Tagged: old school

A play and miss at baseball is still a………………..

There is a certain uniqueness about Billy Bragg. He is clearly no political giant, but well thought of enough to be invited onto Question Time by the BBC. Cannot see that happening for many other people who have played live on Top of the Pops!

It was interesting to hear his response to the question posed by a member of the audience at the live show which was along the lines of ‘what would you do to solve the current economic crisis?’ After suggestions from politicians to cut public spending, stimulate small businesses and ease pressures on world economies by essentially printing more money, Billy said  “I would pay the ordinary workers a decent amount of pay by increasing the level of the minimum wage.”

I will leave you to think that how that compares with George Osbourne’s ideas on quantitative easing.

My mind goes back to Billy Bragg as I first saw him play during the miners strike. Strike is a word that has become metamorphosed into ‘industrial action’. Not too sure about that one.

A strike is still a strike in my book.

Those were the days part 21

Weirdest Parent Appointment

At some parents evenings you get some kids that bring Mum, Dad, Gran, the dog etc. Yeah, I have had dogs on leads, that were being puppy walked, introduced to me. As if Fido would be that bothered about what I had to say.

Sometimes you had an older brother or sister that rocked up to be the interpreter for the Mums and Dads who do not have a great command of English. On the odd occasion you could kind of tell that the brother/sister was watering down the bad news which you had to give when the folks nodded appreciatively and mumbled “thank you very much” to my comment that “I  am afraid to say that Sunil has not done any homework this term.”

A Mum who will remain anonymous used to come and sit down at my desk regularly without making an appointment. I taught or had taught most of her kids over the years. But even if it was a night for a year group of one of her kids that I did not teach, this Mum would always park up with me for 5 minutes.

The reason being was that the rows of desks were set out alphabetically and my spot gave a prime viewing position at which to gaze at CJ (Clive Jarvis) This is precisely what this Mum would do. She had an enormous crush on CJ and would tell me quietly what a wonderful teacher he was and how she would like to repay him for his professionalism!

The weirdest entourage I dealt with concerned two families that had wife swapped.  Both families were very amicable and in fact all four parents turned up for the appointment for the kid I taught. So extra chairs were brought out and it was always most confusing trying to talk to four faces about one student. Very weird!

And the molecule at the top of this post?

Well for a while a few staff used to dress up their desks in not quite a “Pimp my Ride” sort of style. One maths teacher covered his desk with green poster paper and put loads of pot plants on or around the work top. It looked like a display from the Chelsea Flower show. A CDT teacher rigged up some Christmas lights to his desk that pulsed all evening long in a really annoying way. I used to make Molymod© molecular structures and leave them on my desk. Ethanol looked like a little dog which caused much amusement, but little opportunity for teaching and learning!

Those were the days Part 20

Two fingers…..

I used to teach in a lab that was joined to another with a prep room in between, in a self contained detached block. The block was a bit like a pair of huts, but a bit more substantial. The whole block was brick built with a flat roof that leaked like a sieve. Both labs had a huge bank of windows that looked out over a grassed area called the Quiet Green.

Richard Michaels (aka RM) – the hard-nosed mentor of mine and T-club member taught next door. RM had a way of controlling kids that was second to none and was always willing to “give ‘em a good whelping” if they stepped out of line.

One day I was chalking and talking to a class that were clearly being distracted by something outside on the Quiet Green. So I turned around to see a lad sheepishly standing on a picnic table right in the middle of this open space. I went outside to investigate and the kids I left behind in my lab jumped up on the side benches to get a grandstand view, faces pressed up at the glass of the windows. They all stared at this lonely looking boy stood on the picnic table.

RM had the whole of his own class lined up outside his lab and was barking orders at this clearly bewildered student as the rest looked on.
“That’s it son, up you get!” bellows RM.
The boy stands on the picnic table, blinking and unsure.
“You have not been paying any attention to me back there in that room; it is as if you are sticking two fingers up to me for the whole lesson”

The kid shuffles a bit with his tail between his legs.
“So you can come out, do it properly and stand up there for the whole world to see!” comes the cry, which is so loud that kids in the English block are looking out too at the spectacle.
RM stands there, arms folded. He barks again at this lad, who looks like he needs the toilet,
“So let’s be having you! Stick your two fingers up to me!”

