1970. That`s me, age 15, there, in the picture. A different age, a different world. I was about to sit my `O` levels, although I had no idea what I wanted to do when I finally left, although I had a vague notion of being a paleontologist, or maybe something to do with computers. But it didn`t matter too much. I was invulnerable in the way only teenagers can be, and the world was my lobster.
I`ve got a lot of good memories of that school. There`s a few quite bad memories as well, to be honest, but. overall…It was pretty good. Because of social changes threatening grammar schools in the mid-sixties, this one had increased its intake to include the working classes, and I was one of the first 5 to be taken. It cost my parents a small fortune. Apart from the uniform, there was the football kit (2 sets, home and away), the cricket kit, woodwork apron, Art apron, PE kit etc etc. But they struggled and they found the money…because it was the best school in the area. They wanted the best for me. It was a new world for me. I had a cockney, with a dash of `Estuarese`, accent…and they were all middle-class, and for some unknown reason were addressed by their surnames. And so my accent (and vocabulary) slowly changed. I never lost the accent completely, and I never used their surnames….
There was no `child-centric learning` then, or `learning contracts`. The expectation was that we learnt the subjects they taught, at the level they taught them. Pass or Fail. (For me, my struggle (and my defeat) with maths came with Calculus, and history with the collapse of the South Sea Bubble.)
And of course there were the Rules. On our first day, we were handed a small book of School Rules, one of which was that we were to always have a copy of the rules on us. Failure to always carry them was, naturally, against the school rules. Of course, we did learn, to selectively quote Madness, `how to bend not break the rules. We HAD to wear the School scarf in winter, so one boy sewed 3 scarves together, end to end, so it wrapped around his neck twice and still trailed behind him. The first 2 years we had to wear the school cap…someone took the stiffener out of the brim so it flopped over his eyes. Uniform policy was that the 6th form wore a black blazer rather than the blue…so I wore a natty double-breasted blazer with the school badge sewn on. Hair had to be worn `not touching the collar…which meant some of us going to ridiculous lengths, usually involving clips, rubber bands, flattened collars and the characteristic `imitate a giraffe` neck stretch. Flared trousers and Chelsea boots, cuban heels..straight legs and brogues for the skinheads All in one way or another transgressed the Rules. And of course, there was the occasional bullying, illicit cigarettes behind the bike shed, lusting after the girls school when they came to use our computer…..it all went on.
It follows that where there are rules, there are consequences, and punishments. From the most basic…lines…which were ALWAYS `I must not speak in class`…apart from once, when my art teacher gave me 200 lines `I am a garrulous monkey`…..I asked what garrulous meant, and he changed the punishment to `3 pieces of artwork, all in different media, all to contain the words Garrulous Means Talkative`… Prefects could also hand out punishments…but they were more inventive. I once had `5000 words on `The Inside of a Ping-Pong Ball`. A friend had `5000 words on `A Day in the Life of an Egg`. Then there came Detentions…1 hr minimum, content dependent on which teacher was covering it…conjugating french verbs, trigonometry, translating a page of Plutarch or maybe just plain trigonometry..it was always work, unlike Headmaster`s Detention, which was just writing out the school rules…over and over and over….
After that came the cane. I was still 11 the first time I got the cane…for talking during a recital of Handel`s Messiah (I was in the choir). I can still remember the walk to the headmaster`s office after the summons at assembly…boys all along the corridor taunting… `Swish…Swish…Swish`. I was almost wetting myself by the time I got to the office. Straight in, offence and punishment explained, (stand in the middle of the circle, face the window, bend over)…3 `strokes`(more are added if you cry), shake his hand and out…and then you sat down. Now, being caned was somewhat painful…sitting down…THAT hurt.
Finally…and worst of all…was Being On Report. Quite simple, in theory. You had a blank time-table…every lesson the teacher signed it, homework was noted on the back (subjects and time taken) and your parents signed it….every morning your form teacher signed it. Simple. Except….because you were on report, each teacher singled you out….asked YOU all the questions. If you couldn`t answer, or you were late to class, or were inattentive…anything at all…it was noted. And just ONE negative comment meant you were on report for another week. It meant you were watched, all day, every day. Some boys would be on report for half a term…I saw the toughest kids in the school begging to be released…
Not once did my parents ever complain about any punishment I received…To them, if I was punished, it was for a reason…and I therefore deserved it. And they were right.
