"Toms Schooldays" . . . . . Horror stories from your school days please?

Flashy, your school can’t have been that posh if it had girls in it. Uppingham? :p You’re a Bkackadder fan I presume, for good reasons? 😛

Uppingham?

How dare you! Consider my gauntlet thrown.

😉

(Mother’s family are from up that way, however. The old family seat not a million miles from Uppingham.)

Hah! If I am remembering correctly, did you know there was a teacher by the
name of Mr Bean there? My family are acquainted with him and his wife.

It was a longshot based on your forum name.

Filmed at a shitty school, I should add.

Well you are obviously trying to get a rise from Stoner, but based on my friend’s experience who sent one son there and one to where you suggest you went, relatively rather good.

where you suggest you went

Have I suggested anywhere?

Not Uppingham, not Cheltenham, and not Slough Comp. That’s your lot for now! 🙂

Our French teacher got on Mastermind. She had a mare and scored 8 in total across general knowledge and specialist subject. We made her cry weekly by saying “pass” every time she asked us any question.

Filmed at a shitty school, I should add.

not risin’

Story written by a master from Mrs Stoner’s alma mater coincidentally enough.

DaveB – that’s fierce

I seem to remember you expressing gratitude for Bruce Tulloh’s teaching. who taught at Marlborough.

We had an alcoholic housemaster, and I’m now ashamed to say we gave him a pretty hard time. Our dormitory was directly over his study, where from 10pm onwards he would be on guard to catch us out of bed. We had wooden floors so he could hear us pretty clearly, but he had a brass lionhead doorknocker which would clang as he left his study, on the run, so we’d all be in bed by the time he reached our floor. One night we’d been pissing about and broke one of our door hinges. Someone found a screwdriver but instead of mending it we decided to take the other hinge off and slot the door back in the frame. We then jumped up and down to get old Butch to come and tell us off. Sure enough we heard the doorknocker clang and the sound of his shoes on the stone staircase. He hit the door on the run, and it slammed downwards, with him doing a pretty impressive forward roll over the top of it. It was a miracle we didn’t seriously injure or kill him.

That same year around bonfire night I got a couple of ropes of crow-bangers. They’re essentially little bangers that sound like a shotgun blast, tied into a sisal rope which smoulders for about half an hour between fuses, giving a timed crow-scaring effect, with ten or a dozen bangers per rope. The windows in our dorm were above head height, and had pulley ropes to open them. Untied, one of the pulley ropes was long enough to dangle from our window down to just above his window, meaning the crow-bangers were perfectly placed to rouse him from his sherry-induced slumbers once every half hour for most of the night. All we had to do was pull it up a couple of feet every time one went off so that he never actually saw them as he threw open the window and bawled threats at whichever bastard was throwing fireworks at his windows.

CFH earlier

And an art teacher who I can’t remember her name who used to sunbathe topless in the school fields at break time.

Miss Biggs. Refused to teach my sister after teaching me. Ironically I make my living as a designer.

Oh and the music teacher who left his wife and shacked up with one of the pupils a couple of years after she left school. (Rumours were it didn’t start after she left)

Wasn’t he terminally ill when they married? Ironically a very well-respected teacher.

As for kids. Mixed bag. Someone got shot in the face with an air rifle. There were fights, drugs etc all seemed normal to be honest.

Another lad punched out the window of a telephone box and split an artery. His mate applied a tourniquet which saved his life. Said mate learnt how to do it by watching Rambo. On top of that there was the usual rural lunchtime fun: getting drunk in fields, crashing cars into ditches and leaping the hump-back bridge 5-up in a mk1 Vauxhall Astra.

There was Moakes. He was a legend. Lovely guy, totally nuts. Stole all the wheels from some guys xr2 leaving it on bricks one night. Could bunny hop a metre on a BMX. Bungee jumped from a tree using inner tubes. Developed a shocking drug habit but fit through it. Sadly died from cancer last year at 42.

Stole a pair of original Reebok Pumps from Lillywhites before being chased round the statues of Piccadilly Circus by security. Hung his pants from the school flagpole, which was a couple of stories up. Utter legend.