The kid is very unsure as to how best to proceed. Giving RM the old “V” sign is something he is not comfortable with, nevertheless he slowly raises his hand.
“That’s it! Stick your fingers up!”
Two girls in the line stood outside the lab muffle a titter, but RM still turns around to glare at them.
“That’s all that I am good for isn’t it son? Two fingers…..”
The lad still stands there giving the salute.

I shake my head in disbelief and get back to my class.

Those were the days Part 19

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.

Those were the days Part 18

Sports & Social

5 a- side was played at lunch in a sixth form/staff league, as well as after school on Fridays

There was an 11 a-side staff football team too that played other schools and the Year 12 & Year 13 teams. We used to play Year 11 at the end of the year only if they behaved themselves over the year. It was a good carrot to dangle in front of any meatheads that you taught that were in the Year 11 team – “behave yourself, or you won’t play in the Staff game”. The staff team had a bit of a reputation for being a bit ‘rough house’ and had difficulties at times in retaining fixtures against other staff teams in the Borough after some ding dongs with the opposition.

The team did about three weekend tours (in the school minibus) every year to play other schools around the country that we had contacts with – Bolton School for Boys/St Bedes Grammar Bradford was the big one. The nightclubs in both towns have to be seen to be believed. The team even had its own kit sponsored by Snickers. These shirts were supplied by the chocolate bar company after the school sold 50,000 units from its vending machines – the Healthy Schools programme was still to come!

The day before one tour away the bloke who normally played in nets on tour injured his hand. The only last minute replacement we could think of was the lad who played in goal for the sixth form team. He was in my Year 13 tutor group, so after an invite in Friday morning registration and the “what goes on tour…..” pledge he turned up next day with a note from his mum and was on the bus. He is in his 30’s now and still claims that was the best weekend of his life!

Another great sporting event was the renowned crazy golf tournament on the field which was organised by the PE department. You had to chip over benches, hack out of the long jump pit and lob the ball over hockey goals around an improvised course. Mr Old School himself, Matt Morse – a teacher that called girls by their Christian names and boys by their surnames, used to carry a 7 iron around along with a plastic carrier bag of 9 bottles of Beefeater G&T mixers. He would tee off and have a scoop on each hole. This was a man who had a set of optics bolted to his upright piano in his music practice room.  He would regularly spike his tea with a shot of the good stuff from one of the bottles fixed in front of him whilst tinkling away on the piano as he accompanied a scratchy Year 7 violinist. A legend.

Pastoral

Form trips were all the rage then. I took some of my tutees ice skating, bowling and sailing, even down to Loftus Road to watch the football. I always had a form Christmas meal out when I had a sixth form tutor group. They were often more fun than the departmental meals out. Green forms had only just started to come in then and risk assessments were unheard of. One Year 13 tutor group night out bowling ended in Zenith’s nightclub in Park Royal and I only had two kids in registration the next day!

Tippex

This stuff used to be banned. One reason in particular was that the organic solvent used to thin down the correction fluid was abused by kids. The situation got quite bad for a while where students would put a few drops of the solvent on their blazer sleeve and sit and sniff it during assemblies. It became the latest craze. One could argue that the assemblies were so bad that the kids got driven to solvent abuse in order to get through them. It is ironic that these days we bang on at kids to wear their blazers in assemblies, whilst then the students were told not to wear them for fear that they would be “on the sniff”.

Those were the days Part 17

Teacher Vices

Staff smoked in the staff room when I first started. When the smoking legislation came in and things tightened up my erstwhile mentor (Richard Michaels) would have a snout in my lab under the fume cupboard hood, whilst sat on a student stool. This saved the hassle of trapsing off to the smoking room.