On the other side…there were cups and trophies, clubs and trips, awards, book and record tokens, the 6th and upper 6th had their own `flats`, the luxury of independent study….
But all this taught me a few things…The notion of A Fair Cop…that life isn`t fair….that actions have consequences…that hard work brings rewards (and the converse, that rewards without hard work were worthless), and, indeed, respect…mutual respect….and I learnt that the teachers cared…the punishments were also guidance…
Then came the cultural revolution….of Political Correctness and Equality and Diversity…of educational reform, `new` mathematics…..
Now
I walk to the shops. There is a flight of concrete steps I have to climb to get there. On the steps are 4 teenage girls, all aged around 15, sitting 2 abreast, screaming out their conversation. I know the school uniform…my step-daughter went to the same school. I can hear them from 20 feet away. `I`m not, like, being funny, right, but I shoulda got an A for that test, right, coz I`m, like, f*ckin` good at Language an` stuff, yeah?` One of her friends agrees. `F*ckin` yeah. Me an` you are, like, the best 2 in English..and we get a f*ckin` B`. None of them attempt to move as I try to get through them, they don`t even acknowledge my presence when I ask them politely. Behind me, I hear a 3rd voice…`I`m not being rude, right, but, like, I fink he`s racist, yeah?..coz like, I got a C for that homework, yeah, an` I copied it off the internet, right, so it`s gotta be right, innit?`…`Well, I ain`t bovverin` doin` nuffink now, yeah?` One names a couple of boys...`We`re gonna start a band..it`ll be good` Two state they`re going to be models, so they don`t need to know `all that cr@p,like`. On my return, I hear that two of them were supposed to be on detention. Detention at that school is 15 minutes….but they didn`t go. As one said…`Why go?…they don`t care if you don`t go…..`
Exactly. For all the child-centric learning, the understanding, the appeasement, guidance counsellors, Key Stage Managers and their assistants, Student Progress Managers and Personal & Social Development managers……Targets and `outcomes` have taken over…..but, at that school at least….. they don`t care.
Mate, I had to live with `I`m not, like, being funny, right, but I shoulda got an A for that test, right, coz I`m, like, f*ckin` good at Language an` stuff, yeah?` my whole school career. My socialist schooling is over now and I do not miss it at all!
…
I remember a world when racism meant people terrorizing and killing people on account of skin colour or ethnicity. Not giving somebody a B rather than an A.
I was taught that reward comes with effort, laziness leads to failure, that you spoke to adults with a certain amount of respect and that you don’t pee in your own pool.
I wonder if that makes me old-fashioned these days.
(PS)
Excellent post again, Sabre!
Also, we have reply buttons here, but IG’s blog has none. How bizzaro.
brilliant
@ Quiddity – you can go back to IG – his ‘nice buttons’ have returned.
Whoop! I like lurking here though as well… ^_^
um..in that case…you might notice an extra page…`Night of the Hunter`…
a short story I threw together yesterday/this morning…its not `right` yet..
so…any criticism VERY gratefully received…even if the comment is `Its cr@p 🙂
Ooo! I’ll have to read tomorrow. Mr. Quiddity is giving me looks of ‘Why are you still behind that keyboard, woman….’
Wulfe….managed to find a way to post. Have to say your blog is a revelation and a relief from the heavy police blogs. 🙂
My goodness the whinging.
There is no doubt that good discipline instilled early has a lifelong effect and actually makes people happier in the long term. Have seen kids with no strong boundaries flailing around looking for guidance and yet still respond when it is given by another adult.
Ah well ,,,,,,,,the scientific community are doubting Einstein and the rules governing the speed of light at the moment on a whim and one experiment. So did we as a social experiment lose discipline and strong robust parenting on the whim of a few.
At least Newton to Einstein was a movement forward unlike our social experiments,
Blathering again.
I enjoyed that Sabre, I smelt the chalkdust, felt the cane and saw all those pimply faces and chapped knees again.
One slight matter on the scale of time, when you were posing for your photo at age fifteen, I was sweating blood trying to pass my Inspectors exam and failing for the fourth time.The exams were competitive, if there were ten vacancies, the top ten in the results got them, and over five hundred Sergeants sat the exam. So year after year I would obtain a pass mark, but did not make the needed position.
