Do you remember your teachers?

I enjoyed school, most teachers I fondly remember and did their best to educate us, the exception was our English teacher who made it quite plain that he hated children and viewed us as “parasitic growths”.

I remember being ill treated by so called Sisters of Mercy way back in the 1930s and finally being reunited with my family way back in 1936. I had about three years at Coburg Road school in London when the war started so I did not get much schooling while being bombed out twice during the London Blitz. I finished up being evacuated to the Midlands and going to an evacuee school for 3 years before I left to start work at the age of 14. I still have my school leaving character reference which is now 77 years old because my family wants to keep it, although looking rather dogeared now. My head mistress was a Miss Highfields and so was her sister so we had 2 Miss Highfields.
I was 9 years old when the war started.

Primary was a mix of lovely and terrifying. High school seemed to be populated with ‘cocks’.
Mr Mycock-geography or history, Mr Laycock - biology,
Mrs Hancock DS and Mr Haycock-English. We thought it was funny at the time.

Wish I could say the same for history - I nearly failed that. We had the most dire, uninspiring textbook imaginable - ‘From Ur to Rome’ - (see, I still remember!) - one tiny line drawing about every 50 pages IIRC

I remember From Ur to Rome!.

@kittylester
I roflmao. I take it you've never poisoned anyone, yet?!

MaizieD Mrs Archibald took our class through GCE English - Great Expectations and the Merchant of Venice the set pieces!! Mrs Bailey Geography, husband also at Grammar they separated, shock, horror. Mrs Shreeves, History. Miss Mann, Maths, formidable. Mr Stachnik, Chemistry.

ps sorry WW1.

This was in 6th form - History was my favourite subject. The teacher, Mr Day, was quite old and seemed to know his lessons off by heart sosat and spoke with his eyes closed. It was still interesting.
I couldn't understand how he could do it. One day I brought my knitting and got busy and he never noticed, just kept rambling on.
In primary school we had many unmarried lady teachers.There was a shortage of men in that generation from the slaughter of men in WW2 so no wonder the women felt bitter. They weren't so bad . Apart from one who banged my head on the blackboard because I acted dumb.

We had a very good history teacher, Miss Fergie. She not only taught us the Tudors but she also taught us to learn, how to take notes, and made us summarise everything into an essay every now and again. I don't remember her ever telling anyone off but total discipline reigned in her class.

The art teacher Mr Broadwater (nicknamed Bograt) was a total creep. We had art straight after assembly on Monday mornings and once he sat the whole class down and gave me a right telling off. I didn't say anything the whole time (I didn't get a word in edgeways) until after about 10 minutes into the tirade he actually got to the point, which was that I had been talking in assembly to my friend Mandy. I protested that I wasn't sitting next to Mandy. I can't remember if he apologised for wrongly telling me off, or how the whole drama ended but I didn't feel guilty at any time and was probably really pleased to have been able to show him up. His actual reputation was for being a bit of a letch but we didn't find out about that (or even understand what it was) until the third form or so.

Loads more stories.

I am enjoying reading everyone's memories. Those teachers made us what we are.

It’s really bothering me that I can’t remember her name, but we had a formidable Latin teacher for the first 2 years of senior school. She wasn’t remotely mean or nasty - just exuded a natural authority - nobody would have dared to chat or play up during her lessons.

Plus she was an excellent teacher - Latin was one of the very few subjects I did really well in, in the end of first-year exams.

Wish I could say the same for history - I nearly failed that. We had the most dire, uninspiring textbook imaginable - ‘From Ur to Rome’ - (see, I still remember!) - one tiny line drawing about every 50 pages IIRC.

Miss Lanning, mrs Harrison in juniors. Miss Hamer Miss Taylor. They were cousins...they wore 'costumes'' which were matching jackets and skirts. Both very formidable. Then Miss Freeman, she wore her fair hair in a roll round her head. When she entered the classroom she would silence us by saying in her stern low voice 'Just Hark'.

lilypollen

MaizieD Mrs Brown terrified me though I never actually had her for art lessons. I was useless at it anyway so she'd not have had any time for me!! A lot of our teachers had spouses who taught at the Grammar School didn't they?