Hah. About the worst the boarders did during 6th form, was take the geology teachers bicycle apart and hang the parts up from various bits of the dorm house.

Positively quaint compared to the rural comp.

Story written by a master from Mrs Stoner’s alma mater coincidentally enough.

To diverge abit, I went to see Alan Price, who wrote the music for and acted in the 2nd film in the trilogy, O Lucky Man, he is still brilliant.

A lad in year below me decide to make a home made flamethrower with a bottle of meths and a Henry Hoover on blow in the 6th form centre, succeeded but unfortunately his best mate was in the firing line (and got away really lightly considering iirc). Older brother of one of my mates also set fire to the high jump mat, that was some bonfire (fortunately at the end of the sports field). I do also remember the assembly when all the boys were held back to be told that someone has ‘daubed excrement’ over one of the toilet blocks, still don’t know who that was to this day.

Ours was the nice CofE middle class comprehensive in town so misdemeanours tended to involve ‘high-jinx’ gone wrong, drinking and weed more than violence (having said that I do remember a lunchtime cat fight between a couple of the more attractive girls which tore off a few blouse buttons and got a few teenage boys a little hot under the collar).

The whole place was such a nightmare that the BBC made a programme about it: Panorama. I’d just left when that was first aired. Horror stories? You’ve no idea.

My school was pretty tame. We had a chemistry teacher who allowed us to make explosives in the 6th form but ensured that we were safe doing so. The woodwork teacher managed to take off one of his digits with a saw but staunched the blood flow, finished the lesson and drove himself to hospital. There was one weird teacher who got all us 3rd formers dressed up in spanish school uniforms and took pictures – said uniforms were funny smocks.

We also had an armory with .303s and Bren guns and a .22 range above it. The armory had a big steel door but a normal brick wall onto the road. The guns were secured with a chain through the trigger guards. I did wonder at the time whether someone would ram raid the wall, bolt crop the chain and knick the lot but it never happened.

My form (most of it, not me) gave our teacher a nervous breakdown twice. It started out as just ignoring her during the register being read out but ended up with openly taking drugs in class and terrible verbal abuse being directed at her by a hardcore group who have since gone on to being very well known to the courts. The first time she walked out and was found in her car weeping, the second time she was found in the toilets trying to slit her wrists 😯

One lad stole his dad’s Volvo and took it for a drive down through town on a Saturday night. Would have got away with it too but he smashed it into a parked car racing up the hill back towards his house with it full of girls. Two had badly broken limbs and one was scarred for life across her face.

My second form tutor who replaced the one above was caught shagging a colleague when she should have been taking the register. We were all out in the corridor with some of us smoking stuff of various origins.

The school trips almost always had at least one girl needing a morning after pill.

The garage in the playground was destroyed one evening after two lads decided to have a fight on top of it. It was made of asbestos so the clearup cost was significant.

One lad bought a shiny metal globe back from a school trip on the local mountains. Turned out to be some type of high explosive, it was detonated by the bomb squad in the middle of the cricket pitch and made the national news. I later found out (years afterwards) that it was powerful enough to cause some serious damage, as in IRA levels 😯

The music teacher was a known predator of girls, kept his job for far too many years.

One of the teachers is now married to an ex-pupil, they started dating when he was in his first year of GCSE’s. Absolutely nothing was done about it despite it being common knowledge.

Drugs were easily available, at any time and in as much as you could get. When they were building the new science block the local drug dealer was employed as a labourer.

One teacher (of RE!) managed to knock out 2 pupils when they accidentally wedged the classroom door shut. As they were unblocking it she rammed the door and sent both kids flying into the desk behind them.

Not bad for a highly regarded school held up as an example of how to do things right.

Mine was ‘ interesting ‘ for a secondary modern in middle class Surrey.

From all the above exploits it appears manyof us had very similar experiences at scholl through the 80’s.

There are a few stand out examples of why we were tagged the worst year in the schools history.

