The shutting of Slough Ice Rink

Once I took over the form tutoring role of a tutor group that had had four form tutors in three years. As a consequence of the constant changes they were a bit feral when I took them over in year 10. The group turned out good in the end, in fact they won the overall form Sports Day Trophy in that same year.

At this stage I had worked out what method motivated them – bribery. A girl in form won the 800 m, literally by beating the only two other girls that turned up, due to the fact that I promised her a bottle of vodka if she ran.

I was good to my word, but I do not let her have the bottle until she was 18!

One promise to them that I later regretted slightly was a trip to Slough ice rink – a reward for good behaviour. On the big night we piled the kids into two minibuses and drove down the A4. We left the kids to it and then swiftly retired to the bar.

Not long after we had settled down an announcement came on the PA system:

“Could the teachers from QM School make themselves known to a member of staff as we have to close the rink?”

What had happened was mass pileup that made a hole in the ice which had to be repaired by the ice machine that was duly rolled out.

Fortunately no was injured, but the cause of the crash was Celine Dion. Titanic was the blockbuster that year and when “My heart will go on” came on for the public to skate to one lad decided he was Leonardo DiCaprio and tried to hold his girlfriend up as if he was on the bows of the doomed ship.

His girlfriend was not going to have any of this, and when the boy did not put her down when she asked she decked him with a neat right hook.

Both of them came down in a heap causing complete carnage.