinic and 'deloused' then back in the van and back to the class. We were regularly caned. Frightening priests and nuns, frightened at home with drunken violent father. I can only recall one nun who was kind to me. At senior school I was ignored by teachers because I was quiet and nervous. I was bullied relentlessly because I lost most of my teeth. Does this sound as though I am sorry for myself? Too right I am.

Crikey KatyK that makes my head slap look like small potatoes I can't understand why nuns and priests were so evil, where was the Christianity?

KatyK that sounds so awful

I remember the PE teacher who was a horror.. She was nasty to everyone but particularly to me. I don't know why. I'm not a violent person but I still fantasise about getting my revenge. Pushing her off a cliff would be very satisfying, perhaps a bit of torture first. The worrying thing is that the more I think these things the more I enjoy them!

Oh no I didn't mean to make anyone else's experience sound not so bad. It was my bad luck.

My grandad used to tell me a story about the nuns. He was taken aged about 5-6 to a nearby church where they had a Christmas party for the poor children (of which he was one). There was a big Christmas tree with toys on it. At one point in the proceedings he was singled out by a man dressed as Father Christmas and asked what he would like Santa to bring him. He pointed up into the tree and said "that train" please. The FC just laughed and he was given an orange. Upon returning from the party one of the nuns took him aside and told him he had disgraced the entire church by his greed in asking for the train, she thrashed him and took his orange away.

I used to fantasise of our frog faced headmaster meeting a grisly end too lovebeigecardingans

gilly Some of those nuns were vile. It made me smile when, some years after I left school, I found out that the Order who taught us were called The Sisters of Charity!

KatyK
gilly that is just so sad

How bloomin' dare they call themselves The Sisters of Charity KatyK . What a horrible start to life you must've had.

I did gilly but I'm still here. Not sure how .....

Just the faces of most of the teachers were enough to give you nightmares without the punishment they meted out. One male teacher took great delight in humiliating the boys who he punished, such as once when whacking a boy across the behind with his cane there were clouds of dust coming from the boys trousers but I made the big mistake of laughing because of the dust and I was next up for that cane across the back of my legs. Between a mixture of pain and embarrassment I spat at the teacher and there was a deadly silence in the class.

I just ran to the back of the class and stayed there until hometime. You should have seen the stripes on the backs of my legs. I was 11 at the time and spent the rest of the time hoping he'd die before I left the primary school.

People today couldn't imagine such cruelty.

My left hand used to be tied behind my back in an effort to write with my right hand! It never worked, still left handed, was told by a teacher that I would never amount to anything when I left school, she was wrong I went onto become a very successful PA to a high profile gentleman. I don't bear a grudge though, but hopefully we have moved on from such awful treatment metered out to children.

At lining up after playtime I put my book over the head of the girl in front to keep the rain off her. The teacher thought I was hitting her so I got sent to the head mistress and slapped hard on the legs. I was five! However, I have never forgotten the feeling of injustice and as a teacher myself I always tried to remember that there might be another side to the story.

Oh to be another Roald Dahl who had such an unhappy childhood at school that we now enjoy the likes of Miss Trunchbull, The Child Catcher, Boggis and Bunce and Bean, and the Grand High Witch.
He certainly got his revenge

In the main I think I enjoyed my primary school years and don't have any horrendous memories - got the ruler on the palm of the hand a couple of times.

We were very poor most of the time and remember the embarrassment of often not having the full 5/- I think it was on a Monday morning for the week's school dinners. My mother had intermittent cleaning jobs so I suppose at those times we didn't have free school meals.

I wet myself once in the first day or so but the teacher, the lovely Mrs Forster, didn't make an issue of it.

I've told this before because it stuck in my mind: Billy Connolly recalled when at something like an open day at university with one of his children, a man came up and introduced himself saying he'd been one of his teachers. Connolly gave him a mouthful saying you made my life hell at school! I assume the chap scurried away.

Sister Gabriel was a convert, they're the worst, too fervent by half. I wasn't RC. She loathed me and I her. She made my life very uncomfortable through actions rather than words. One year I had the lead part in a play and when I arrived late for a rehearsal - all of 3 minutes - I lost the part. B☆*☆h. When I left I didn't even dignify her with a farewell; just walked out. Best day evah! I wonder how St Peter greeted her at the Pearly Gates. Hopefully with a 'return to back of the queue and take the stairs downwards'.

When I was 5/6 I had to wear one of those eye patches across my glasses on the right eye,they said to strengthen my left lazy eye,my mum had gone into school to make sure the head knew of this but me being self concious of it left my glasses off one day and she spied me right across the hall at morning prayer,she did no more than frog march me onto the stage and tell the whole school if any one see's glamma without this patch you must report it to the teacher I was mortified.

I loved my junior school, had the cane one for sliding on the school roof in the summer holidays and once more for not
owning up when we were asked to own up. All the staff were great .with such happy memories Seeing the school demolished in the disaster was so distressing.