1.- RB the chemistry whizz kid made explosives and incendary devices just for fun during lessons. His attempt at thermite made alot of smoke and flames and the artificial cricket wicket ( his test zone ) was never the same . Police , Army bomb people and Head teacher all got involved. He now works for the MOD

2.- School Disco. Possibly 3/4 of attendants drunk / drugged to the eyeballs. Students being carried home comatose, one with a stream of purple puke emitting from his mouth as he had alot of Pernod and blackcurrant. Lots of mindless vandalism resulting in a radiator being removed from the wall, draining the CH system and no school next day.

We were forced to sit thrugh almost an entire morning of bollocking and the were so shocked they got alcoholics annonymous in to talk at us.

School end of year presentations we had the deputy prime minister attend, whilst the IRA were in the middle of a bombing spree. So lots of armed police and security in attendance. This was too much of an opportunity to pass up. plans were hatched to leave various windows appear locked visually whilst they were in fact open. The local heroes got in and set off the fire alarms.
This was at the exact moment he was doing his speech. Alot of special branch / CI5 running around with pistols drawn and concerned parents and those in the no pising themselves laughing

Mr L head of English Language was very nearly killed when a large rubber glove containing approx 5kg of water as dispatched from the 3rd or 4th floor window. The classroom were equipped with windows that were hinged just off center 60:40 so you could open them flat. Load up your weapon of choice ( huge water bomb ) and close the window releasing the ordanance. Mr L very , very nearly got this on his head, it slattered down right next to him soaking his trousers. Lots of grief over that.

The school swimming pool had glass fibre roof tiles. Approx 30cm x 30cm. One year the wind blew alot of these onto the playing feilds. When snapped into quaters they made very effective death stars and many a lunchtime was spent launching these randomly into the air, hoping to cause GBH to some innocent byestander, until and innocent bystander got on imbedded in their head.

One school ski trip there was a school staying in the next door hotel. Usual inter schol rivalry and their lads trying it on big style with the girls from our school. So the usual suspects stole the hotel cleaning trolley and hoofed it up to the roof. Snowballs laced with bleach were then assembled and pommeled into the other school as they assembled for a trip off somehwhere.

Watched a lad go through a plate glass window after a disagreement over a darts match.

The nearest Comp (where Bullheart used to teach) and ours used to have spectacular massed fights along the Dobbins , an area of woodland between the 2 schools. It wasnt unusual to make up a Katousha style rocket laucher and load it up with Pearl Bomb rockets with a single fuse system as a first wave assult weapon. Then there was the usual cricket bats , baseball bats and on one occaision a chainsaw.

Then there was the exam results. We were the worst year in the entire history of the school. I think the teachers probably got the gist that we really didnt give a shit by this point. This was backed up by the fact there was an almighty cheer when we informed of our rather tardy O level results, and that we all would be unemployable in the very near future ( many of us , me included , returned to do resits)

AW used to fill the sinks in the chemistry lab and as they were fitted with wooden covers, light them and launch the wooden lids into space. It was a challenge to try to get every gas tap on simultaneously.

Mrs H ( teacher ) had a nervous breakdown as condoms with spit ( I hope ) were launched at her whenever she turned round to write on them
Immense fun was had leaving the chucks in the pillar drills in DT, flicking the switch and ducking for cover whilst shouting ‘Incoming’

Miss P the history teacher developed a childish hatred about one of the more developed lads, after he possibly rejected her advances.

Mr VD, his actual initials told the lad in front of me to stop talking, i continued and he punched me from behind, hard enough to send me over the desk in front and onto the floor, it hurt real bad.

Same teacher also sat at the back of the class as he didnt like being looked at and watched.

Couple of student teachers told to leave after taking a bit to much intrest in lads haveing a shower.

Mr J, hit a lad over the head with a 4 foot plastic board ruler,split the lads head open and down his nose, both lad and teacher not seen at school again.

Weird bully headmaster, our bus arrived late , so we where late at assembley marched in and lined up against the wall, about 40 of us, given a lecture about being late etc, one lad leaned against wall, headmaster then ran down and punched lad on shoulder, the lad then fell against the next lad till all of us fell like dominoes on the floor,much laughter from teachers till head shouted at them.

A few years later one of the kids tried to run him and his dog over on a road crossing he went to prison for that.

Chess club in chemistry lab, till someone got annoyed at loosing and poured acid on chess sets and melted them.