I don't really know. Good heavens, teachers having lives outside school!

Mrs Brown's husband taught at the Grammar School, and so, I think, did Mrs Archibald's. I liked her a lot, had her for English in the 6th form.

I loved Mrs B, never had any other art teacher. But I was fairly good at art. (Still can't draw for toffee, though...)

Oh, if we’re talking post-school creeps….
I signed up for politics as a 3rd subject, goodness knows why, I wasn’t really interested, but I didn’t fancy fancy anything else.

First one to one tutorial, I went along in fear and trembling, thinking my essay was probably rubbish.

Tutor was a bloke of 25 if that, with a mid-Atlantic accent, and evidently fancied himself rotten.
All he said about my essay was, ‘It was fine, I’ve given you a B,’ followed immediately by, ‘Now, how’s your sex life?’

I was ? but it didn’t enter my polite little head to tell him to get stuffed, you perve, so just said, ‘Fine, thank you.’ ?

I doubt they’d ever dare say such a thing nowadays.

We had one college lecturer who was extremely strict, very tall, dour and never smiled.
One day we were amazed when he told us that his teenage DD got him to iron her hair on the ironing board! It was a side to him which we never imagined was possible

Is this just up to secondary or can we put in college tutors? I was in love with one of mine, never forgotten him ever .

Mr Tromans, our English teacher, spent a whole year teaching us clause analysis, which I promptly forgot by the start of the next year. What I have never forgotten is him making a large cross on our foreheads in red ink if we got a question wrong and thundering”you’re an evil little soul, what are you?” “An evil little soul, Sir” I hated that man.

MaizieD Mrs Brown terrified me though I never actually had her for art lessons. I was useless at it anyway so she'd not have had any time for me!! A lot of our teachers had spouses who taught at the Grammar School didn't they?

Some of them were very cruel. The nuns at our primary school were the worst. I found out recently that they were called The Sisters of Charity. What a joke.

I loathed and will never forget my early school years.
These were the times when it was not uncommon to receive physical punishment * if* your work was not up to teacher expectations.

I was pulled out in front of class and given 3 hard whacks over my hand with a ruler when I was around 9 yrs old. A punishment for whistling which was a total lie told by another pupil. I've never been able to whistle and I cried with the injustice.
There was another male teacher who liked sitting the girls on his knee. Yuck. He'd not get away with it now.
I had a huge crush when I was 14 on my Geography teacher. I'd blush furiously whenever he spoke to me.

My first school was a convent, where I remember a horrible nun yanking a boy’s hair out by the roots. Then a primary school where I was goody two shoes because my uncle taught there and if I ever did anything wrong I got told off by my teacher, then my uncle, then my parents when he told them! I was still better off than a boy in my class whose mother was the teacher - she used to hit him in front of everyone. I remember all the names but my lips are sealed.

Mrs Griffiths used to read us a story on Friday afternoons. You could have heard a pin drop, I loved it.
Mr Weeks used to shout and clout in equal measure.
At secondary Mr Stirling bought us ice creams one very hot summer while we drew maps in Geography.
There was a sarcastic English teacher who stifled our efforts and could be insulting. She was horrible.

Very sad Juliet. If only they realised how these things stick.

Kate1949

Me too Grannywannynanny. First day at school I was so scared I wet my pants. I was made to stand on a box in front of the class while the teacher announced 'Look what this dirty little girl has done'. That was the start. I can't recall many nice teachers.

I had a start like that. It was my 5th birthday a day or so after starting school. In assembly Mrs Orchard asked if it was anyone’s birthday. I was always shy but put my hand up and she said to go out to the front (scary enough for a start for me). Started to move forward and was told I had to bring my chair out…went back and she said ‘oh you’re too slow, we can’t sing happy birthday to you’. Wish I’d never admitted it was my birthday….that humiliation is still clear after almost 70 years.

Kate1949

Me too Grannywannynanny. First day at school I was so scared I wet my pants. I was made to stand on a box in front of the class while the teacher announced 'Look what this dirty little girl has done'. That was the start. I can't recall many nice teachers

How cruel!