Best years of our lives?

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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!!!

Yes sassenach quite unbelievable.

My parents were quite poor. Living in South Africa education was not free. We had to pay 30 shillings a term, which was a fortune to my parents, who had 4 children. Every day those girls who had not paid got named and shamed by the teacher. Another embarrassing thing was my parents could not afford the school uniform of a green dress. They used to buy me second hand dresses and they were always much lighter in colour than the other girls' as they had been washed so much.

On my first day at my scottish Primary school (aged 4) the teacher walked into class, stood on her dias and said my name is Miss X and this is the STRAP. If you disobey me you will get it. I was too terrified to do anything wrong or make a noise but lots of children got on the wrong side of her. When my younger brother went in her class he had to stand in a wastepaper bin with a DUNCE sign. KatyK

I also attended a Scottish primary school but luckily my infant teacher was nothing like yours pinkpeony. Miss Ross was ancient - or so we thought - and wore a hairnet which is about all I can remember! However, when I was 7, my teacher, Miss Reid, took a dislike to me and it was mutual. When we were singing, she put her hand over my mouth and told me I was 'droning'. Apart from that, most of our teachers were very fair and only gave us 'the strap' if we had been really naughty. Oh yes, I got my fair share of that!

When I was about six I told a teacher that I thought her brooch was lovely. She said very sharply “Don’t make personal remarks”. I was duly squashed, and also puzzled. I thought I was being nice.

My mother used to make a lot of our clothes. I can remember at primary school playing outside at lunchtime and one teacher calling me over and with a smirk said “did your mother make that?” I was dressed in a green blouse with a red corduroy waistcoat and black checked skirt. I was going to a birthday party and thought I looked nice. I never wore it again

It would be interesting to know when posters were at school because many are reminiscent of my school days in the 50s. The male teachers were still wearing their demob suits and had gone into teaching after the war when it was easy to train to be a teacher. I think by the 70s that Jenpax mentions there were few teachers who were old enough to have served during the war. My children were at school in the 70s and it was a very different world to being at school in the 50s. There were still teachers who had it in for some pupils but most parents were prepared to stand up to them if they thought there was unfairness.

I was sent to boarding school, aged 8. The headmaster, at the time, was a true Christian and would not beat on Sundays, which saved me on one occasion, when I was brought before him for making too much noise, during a recreation time. The teacher actually lifted me up by the hair. The headmaster refused to beat me, telling the teacher that if he wanted me beaten, he should bring me back on the Monday. For some reason, he decided not to and was always very nice to me from then on and I got to like him. The nice headmaster retired and we had another take his place, he enjoyed using the cane. I once got four strokes for wearing plimsoles instead of my sandals. The buckle had broken on my sandals. I thought this a bit unfair. The strange thing was that I didn't get beaten for telling a master, at the end of an essay, that if he wanted to know any more he should turn to Martin and Carters Book 2. Just given a detention. In all, he beat me on four occasions, can't remember the reason for the other three, but expect that they were as justified as the plimsole incident. I believe one was for not gaining enough marks in an exam. Looking back, I don't think it was very fair, but when you are only very young, you had no rights and nobody believed you against a teacher. Now the headmaster would have been before the courts.

My mother had 3 children younger than myself and I was in trouble from the age of 5 EVERY DAY because I was always late for school. Wasn’t my fault but I got punished nevertheless.
Later on, I was smacked all the time for getting my sums wrong. Ironically, my father who was a maths teacher (who incidentally, loathed children) did the same as I got within school. I also have a life long fear of the subject. Oddly, I became a computer applications analyst/programmer but always used built in functions to apply any “maths”.

I went to a very strict all girls school if you past the headmistress you had to curtesy,end of the world if you didn't have a clean handkerchief and hand mirror for speech training.

I went to school very late 40's and 50's. I think certain aspects scarred me for life mainly because my home life was no bed of roses either. Like another, I was frightened every day.

Teachers in those days could do anything to us and get away with it.

I was born in 1962 Daisyboots so would have started school in, around 1966-7 . My horrible memories of my primary were up until 1973. My parents were old fashioned Tyneside working class and would have never stood up to a teacher (someone who they would have thought well above them).