Staff went to the pub at lunch. Some went every day – no joke! It was the norm for these teachers to have a liquid lunch. Mind you, lunch was an hour long break then, not these modern 40 minute “lunch hours”. In fact the local boozer used to take the TES on a Friday along with the regular order of tabloids for customers to read, as so many of us went down there on that day.

There was also an elite drinking fraternity, which was an off-shoot of the tea-club (see previous posts). “The 335 club” was as the name suggested based on a time of day when members had to be in the Black Bull by. This was the only rule of the 335 club. The “Bull” suffered at least one suspicious fire and had its windows shot out by one disgruntled patron. It has now become run down, but is still being used as a film set!

Back to the booze……..We used to knock back a wine box at every Science Department meeting, regular. The booze and nibbles were supplied by our HOD, who would always bring a decent red and high end bar snacks. Wine was also served with a hot meal on all INSET days and some of the hard core drinkers would regard it as a personal challenge to make sure the wine was all consumed before going back to their work, even if it meant minesweeping the unfinished bottles from other tables.

Smoking Room

When I first started teaching the smoking regulations had yet to be introduced and staff were allowed to smoke in the staff room. Members of the tea-club would not think twice about smoking in the workshop where the club members met. When smoking in the workplace became more restricted a smoking room was set up. This room changed location over the years. It eventually ended up being put in the office space between two mobile class rooms. This mobile hut sat in one of the school carparks detached from the rest of the school. The smokers were a tight bunch who always made the room as homely as possible. It had a TV, fridge and microwave and some comfy chairs to sit in.

One day a Year 11 class was waiting for a cover teacher to turn up for their lesson in one of the classrooms next to the smoking room. The teacher had not arrived and the hut was empty so the class let themselves in. After 10 minutes or so an impromptu game of football broke out amongst some of the lads who were clearly getting bored. Things got more organised, chairs and desks were cleared and the boys started playing “headers and volleys” using the whiteboard as the goal. One stray shot got belted too hard and it burst a hole in the flimsy plywood wall between the smoking room and the classroom. A head got poked in by a student to investigate, the hole was made bigger and a lad shoved through to open up. By the time a teacher eventually got there the tea had been brewed, the fridge had been raided and the fags had been smoked!

Those were the days Part 16


Chalk

When I first started teaching SATS had not been invented, whiteboards (the ones with dry wipe markers) were considered to be truly cutting edge and nearly everybody still had blackboards. There was an art to writing with chalk, you used to get a callous on the tip of your index finger from writing with it – your fingertip used to hurt at the start of term, but hardened up in time. Also the dust chalk made was murder, it got everywhere.

Reporting

When so much is asked of you, it’s time you asked more of your management information system…

This is a direct quote from the company that has spawned the favourite friend of all teachers these days – SIMS. But what are they on about and what have we come to? Equally are there two words in that statement that could be removed and all of a sudden it makes so much more sense!

It is all about SIMS these days, but back in the day reports were hand written once a year by subject teachers on carbon paper, no crossings out or tippex corrections were allowed; statement banks and ctrl C ctrl V were things of the future. The reports themselves were really short – not even A5 in size. The form tutor report was shared with the Head teacher’s comments on the last page.

Yes – he wrote a brief report by hand on every kid in the school after reading all of the subject report pages and checking them for errors. He actually read all of the reports over a weekend and flagged up any errors that he found. This was incentive in itself not to stuff up. I used to sweat bullets writing the form tutor report, as if you buggered it up after the Head had done his bit, you would have to go to his office, cap in hand, and ask for him to write it out again.

The Head always used to teach a foundation English GCSE class and follow them through the two year course. No quibbling, nor favour asked for, the Boss got what he was given when groups were allocated. He rarely missed a class for a “meeting” – just chalked and talked and got the kids through their exams. Old school!

Those were the days Part 15

Vision – did I just dream that?

