Best years of our lives?

Yes sassenach quite unbelievable.

Only one teacher terrified me ....she was a tartar. Really odd woman ....she taught two subjects ...history , which I loved and consequently paid attention and did well at...and she also taught , girls only of course , sewing and embroidery, which I disliked and never could grasp! She loved me in history class and absolutely hated me in sewing class. She would often hit the backs of my knuckles (edgeways) with a wooden rule...usually until she got you to cry! That woman was a total split personality and she taught me for two horrific years. I have never to this day conquered sewing ... and will quite happily throw something away rather than attempt to mend it! All the time thinking ‘ stick that in your pipe and smoke it Mrs. Holyoake!!!

My second form mistress was a living nightmare. When I told my mother that she frequently used the belt that was on prominent display on her desk, (Scotland, 1957) I was sent to a private school.

No belt there, but my third form mistress was the living image of the lady, I had just thankfully said good-bye to.

She actually told us that we would die, due to lack of fresh air if we ever closed all the classroom windows at once!
Eating apple cores was another thing that would kill you.

Mercifully I have forgotten all the other things she said would kill us, but it took my parents a full two years to persuade me the woman was talking nonsense.

I think a lot of it was to do with the fact that "our" parents (well mine anyway) would never question the authority of a teacher whom they would have thought, were very much their betters. If I had dared to complain about bad treatment at school my mother and father would have automatically took their side and I would have probably been thrashed again. Thank fully things are better these days and our DGC will never be subject to such cruelty.

Thank you KatyK there are a lot of people who had a bad time at school aren't there? It's incredible how this treatment was accepted in the day and especially by so called 'godly' people

An interesting thread and like others I am so glad that I can hear about others stories.
I agree whole heartedly that for those of us at infant and junior school in the 70’s, our (then) middle aged teachers were probably damaged by war experiences, I had never considered this before? still no excuse for the rank cruelty and humiliation many of us suffered though!
So glad things have moved on beyond all recognition.

Oh dear. Catholic schools are getting a bad press.
I went to Catholic schools as did my children and now my grandchildren - all very happily.
My home life back then though - not happy!

I'm reading this & it's bringing back horrendous memories of the RC Primary school I went to. I was regularly caned, slippered, belted, rulered on my hands. I was also slapped on my thighs so hard that you could see every red hand mark. All by Nuns. Mum just said that I must have deserved it. The Priest told me I was 'a child of the devil' because I'd lied. You could go round to the church at lunchtime, but instead I used that oportunity to have fun to slide down a washing pole.

The nun followed up by telling me that by lieing there was a black stain on my soul that would never go away...like ink on a white dress. The same nun shut me in a cupboard for not eating the cabbage on my plate at lunchtime.

These nuns were Sisters of Mercy too. No comment. Another teacher told me time & time again that I'd never 'come to anything' at 9 yrs old. 20 yrs later I bumped into her in the Street. I hsd great pleasure in telling her that I had become a Primary School teacher.

The treatment by these viscious, vindictive, cruel bullies changed my life forever.

sassenach don't apologise. It's quite therapeutic to realise other people have gone through similar things.

So many horror stories, what a can of worms I opened, so sorry ladies if it has opened up old wounds It's hard to believe teachers could be so incredibly cruel and expect their pupils not to be affected by it as adults. Its also beggars belief when you think how totally helpless we were once we were in their control, thank goodness children don't have to be in fear of their teachers now.

Our doctor always knew when we had our weekly lesson with one vile female teacher in infant school as we would develop strange symptoms on that day. She was a horrible woman. My best friend went up to her many years later at a school reunion & told her exactly what she thought of her. I was pleased but I was still wary of her although she was just a wizened old lady by then & quite pathetic. Our deputy head at senior school was a nasty piece of work too. Never had nasty male teachers.

I only remember one horrible teacher, she was our French teacher. Things got so bad that I was thrown out of class, our headmistress was very kind, gave me coffee and chocolate ginger biscuits. She said for the rest of the year I was to spend French lessons in the library studying whatever I chose, I chose French, when we took our mock GCEs I took the French exam and beat everyone else in the class!!!