I loved primary school and all the teachers. I did though develop a habit of arriving home with wet pants, that's in the days when children from 5 walked to and from school on their own As I was so happy at school my DM thought there had to be a problem with my waterworks so a visit to GP was essential. After checking out history and the sudden onset if problem the GP asked if I knew where the toilets were in the school. Yes from me but qualified with a 'I don't like them' and 'why is that he asked'. Well, you see at nursery, (just after war) you went to the big bread bin to get the toilet paper before you went into the toilet but at school there is never any toilet paper so I can't go. That dear old GP contacted school and insisted more toilet paper was installed. I stopped wee-ing on the way home from school. Eventually new toilets were built. No horrible memories at all from school, both primary and secondary.

I too went to a convent school & I have to say the Nuns were heartless bullies, but the very worst evil one was the Mother Superior, once on a wet playtime ,she came into our classroom & bellowed silence,well I was still laughing.So she dragged me up the front & belted my little five year old arm with the side of a ruler until my arm was covered in welts & I could barely move it. My father was so livid he went up the school the following day & tore into her as an angry Irish father. But this made me even more afraid of her as I always thought she would get me back.

I can truly say that my school days were very happy and I attended the same school from the age of 7 - 18. We didn't like the headteacher much and had various nicknames for her, but that was largely because of her status and when she walked through the school we knew to be on our best behaviour. There were one or two teachers we thought a bit odd, but we were a happy lot and no one was cruel to us. My oldest friend I met aged 7 when she walked up to me and said, 'Would you like to be my friend?'

I remember walking up the main staircase one day with that same friend behind the headteacher and a white-haired man who seemed tall to us, although he may not have been. After he'd gone into her office, she turned to us and told us he was a very important person. It was L.S. Lowry.

Some dreadful memories here which is so sad.

My first day at infants school (must have been 1959) I was hit on the knuckles with a ruler for holding my pencil case between my hands in prayers but on the whole my school days were ok. We moved when I was 8 so I remember having to walk up the drive of the new junior school with my mum as term had already started and feeling very sick. I was lucky enough to revisit that school a few months back as they had an open weekend before it was demolished - my friend worked there so she took me round which brought back many memories.

Secondary school was ok too but our English teacher was a tyrant. My husband was in the same class (we've known each other since we were 11) and they hated each other with a vengeance. One lesson he was hauled out for passing a rubber to the boy in front and a row ensued outside the door - husband told teacher who had hold of his jacket to 'mind the material' and was promptly whacked so he hit him back! He was sent to the deputy head every morning for having long hair (15 in 1969 so it was the trend) and generally dismissed as being a trouble maker so put in the bottom class and left with no qualifications. He then was taken on as an engineering apprentice with a local firm and went back to college where he did well. Needless to say he has no happy memories of school life - apart from meeting me of course

oh MY Goodness ,these posts brought back some terrible memories for me ,i think i will tell you although to this day i have never told anyone else except for my father ,,when i was 10ish ,i entered a class taught by a Mr Cooper ,that was when my hell started ,he singled me out and asked my name ,when i told him politely ,he sneered and said no your name is Yid and from that day on that is what he shouted at me ,whe i told my Dad ,he said "did he touch you in any way .no i answered well ,sticks and stones will break your bones ,but head up and be proud because this must NEVER hurt you ,,,he checked my hair and nails every morning ,as he said just in case ,dont know in case of what ,then lastly ,i took the scholarship 11,plus ,which i passed the first half letting me take the 2nd half ,all the children that passed that part were given extra tuition ,but he excluded me ,again when i told my poor Daddy (he had only been out of a Japanese POW camp 2 yrs ,) he gave me maths and English lessons at home ,and apparantly i sailed past into the grammar school ,the teacher was beyond furious ,and i just remember my mother had to come to the school because he had bruised one of my arms ,..funny what strikes cords in our memory ,but i have never forgotten this horrible man ,,BUT once i had left junior school ,i never ever gave it another thought because as my Dad said if i let what people do to you poison you ,you will never be happy ,,so together we packed the memory up in a box and buried it ,such a wise man my dear father ,he died so young because of what had happened to him ,but never ever spoke about what happened to him ,he has been gone 55 yrs now and i still miss him

barbaranrod what a horrible story that is. It’s hard to believe such cruel and nasty people existed. I’m glad you did well and moved on from there. I hope you’ve had a much happier life since then.

Ginny42 Oh. My. Gosh!!!!

Lucky you! (although both my headmasters at infants and junior school were lovely, so I can't complain.)