When reminiscing about the past I had a flashback that came as a sudden vision. I was in a train of thought about the deputy we shall call Reg Ball. Then I suddenly remembered and I can see the scene still now in  my mind.

Reg was a deputy head at a certain West London comprehensive and I had to look for him for some reason during a free period in the summer term. Now after a long search found Reg in the big grounds maintenance garage used to store tractors, trailers, pitch markers etc. It was towards the front of the school next to the playground and not where you would expect to find a senior manager of the school. But this bloke was a bit of a one off.

I still see him now sat there in a deckchair with a rifle in his lap! This was during lesson time. Next to him is the site manager, who is sat in a deckchair too, but he has a fag in his mouth instead of a gun in his hands. The site manager points at something in the rafters and the Reg takes aim and fires the air rifle at it. The shot appears to have missed, the fag is swapped for the gun and the roles are reversed – deputy now spots and drags on the fag, whilst the site manager takes aim and shoots.

“What are you boys up to?” I ask.

“Reducing the pigeon population” says Reg the deputy head as he reaches for the air rifle to take his turn again after another failed attempt.

“Yeah, they’ve been shitting on my gang mower” adds the site manager.

Those were the days Part 14


Now as promised I am going to list a few things that Bernie used to do on a regular basis that made him the stand out character that he was as and ever will be. But before I start I do not want it to look like character assassination. We all love BC and he is a Legend in my book – hence the poll I have set up above. These anecdotes may make him out to be a bit of a “special” guy, yet BC is a top bloke and he never fails to touch those that he meets in some way.

Onwards and upwards then.

The interests that Bernie had were nearly all sports related, and before I go any further it was thanks to Bernie that my club cricket career took the path that it did. He was the man that introduced me to the two clubs (Guinness and Harlington) that I spent very happy times with. He even got me a game down at Northwood Football Club’s veterans side – but my career there did not last that long after my team mates worked out that I was no good. I mean to say that my first touch was so bad; my next one was a tackle!

So Bernie’s foibles?

Ablutions – his morning started with a gym exercise routine in the boys changing room. He often used a few free weights. The thing that I remember about this daily event was it finished with him having a wash of his face, a brush of his teeth and a good old spit in the tiny Belfast sink set at floor level that was there for cleaning boots!

In the same shower room was a huge plunge bath big enough for a whole team to fit in. We are talking swimming pool here. Bern had a small adjustable spanner in his office that he used to get out before our regular Friday night staff soccer fixtures. The spanner was used to set the bath tap running very slowly as we were getting changed. He used to leave the tap running as we trotted out for the fixture and on our return after the match there was BC’s bath waiting for him!

Practice makes perfect – Bernie loved to practise his sport. On cold and often wet winter evenings after work BC and I used to stand about 20 yards either side of a football goal that had no net in it. We used to strike a football and aim to hit the cross bar and if it did not then the ball would glide over the goal to the person opposite in a nice long pass. This was well before Sky did the “cross bar challenge” and it was amazing how many times we hit the bar flush. This routine certainly improved my game and I lost count of the number of corners I struck in matches to where BC pointed, as he jostled for a chance to run onto the ball in the penalty box and burst the net with a bullet header. I knocked over a few crosses in my time and can still hear him scream “BC’s!!!!” as he launched himself at another goal attempt. Bernie could head the ball all right.

Pock marked gym wall – Bernie used to love his cricket. His batting was like my bowling, erratic. Equally I could bat a bit and he was a really decent seam bowler. So we were pretty well matched as practice partners for the “net sessions” we used to have after school during summer terms. Bernie was a very much a rhythm bowler, he was metronomic at times which had its plus points and draw backs too. When he had conditions in his favour he could replicate unplayable deliveries and get a bunch of wickets in one spell. On the other hand his regularity would also be his down fall as once a batter got after him, Bernie would get an awful mauling.