Keep writing, reading a piece of your’s is like drifting into a calm pool after the tumult of dashing through the rapids, Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
@ Pimple – 1970? – 4 years in & I had just sat my Inspector’s for the first time (but I didn’t ‘join’ until I was 26)
IIRC, some Forces pre-interviewed, and you had to be deemed ‘suitable for promotion’ to do the course, and take then ‘first-past-the-post’ exam.
Mine took on all who wanted to study, but didn’t interview till you got the magic percentages. Bit of a let-down for anyone to be told – after a years’ hard graft – “You’re clever enough, but just haven’t got what it takes for the Rank.” – but they did let PCs do it, and it was noticeable that most new Sgts had already ‘passed’ the higher exam.
[Sorry, Sabre, for using your blog for OT personals]
It would appear Mjolinir that we are both bloody old.
I was in the Met, you had to hold PS rank for a couple of years, and be recommended, before you sat the Inspectors exam. I had twelve years in when I first sat . I know in the Constabularies a different method was used and there were many PC’s and PS’s who were qualified but never promoted. There was a fall back system also used in the Met whereby they kept back ten percent of Inspector vacancies which were filled by Sergeants who had passed the exam but never reached the competitive level. This ten percent was covered by the applicant applying and then having to sit numerous interviews. Now you can be an Inspector before the ink is dry on your warrant card, Funny old world.
(Sorry Sabre, this is what happens to old war horses when the bugle blows).
To Mjolnir as well..
no need to apologise…I love hearing memories of `the old days`
I used to work in my spare time in old people`s homes…elderly wards in hospital…Fascinated me hearing about how it really was….rather than how the books TELL me it was…
Loved that post!
We might have gone to the same School almost. And it was Calculus what done for me too!
Luckily for me, a newly posted, determined teacher persuaded the school to offer GCSE Maths as well as O Level GCE and this feller got all the thickoes…including me.
He got us all a Grade One pass, the cleverclogs! Mr. Steele, he was and a proper gent. Possibly the best teacher ever born. A right Mr. Chips.
You didn’t mention short trousers, Sabre. We had to wear short trousers, regardless of the weather ,for the first two years.
Bill.
Heh…my memory 😦 I`ve just looked at my 1st year photo…and there I am in short trousers. Completely forgotten.
We had Mr. Benson for Maths…drove a Morgan Plus 4 with the leather strap over the bonnet…in BRG. We had an after-school motor mechanics class, and he `let` us work on it. Took me years to realise he was in fact getting free servicing 🙂
Was a great guy though…I failed `O` level the first time…he got me through it the following year.
From my comment above……………………..
I enjoyed that Sabre, I smelt the chalkdust, felt the cane and saw all those pimply faces and chapped knees again
There you go, chapped knees from short trousers.
…….and kneeling down to make snowballs.
For which I also got caned.
i wouldn’t have minded, but it was a tricky shot and I missed the Head Boy anyway.
Bill.
Going introspective ( and retrospective) – the ’50s are remembered by some as an era when youths carried flick knives – almost all my mates had a penknife in their pocket, even at school, but I don’t recall anyone getting stabbed while there.
@Broken – My School (a ‘posh’ State Grammar) didn’t mind snowballs – but took a dim view of the addition of lumps of coke from the pile outside the boiler-room.
For some of us, it also meant Korea, Malaya and a few other hot spots. No chapped knees there, just KD Shorts instead of Worsted ones and brown knees instead of chapped.
@Pimple – I bow to your seniority – I was ‘to young’ (by 4 months) for National Service.
I have often wondered if the WAY we were taught in the ’50s – and the attitude of our teachers – was influenced by what they had been doing in the 1940s? I don’t think many of the staff had a “Degree in Education” but almost all academic gowns and hoods on formal occasions – with medals. Several were routinely addressed a “Major” or “Captain”.
One French master had an unusually relaxed attitude to ‘discipline’. He got respect though – when some dads explained that his rather ‘odd’ decorations indicated that he had spent much time serving with the Free French Army.
Missing your input here and elsewhere.
Trust you are well.
ditto, long-time-no-hear…
Had a few problems…but I`m OK -ish 🙂
Ready to race into action. …I say `race`..I mean trot.` Trot may be too strong, maybe `walk` is better….
When I say `Walk`…maybe `Crawl` is a better term….