Mr B and Mr b, both pervs, one like boys and one like girls, both set up a disco in one of the labs,totally dark blackout blinds down music loud, strange how many times the disco lights failed,as a teacher would grope through the crowds to fix them.

I guess school is like a miniature, concentrated society. We had a gay old science teacher who took boys sailing on his yacht. A teacher and pupil who ended up on daytime TV and offspring of famous people paying no fees. Half the school closed due to bad finances and the whole place was infected by Freemasons. Great days.

Re Uppingham, one of the girls’ boarding houses used to be known locally as ‘The Virgin Megastore’

One class of year 10s I taught in the early 1980s in SW London produced a mugger who also raped, two arsonists and one (enormous) kid who hit his mate with a knife over a £5 drug deal and killed him, a kid who brought his dad’s axe to school to settle a dispute, a kid who hit the ice cream man over the head with a hammer. A lad in another class let off a CS pellet which his brother had stolen from the army. Funnily enough, it also had a famous choir.

Such an entertaining thread.

During a German class, mate of mine was chewing on a red biro which promptly broke and leaked red ink all over the inside of his mouth. He tries to get the teacher’s attention and by the time she finally notices, he looks like he’s coughing up blood. Teacher screams and only just stops herself from passing out in fright and panic.

Once she realises it’s ink rather than internal bleeding, she throws the blackboard duster at yells at my mate to get out of her sight.

Bloody hell. Either I went to a boring school or I had my eyes shut the whole time. Mind you, I did head up the model railway club at some point.
We had an armoury too, which did get a very rapid massive police response when its alarm was set off.
One of the kids in cadets shot a kid on a bus with an air pistol.
My form teacher in ’86 is on the “register” as a result of being a bit too friendly with some of the older lads. He was a fantastic teacher too.
Had a quick Google of the various people in my class. Lots of barristers, investors, media this n that, one dead, none in Jail that I can tell.
Actually, one of the (now) barristers was found ripping car badges off, in the middle of a cricket match on school grounds.
The only semi attractive female teacher lasted only a year – rumours were of a dalliance with 6th former. Her nickname was “treetrunks” due to her calf size.
All very tame.

When i was at junior school, we used to sell Marie biscuits, (digestives) for school funds in the playground, i soon realised i could use my mums biscuits and sell them and keep the money, a kid told on me as children do, school and mum not happy.

My brother once got caught having a *ank in a geography class. He never lived it down, still gets mentioned today. Worst thing was everyone started taking the p*ss out of me like I had something to do with it which was extremely annoying.

The kid who taught the teacher right from wrong.

1st year of secondary school, 11 years old and the teachers late for class. As he’s seen coming down the path one of the students pulls a moony at him through the window. Teacher [miserable, nasty so and so] is incandescent, Hauls whole class into the hall and demands to know who was the owner of the exposed arse. He goes down the line, one by one, ‘do you know who it was?’ he yells, ‘No sir’, says one, ‘no sir’ says another and so on. Until it came to Peter.

‘Do you know who it was Peter?’ ‘

‘Yes sir’ he replies.

‘Then who was it?’

‘I’m not telling,’,

‘Why not?’

‘It would be wrong sir”

I used to make homebrew as a kid.. my house backed onto my grammar school. One day this kid offered me a cig for a bottle of my finest elderflower champers..

Little did I know he would get hammered and jump in the school biology pond.. then grass me up.

Three of the teachers actually escorted me to my house and confiscated all my brewing equipment and my stash of booze !!

Brllllinat time despite

Paedos – well known and surprisingly these days well liked despite everything.
Nutters and sadists – ditto, except one whose use of the cane went way OTT
Housemasters wives who enjoyed tucking you in !!!!
Communal everything !!
Izal medicated big roll.

CCF was mad too. Guy got expelled for shooting sheep in field next to a range. Ended up in SAS. Another guy ignored all the advice on blanks and shot himself in the foot during annual inspection day mock battle. Night exercises in the grounds that became carnage. I taught climbing to younger boys and had to climb up wall without any protection to put ropes up – couple of very hairy moments in high wind

None of the above would be acceptable today but loved it.

I thought he went to Tom W’s dodgy comp?