During our practice sessions I could almost anticipate his next delivery at times and if I had my eye in I would walk down the indoor cricket net and drive the ball straight back over his head. Often I would catch the ball he had bowled “on the up” so it meant that my shot would go straight on up and onwards until it crashed against the metal cladding on the back wall of the gym about 10 metres up. This would make BC a bit peeved so he would jog back to fetch the ball and then tear in from the back of the gym on a long run up. He was often a full throttle, nostrils flared and knees pumping when he came in to bowl at me again. The trouble was he would bowl faster but at the same spot so often the ball would ping off my bat and go even faster past his head to make another dent in the cladding behind him. It used to really piss him off and was one of the rare times that he was actually quiet playing sport.

Gum shield; Times when I wish Bernie would be quiet were when I batted with him on Saturday league fixtures down at Guinness CC. Bernie and I used to open the batting for two reasons. Firstly Bernie was madder than a box of frogs and sending him in first used to pay off – he scored fairly freely and could stay in long enough to knock the shine off the new ball. This meant that the better batters that followed got a slight advantage. The other reason that I went in with him was because nobody else wanted to as it was psychologically damaging!

Bernie was a terrible runner between the wickets and was always looking for the “quick single”. He had the potential to drop his bat down on the ball and dab it gently in front of him. Whilst doing so he would bellow “YESSSSSSSSSSSS!” and start to run. I would back up his call and come scurrying down his end only to find he had changed his mind! He would start shouting “Noooooooooo!” or “Waaaaaaaaiit!” At this stage I was in no man’s land, half way down the batting track, slamming on the brakes. Meanwhile a fielder would be swooping in to gather the ball ready to fire a throw at the wicket down at my end. I had to turn tail and run back to the bowler’s end and dive back into the bowling crease before the throw hit the stumps. With me dashing back, Bernie yelling and the fielding team smelling blood and shouting too it was complete chaos. All it needed was to have Clive Dunn run past in a Homeguard uniform shouting “Don’t Panic! Don’t Panic!” and the scene would have been perfectly set.

The ball would fizz past me on its way from the fielder to miss the stumps as I dived back to safety. Having got up and dusted myself off, I would march down the wicket to have a word with my batting partner.

“What the  f*ck do you think you are doing Bern?” I would enquire in an agitated state.

“Mwaah Fyysuayy sstumoppsut” came the reply.

You see Bernie was a tight so and so. He was paranoid about damaging some expensive bridge work in the front of his mouth, so not only would he bat with a helmet with a full face visor, but he also had a gum shield in as added protection! So it was near impossible to understand a word he said.

Those were the days part 12

I think that my Reg Ball may be Andy’s Greg Hill, but there again who knows?

Citizen’s Arrest

This tale is about a deputy head-teacher (Reg Ball) who had taught in the same school for decades and was a well known local character that lived close to the school. This man according to legend always had a “monkey” in his back pocket – the cash was wrapped up in a rubber band within reach in case he saw something he fancied purchasing on his travels. Reg dealt in antiques in a semi professional way, hence the cash was always at the ready. I saw this famous wedge come out in the negotiated settlement over the disbandment of the T-Club xmas meal (see TWTD Part 2)

Another thing he was well known for was his battered, white Volvo estate car. This was a real workhorse that was used to transport his antiques around in.

The real story begins one weekend when a friend of Reg’s borrowed the Volvo to move some furniture. The friend drove the car back to school on Monday morning to drop it off, but decided to stop for a newspaper on the way. He parked up at the parade of shops next to the tube station just before the start of school day. Needless to say there were lots of school kids about.

As a gang of year 11 lads bowled past the shops they noticed the deputy head’s car in the lay by. Nothing strange in that, but what made them stop and think was some random geezer getting into said motor.

They quickly reacted by questioning the bloke in the car. Clearly not satisfied with his response they pulled him out of his seat and then jumped on him. Once on the ground the bewildered man did not resist as the boys phoned police, probably as he was threatened with a “good shoeing” if he caused any mischief!

It all got sorted out in the end, but I think the moral of the story is the loyalty shown by so called rough kids that so say had no respect of authority. As far as they were concerned the Deputy Head was one of their own.