Okies…ready to crawl into action.
…I say `Action`…… 😉
Good to have you back Wulfe.
Just in time to see a cocky PC having his neck being wound in for him.
Nice to be back in the world according to Sabre – though even nostalgia isn’t what it once was….
Meh…Nostalgia was better in the old days….
OK – a bit of ‘random nostalgia’ – going shopping this morning I turned onto our village High St – to see something than which “Earth has not anything to show more fair”. Ex London Transport bus “RT8” – beautifully restored, in wartime livery, with correct white ‘blackout visibility’ paint patches, and period adverts.
Same model as I went to school in ~1950 SW London.
http://www.ensignbus.com/Hire_RoutemasterRT8.htm
That brought back a memory from the forties, wartime, they stopped re-upholstering London Transport bus seats with fabric, they used wooden slatted seats for a while. and windows were covered in stick on sheets to make them shatter proof in the event of blast damage.
I see the mentally disadvantaged Mel is still stalking the corridors.
Gosh…almost as interesting as finding my most ardent fans on this one site.
Schooldays which could only have been imagined splutter from the confused patients of Gadget’s leprosarium.
MTG We have been cured of leprosy and allowed out back into the mainstream again. From our island.
Result.
Do not wonder at our disfigurements but rejoice in our welcome back into the busom of the general public.
I see we have been visited by ‘Melvin Troll Gollum’ (aka “the little boy with no friends who looks up dollies skirts”
Odd…still 3 days or so to go until the next full moon….
Good afternoon, sabrewulf(e).
In default of a proper introduction, I assume you to be the Gadget fan with the measurable IQ – the one she raves about with the single ‘O’ level in reed weaving? But you will be far too modest to confirm such a distinction.
Last night I was exercising my mouse, taking care to avoid foetid sites, when I accidentally stepped in your specimen. However I note the possibility that we may have something in common if you do indeed keep a moon phase calendar.
Hmm…`measurable IQ`… Yes, I have that…considering that an IMMEASURABLE IQ would mean either below 50 or above 200… IQ tests mean nothing, anyway. Better to label them as ‘Ability to complete logic puzzles’ tests.
I`m also not a `She`
…and you accidently stepped in this foetid site…and then presumably `accidently` stepped in again? Not very good at avoiding such sites, are you?
Anyway…if you have a comment, (either positive or negative) please feel free
to contribute.
Pointless invective will, of course, be ignored.
@Sabre – (To MTG) “you accidently stepped in this foetid site…and then presumably `accidently` stepped in again? ”
“As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;”
[‘The Gods of the Copybook Headings’ – Kipling, 1919 – http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_copybook.htm%5D
BTW – the whole poem is one of the finest ‘rants’ ever written – and much of it eerily relevant to current circumstances –
“In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;”
You are assured in your presumption of the modesty of sabrewulfe.
I am unsure of the specimen you speak of but i hasten to warn that by allowing your mouse free access to unspecified sites is a follly on your behalf.
The moon may be reaching it’s “fullest” position as one says………and I would like to extend my full moon to you.
*belt buckles are a bastard! 😉
@ Mjöllnir (with apologies to Marvel comics)
“you accidently stepped in this foetid site…and then presumably `accidently` stepped in again? ” My dear chap, I took pains to avoid stating any such thing.
Post pubescent literacy is attended by a common handicap. Comprehension is the casualty in late progression to non-illustrated, adult text. If I may make a helpful suggestion to minimise future misconceptions, ‘Mjolinir’, I recommend that you further retard reading to a pace which allows both eyes to focus upon individual words.
Oh dear
Reprmanding Mjolinir for his comprehension levels….and yet failing to notice that he was quoting me.
`Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.`
I trust I may call upon you on the next occasion I am wildly desperate for the services of a bible quoting weaver and no other such specialist is available.
Mister (or – possibly ‘Doctor’) Gray – I would never accuse YOU of being ‘post-pubescent’ – “Jejune” is more apposite.
Amazing .I was in the middle of your school photo,just to the left of Jakes feet in class 7P. I love everything you wrote as It brought it all back to me.I loved that school despite of the cane,board rubber and endless lines and detentions.It was the bit about hair that made me laugh.I remember always carrying a strong rubber band and cossack hair spray but still standing on the spiral staircase outside Jakes office waiting for punishment. semper procedens.Andrew McEwen