Tales from the school yard.

We had a music teacher of a sensitive disposition who left after having a bit of a breakdown when the class locked him in the instrument cupboard and set off fire extinguishers in the classroom.

We had a metalwork teacher who was going to go to the head after a class about one of my classmates. Then made the mistake of going into the store room to tidy up. 5 mins later and the kid in question had managed to tack the door shut and refused to crack the door until he promised not to see the head. Funny at the time but in hindsight the poor bastard was quite broken when we finally got Mark to let him out.

This was the same class where one of the less bright kids thought a paper towel would work fine to pick up the angle he’d just brazed. Off to hospital for you lad.

Geography Teacher was into cycling and would talk forever about the TdF. He was also into Subbuteo and kept a rolled up Astro pitch and some teams in his classroom. We were encouraged to bring in other teams and most lessons ended in 5 mins e/w league fixtures.

The school had a fledgeling website, however knowledge of web security was not strong.

I installed 'Back Orifice' on all the computer room's PCs. Remote admin tool that had some silly options, including disabling certain keys and ejecting the CD tray. Entertained myself disabling the vowels whenever the English teacher I didn't get on with was editing someone's work. Or popping out the CD tray so the propped up text books would fall onto the floor. Or just rebooting the PC whenever the teacher started presenting.

I was called into the head of ITs office after a few weeks along with a few other kids. Message was "There's only a few kids that could and would do this. I don't know which one of you did, but fucking stop it"

I did something very similar, I think the program had a Donald duck themed name but did similar shit. I also knocked up a website with a bunch of potatochopped photos of teachers faces on tasteful mostly naked bodies, the balding head teacher with a perky bum poking out a bubble bath was the best. I think a kid in the year above got bollocked for that.

Haha very nice! Those remind me I also got caught red handed attempting to install something similar from a floppy disk. I managed to convince the head I’d found the disk on the street and wanted to know what was on it. Amazed he bought it given I’d written ‘Very Bad Computer Virus’ on the label in my rather distinctive handwriting

Our physics teacher had a mental breakdown and had to go off sick for months after the class shouted "poulet" at him for weeks on end. I have no idea why we were doing it. Same teacher made us do an experiment using fruit as batteries which obviously ended up being launched around the room. I think someone got a black eye from a melon.

I had two convicted paedos, both very popular, one in primary school.

My friend and I played "Mongoloid" by Devo for our "composition" every week in music for two years, just changing the instruments to "bhangra" or "baroque" or whatever on the keyboard to suit the theme. No one noticed

I remember also our teacher organised a debate between two local "politicians", one from Labour and the other was from UKIP. Everyone cheered the UKIP guy, purely out of typical 15-year-old-male antagonism/hostility/spite. I don't think we even knew what the EU was really. Whole yeargroup got detention

They trusted us so much that we couldn't take our bags into the library at school and we had to leave them on racks outside. So we all used to hide each others' bags to much annoyance/hilarity. Some lads decided to hide one particular boy's bag on the steps of the council house in town. Cops found it and presumably opened it to find the mass of wires and breadboard, attached to some kind of box, that made up his technology project. The area was evacuated, while they dealt with the threat. Story goes that the poor lad was summoned from his lesson by the old bill brandishing what was left of his smouldering books, after the bag had been disposed of in a controlled explosion. Nobody ever owned up to who took it.

Also former teacher/cricket coach jailed last year for historic sexual assaults on boys at the school during the time I was there. As I had quite the sheltered upbringing, the constant innuendo went right over my head in maths lessons.

Had a head of sixth form that used to let the girls smoke in his office many times on his lap whilst he also smoked large cigars.

Was keen to always hear our answer to “ if you could fuck a teacher who would it be?”

Alcoholic Maths teacher that on a school trip we had to remove from a nightclub in Barcelona as he was squaring up to some locals threatening “I’m from south London, I’ll tear your fucking eyes out”.

Found out our social studies teacher was shagging our history teacher, asked her in the pub if was true she said “yeah cos he has a big dick” he was a sound Rasta that also taught us how to hide weed if stopped by the police.

English teacher that showed all us lads photos of her on holiday wearing just bottle caps on her nipples.

Used to drink every Friday from the age of 16 with them in the same pub. Which many would buy beers for us.

And...

A ambulance helicopter once had to land in our playground. Such was the respect for the services someone threw a massive book on the rotors as it landed. It was literally snowing paper. With whoops from all the luckily un shredded faces hanging out the window.

Was in a class when someone threw a coke can a point blank into a girls face after they stole it from her and was told to give it back.

Search ‘Kevin Williams Kentish Town’ to see his life story.

I had a choice between City of London school or Haverstock. Went to the latter as parents thought it more ‘Arty’ don’t regret it at all..still best mates with people I met on the first day almost 30 years ago.

On a school trip to France the stand out giving out loads of shit to the teachers all year long got herself punched in the face on the ferry. When complaining about it to group leader teacher she just turned to the rest of the teachers and and said “this calls for champagne!” And bought a bottle in.

Teachers spent so long in all the bars in the small town we were left in, that aged 12-13 bought knives, fireworks, nunchucks, booze which all caused all sorts of shit in the hotel we were staying.