I'd love to give her a slap craftyone and some of the others mentioned above.

my convent school days were lovely, the nuns were all very kind to us. One teacher, elocution and not a nun, knew that my dad was Polish, 1950s fought all through the war with uk, met a Dutch woman and settled in uk otherwise would have been shot by the russians, she had it in for me, a smiley quiet helpful 12 year old. She made much mock of my voice, liverpool and then gave everyone in the class a polo except for me, time and time again it happened. She destroyed my speaking in public confidence ever since, even to now. What a witch she was

Just thinking about some of the teachers I had makes my stomach churn. On reflection I reckon many of them had probably been damaged by the war and their behaviour was due to the experience. I loathed school, I was a square peg in a round hole and when in much later life I became a teacher myself, I made sure my own students were treated with kindness and respect. Guess what, it worked, my students , often for the first time in their lives succeeded.

I hated school. I remember the humiliation of not going on school trips because Mum didn't have the money. There were 5 of us and in those days Mum got an allowance from my Father which had to cover everything needed, food, clothes, household goods etc. He would never fork out for anything extra but that didn't stop him going to the pub every night. I remember being told by one teacher in primary school, I must have been about 7, that I couldn't rely on my looks to get me by! I had no idea what that meant. There were one or two teachers but the rest were the same as mentioned in the stories of others told here. Sadistic, mean or just couldn't care less. Very sad really.

Thank you, Bellanonna. There certainly are some appalling stories on this thread.

I have to say, I take great pleasure in seeing today what a lovely atmosphere there is in my GC's primary schools and how much they enjoy school.

A few years ago, I accompanied a gruff Russian professor who was in his 60s on a visit to an English primary school. He was moved almost to tears by the bright, informal classrooms filled with happy industrious children. Clearly a far cry from his own remembered experience!

I remember a creepy maths teacher who would squash onto the chair with the girls with arms round our waists and then move his hand up and down - yuk. Then there was the science teacher who taped around my mouth and hair and then made me stand on the front bench because I was talking in class. Then there was the sewing teacher who rapped our knuckles with big cutting out scissors if we talked in class or our stitching wasn't neat enough. We've come a long way since those days.

Amagram that’s appalling about the cupboard. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those girls became claustrophobic.

Your Anglesey trip episode was awful too. Surely there should have been some kind of contingency fund to cover something like that, or couldn’t the teachers have put their hands in their pockets for once? A sad story.

Some awful stories here.

I had two teachers who terrified me; one was my teacher when I was 8 he used to shout at us all the time and regularly sent the boys to be given the slipper! The corporal punishments were supposed to be recorded in a book in the head masters office but this beauty had an unofficial arrangement with another master to send the boys off the books! He used to give the ruler to girls and I had bleeding palms on one occasion for chatting in class!
The second was a stand in maths teacher when I was 12 who used to sarcastically humiliate us if we struggled and as maths was not my strong subject I lived in fear of him singling me out which happened only too frequently! He left me with a life long maths phobia!

I have never been any good at swimming, for some reason I go down with the level of the water so although I could swim in the shallow end I ended up nearly drowning if I went into the deep end, something I have always done! When aged about 13 our PE teacher decided that all the poor swimmers should be able to swim a length so we had to try. She was supposed to hold the long pole in front of us as we swam along in case of difficulties. For some reason she didn't do this for me and as usual I went down in the deep end. I was trying desperately to get to the side but was failing badly. Luckily another pupil dived in and saved me. When I got out I gave the teacher a right mouthful and walked out to the cheers of the rest of the class. I told my mother what had happened when I got home and she said just wait and see what happens, (she never liked going into school about anything!). That teacher never said a wrong word to me again and I never did another swimming lesson.

When I was at primary school, a class trip was planned to Anglesey. It was quite expensive and as my parents were going through a particularly hard time financially, they genuinely could not afford the price. I was the only one in the class who couldn't go. I have never forgotten how that felt. I did not in any way blame my parents, but I have never forgotten that the school did nothing to help or even to make me feel better about being left behind.

I remember a geography teacher at secondary school who locked girls in a cupboard if they misbehaved!

While I know that this is a fairly light-hearted thread, the tales being told here are causing me a mix of tears and anger - and some laughs.

There have been lots of negative comments about Convent schools although I can honestly say my experience was quite the opposite. Yes, they were strict and discipline was important to them but I found little if any difference between the sisters and the lay mistresses. I stayed friends with one of the nuns long after I had left school.

The nuns taught us road safety by saying that if you crossed a road diagonally instead of walking straight across, it was a sin.