It’s a different world now.

[barbirolli23]

Projectile board erasers

I knew a woodwork teacher who used chisels and hammers to throw at the heads of misbehaving or inattentive boys. My woodwork teacher regularly punished minor offences (such as sharpening a pencil the wrong way) by whacking the non-dominant outstretched hand of the offender hard with a 12-inch steel ruler.

 

[barbirolli23]

Completely different parental reaction to risk in my case.... As young men my dad and his mates were clearing minefields, digging down to unexploded German parachute mines, and building temporary bridges over French and German rivers while snipers shot at them. When I was a young man, my dad would warn me against running for a bus in case I tripped and fell!

Isn't that odd: a couple of months after D-day my dad was doing exactly that in northern France. Plus clearing abandoned buildings of German booby traps, and repairing bridges that had been built by US engineers and were already falling down.

 

[barbirolli23]

I'd forgotten that one - yes, exactly WHY were some PE teachers so keen on boys not wearing underpants!

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, clothes (including shirts, socks and underwear) were only changed once (at a pinch, twice) per week. School trousers (being wool) weren't washed at all: they were dry-cleaned during the holidays. Nobody used deodorants or anti-perspirants apart from pooves. Pubescent and young adolescent boys have a particularly pungent body odour, too. They stink. You did not want them doing physical activities during which they sweated into their pants and fuelled the development of bacteria there. You countered this by enforcing a rule that, for the purposes of physical activity, boys were to remove all their day clothes and put on only dedicated sports kit. Afterwards, they were to get naked and have a shower or bath during which they used soap and water to wash their entire bodies, with particular attention to all the smelly parts. If you did not police these rules, you could be sure they would be bent, or even entirely ignored.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Projectile board erasers

Our maths teacher, Mr Cotton (Biffo) was deadly accurate with the board rubber. You'd be clutching your head after an impact and he'd say "... and if I'd missed, the draft would've given you pneumonia".

 

[Chris S]

My son is starting swimming lessons at school so I was telling him that we used to have to swim in our underpants if we forgot our swimming kit.

If we forgot our swimming trunks we had to swim naked!

 

[Chris S]

I knew a woodwork teacher who used chisels and hammers to throw at the heads of misbehaving or inattentive boys. My woodwork teacher regularly punished minor offences (such as sharpening a pencil the wrong way) by whacking the non-dominant outstretched hand of the offender hard with a 12-inch steel ruler.

Our wood/metalwork teacher would do the same. He also taught drama and would put on plays with young boys wearing dresses.
(I'll try and find a photo when I've got a better internet connection)

 

[Bazzer]

Our maths teacher, Mr Cotton (Biffo) was deadly accurate with the board rubber. You'd be clutching your head after an impact and he'd say "... and if I'd missed, the draft would've given you pneumonia".

We had an English teacher (Geoff Hough) who was also accurate with the board rubber.
Bizarrely, his attitude towards you changed once you were in 6th form. He would speak to you if he thought you were being inantentive in class and some day trips out of school ended up with the group of pupils back at his house drinking coffee!

 

[Fastpedaller]

Our only swimming was at the outdoor pool a couple of miles from the school - In the Winter we had to break te ice before we could swim! My 26 year old Daughter doesn't believe this, but it's true.

 

[Beebo]

Our only swimming was at the outdoor pool a couple of miles from the school - In the Winter we had to break te ice before we could swim! My 26 year old Daughter doesn't believe this, but it's true.

You would be hyperthermic in 10 minutes

 

[Dogtrousers]

School gave me an enduring hatred of participating in sport. Although I did take up running in my 20s and 30s when the effects of school started to wear off.

I don't know why they persisted with it because we all hated it and were committed to either wagging it or disrupting it. It wasn't like Maths or French or proper lessons which were important. The biggest crime in sport at school was trying. Every ball had to be dropped. Every run dawdled. Every instruction deliberately misunderstood. Equipment had to be stolen or broken or lost. Cross country was just an opportunity to hide and smoke No. 6. Oddly enough, I don't remember having to go swimming. I'm sure we had to but I've just blanked it out.