Slough comp flashy?? That’s a bit harsh. Slough Grammar pls. The OBs won’t like anything else

Bloody hell “if” – that’s a blast from the past. Aldenham and/or Cheltenham iIRC

Quite a film at the time !!

“POSH TOFFS IN DRUGZ SHOCKA!” etc.

One of our uni balls was on the front page of the sun. Some chap in the bar shagging his lady on the snooker table. Headline was…

“Toff sinks the pink”

As a sixth former,I got permission to skive games,to do Chem practicals.At the start of term after Christmas,the games teacher,a welsh rugby enthusiast in Barnsley!,realised and had it stopped.As my mate and I had been getting on very well with two of the fifth form girls on the back row of the class that was in the lab at the time,and we were made to play rugby union,we were not happy.The next Sunday afternoon someone blew up the rugby posts on the school playing fields (it was homemade gun cotton,it had taken me a week to smuggle the nitric and sulphuric acids out of the lab) and after the school decided it was the local louts,we were allowed to recommence Chem Prac 😀

I went to a good school but we had some right ones in attendance.

First day of second year. I’m walking up to school only to find the barn of the farm near the school had burnt down. It turned out a lad in my year, Paul, (who was actually a nice kid) and two first years, Richard and Alistair, had been throwing matches into the hay bales. Astonishingly, the hay caught fire (even Prof Heinz Wolff would not have seen that coming…….or not) and the whole barn was toast. It was still smouldering the next day. It was a memorable start to the term. Pyro Paul – I wonder where he is now.

I reckon Richard was the real dummy of the trio. With a surname of Steele, he decided one Saturday evening to take his Dad’s car for a joyride. Being a young teenager, he had no idea how to drive other than slamming through my neighbours hedge into a deceptively stationary tree. What a fud! It was a Volvo 340. Ah yes, the joyriders car of choice in the late eighties. I wonder what he is doing now. Probably time! Or a high ranking member of the Conservative Party.

Then there was master criminal Hugh who stole pens from the art dept then tried to sell them outside the window of said dept. Strangely enough, he got caught! 😆

One of the art teachers had a thing for sixth form girls. He was caught in a cupboard with one a couple of years above me then went out with one of the girls from my year. Even then, we all thought he was creepy. A friend later told me he and some of the kids from school ended up back at his flat one night where he offered them coke and booze. Seedy, seedy man.

My most vivid memory is probably the most traumatic for a fellow pupil who on the way to school had received a sizeable collection of adult art materials from my mate Ali. When I told my mate Jonah, he proceeded to get into a bit of a tug of war with poor Darren in the canteen hall. Inevitably, the contents spilled all over the floor to reveal his dirty little secret to most of the year’s girls. I don’t think he ever talked to me again! He is probably still in therapy! 😆

Sigh. Happy days!

First day at infants I got my dick caught in my shorts zipper.

They had to call my mum to come round to the school and release me.

I started school as I meant to go on.

Nothing much happened in my school days apart from being mischievous like all boys at their age. Most teachers were proper in my days (never heard of improper conduct at all) and most students behaved at schools. In the far east we have respect for teachers and education, we may be a bit boisterous but generally nothing serious.

However, during my secondary school days one of our headmaster used to karate chop and kick naughty students. I mean flying kick … run, jump and kick at the boy (*18 yr old) backside like Bruce Lee. 😆

That boy is me friend with skin as thick as a hippo … we laughed our head off after that. I mean that silly boy deliberately wound up the headmaster. 😆

*- most students finish secondary school at 18 or 19 depending. Finishing 6th form at 20 is normal.

For anybody reading the tales and going “aye right!” In my 11 years teaching I have taught 4 murderers,3 rapists and an armed robber. Obviously I can’t take all the credit for influencing those young minds,and that is without really trying to keep tally. I have also taught too many who have died of drugs overdoses, what a waste.

Not me, but some schoolmates…..Ooops!

For anybody reading the tales and going “aye right!” In my 11 years teaching I have taught 4 murderers,3 rapists and an armed robber. Obviously I can’t take all the credit for influencing those young minds,and that is without really trying to keep tally.

Wow. Where do you teach Duckman?