All the teachers did was on getting back in the ferry said hand in anything you shouldn’t have into a box and would pass back later. They just chucked them in the channel on way back.

The entire school also robbed blind Parc Asterix which as weren’t weapons the teachers didn’t care about

Ed and David Miliband went to Haverstock.

Yep long before me. John Barnes too. Marlon Harewood was in some of my classes and Joe Cole couple of years below

Ha. Well I never. Quite the celebrity establishment. I went there briefly, too.

What years? After they knocked all the Victorian buildings down?

Err... ‘98-2000. My class was in a hut in the playground. I don’t recall Victorian buildings. However, I was only there for one lesson a week, so didn’t pay huge attention, to be honest.

On a separate note, this thread reads rather like a sinister Panorama investigation of institutionalised child abuse in the UK education system, in the not too distant past... Those were the days, eh?

Haverstock is now a Crisis homeless shelter for a week every Christmas. I am pretty certain thayt that our 250 street-sleeping guests with massive addiction problems are much better behaved than you fuckers were.

Those were the days, eh?

The only difference between now and the 1980s is that we're talking about the 1980s now, whereas we won't actually start talking about the systematic and organised child abuse and the official cover-up thereof in the 2010s until about 2050.

Does seem absolutely remarkable. Everybody has a story.

I’m not aware of any noncing from the staff at my primary school but at secondary school, the head boy in the year below me eloped with the head of English, who left her husband (the former head boy at her previous school) and child for him. Apparently they used to go for drives in her convertible at lunchtime and no-one thought it was unusual (Circa 2002).

Compared to you lot my education was dull as fuck, or my eyes were absolutely wide shut.

The best thing I can think of...no actually there's nothing.

The thing that really stuck with me was when the head - a classic who had a striking resemblance to the teacher from The Wall, we were shit scared of him - got the upper school in to the hall and gave them a polemic vision of the future in which if they left here without the best they could get expecting the nation to owe them a job and a living they would be very much surprised, and fucked. This was 1995 or thereabouts. It was his final broadside. For the most part I think it landed.

We had so many fucked up psychotic teachers. I was at secondary school from 1980 onwards, and really nothing much had moved on since the post war period. They all seemed so damaged!

We had a teacher Mr Smith who used to launch the board rubber at people, regularly used to bounce it off the back of people's skulls.

Mr Williams, history teacher, had a false glass eye which he used to take out and put on the shoulder of girls and tell them with glee he 'had his eye on them'.

Another whose name escapes me taught Maths. Alcoholic pill popper, used to fall asleep in the class. Regularly went on mad rages at people, inches from their face. Spittle flying everywhere. He scared me silly. My Mum complained to the school because she figured out I always wanted to be off sick whenever I had his class. I can't remember if he got the boot or not, I think I got moved to another class perhaps. He terrified me.

Miss Smith my English teacher however was amazing. She used to give me 'under the counter' stuff.....not on the curriculum. Here she'd say, read this you'll like it. Sixties beat poetry and stuff, Adrian Henri and Roger McGough etc. Loved her so much.

The Wall

I went to the same school as Waters/Barrett and it's suggested that their experience at the school heavily influenced that album. No dodginess at that school though by the time I went there, and they'd long got rid of the cane by then.

Did terrorise the IT teacher at that school though with a friend of mine. Silently running programs that would randomly print out a single sheet of paper with a piece of paper with just a ÿ character in the corner - drove the teacher mad replacing cables and other bits in an attempt to fix it. Also a program that would show a ball slowly bouncing across all of the monitors from one to another across the room and back, especially devious as the machines were not networked together at all.

Secondary school had a languages teacher nicknamed Porky as he was rumoured to have been caught stealing a pork pie from the village shop. Most lessons he'd walk in to the room to find a large pork pie drawn on the blackboard. Never grew old that one. He also used to leave his fags in a cupboard in the classroom which frequently got raided.

One science teacher told us he contracted Syphilis from cleaning out bird nests from his eaves, and that he then gave it to his wife.

Other jolly japes in science were attaching fly leads with crocodile clips on to the back of the teachers white coat trying to create the longest train we could. It was the fact that it was never acknowledged even when he did finally notice them and remove them. Filling up friends bags with random science equipment (I opened my bag in a subsequent lesson to find a tripod, wire gauze and a bunsen burner), and attaching bunsen burners to water taps to create an almost invisible jet of water that could go 30 feet.

No masochistic PE teachers, they were a good laugh, but then I was at the sporty end of the spectrum and I'd had two older brothers pass through before me. I do remember the dreaded checks on the state of the grass - if it wasn't dry/wet/boggy we'd play football, if it was "too hard" for football they'd attempt to try and teach us rugby.

At one primary school we only let Y5/Y6 play football in the morning before school (my mum was a teacher there so I got there at least an hour before school most mornings, and I brought the football with me too). But there was one kid in Y1/Y2 who we'd let play because he was so obviously standout better than everyone else in the school - he has a Premier League winners medal to his name.

But there was one kid in Y1/Y2 who we'd let play because he was so obviously standout better than everyone else in the school - he has a Premier League winners medal to his name.

My mate was a wee fat kid who went to a school that was generally pretty rubbish at football, but he was on the team that won the Norn Iron Schools Cup on the tactic of 'Give it to __', who I think also has a PL winner's medal.