Author Topic: Activities you hated as a child  (Read 13851 times)

ian

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #50 on: 05 December, 2017, 07:09:35 pm »
I don't think we ever had a school dentist. We were terrified of the nit nurse. Being found nit-positive would have condemned anyone to social doom. Even a rumour of nit-positiveness was usually enough (horrible though it is to recount there was a girl called Fanny at my junior school, which in itself was curse enough, but she allegedly smelled and had nits – she probably didn't smell or have nits, but I suspect her life was hell and we let it happen because if it was her it wasn't us). The spectre of the nit nurse loomed darkly over our school career.

As boys, we were all also terrified by the nurse that held your balls and made you cough. I mean, what if she was like your gran? Or if she's well, you know, nice and something happened down there? Or even worse, if she was like your gran, but you inadvertently started to think about Elizabeth O's ineffably pert breasts?

That said, I don't recall this ball-grabbing nurse putting in an appearance, so I think she was an apocryphal school terror.

ian

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #51 on: 05 December, 2017, 07:10:36 pm »
Oh, and I failed the colour-blindness test.

And got a right bollocking from my dad. I'm not even joking.

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #52 on: 05 December, 2017, 07:14:12 pm »
Getting caned.
As a primary school kid, this did nothing to enhance my day.
As a thirty something year old, it was different.

ian

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #53 on: 05 December, 2017, 07:17:58 pm »
I got the cane once for merely being proximity to some kids who were running during break time (one of the worse crimes). Then I got a second helping for having the temerity to protest my innocence.

It didn't actually hurt other than in the anticipation, as kids we'd do far more painful things to each other.

I also got the cane in junior school for saying that I didn't believe in God (and it wasn't even a church school).

TheLurker

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Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #54 on: 05 December, 2017, 07:22:23 pm »
Morning Assembly* at school.  Ditto compulsory bloody church attendance at Xmas, Easter and for any other flaming excuse they could conjure up .  Hated it.  Particularly hated the waste of my time. I would rather have been in the library writing out lines.

As for other stuff?  Organised activities and clubs were for middle class kids.  We did our own thing.

*With one and _only_ one exception close to Remembrance Sunday one year.  One of our teachers was ex Bomber Command and flew on a large number of raids over Germany.  He gave the only school assembly address in my entire time at school that wasn't a stream of platitudinous, hypocritical drivel and it made you stop and _think_. 

Τα πιο όμορφα ταξίδια γίνονται με τις δικές μας δυνάμεις - Φίλοι του Ποδήλατου

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #55 on: 05 December, 2017, 07:22:46 pm »
My first caning was delivered when I was aged ~ 6 yo.
I was switching the porch light of one of the classroom buildings on and off.
Dinner Lady - Was that you turning the light on and off?
Me - Yes.
Off to the headmaster for two on the right and one on the left.
Fuckers. Both of them. I was six FFS.


ETA - The evidence is there that whatever that taught me, it wasn't 'a lesson'.

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #56 on: 05 December, 2017, 07:30:33 pm »
I don't know anyone who actually got the dreaded cane, but there were always stories by kids who had an older brother who "got the cane" a couple years ago.

I did see Mr Smith use his shoe on some boy's backside and Mr Wilkie once kicked my desk over and manhandled me out of the classroom. Oh, and Mr "Decker" Preston once threw me off a piano stool in the music rooms, 'cos I was rocking out a bit too much.

Actually, I can think of loads more acts of violence even after that sort of thing was made illegal in 1985*

*I think
Those wonderful norks are never far from my thoughts, oh yeah!

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #57 on: 05 December, 2017, 07:49:00 pm »
Nobody got the cane at my primary or secondary school; they used a dap.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #58 on: 05 December, 2017, 07:52:09 pm »
Another vote for school sports. Every aspect.  Team picking was the top humiliation when it usually got down to me or the retarded girl. The showers when the PE teacher (who knew just about all the girls were avoiding them) would insist on monitoring us .  The terrible kit - especially the totally impractical skirts. Regular forgetting was the only way to keep any dignity once old enough to understand. 
And pop-mobility - an '80s attempt at making PE interesting for the girls :sick:

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #59 on: 05 December, 2017, 07:52:25 pm »
I didn't mind the sprot thing too much - so long as it didn't involve ball games - I was never any good at those.
This is most of the problem with school sports; if they offer a variety of sports, it's still a variety of games involving balls and played in a team.


[/quote]Polak Saturday school up until I went to secondary school - I have never in my life been to Saturday morning cinema, unlike my mates.
Polak Friday night school ( even worse) - this geared you up for your polish O and A levels, just when most of my mates were discovering the joys of being served (illegally) in pubs.
Oh, and both of the above two had a fair bit of Cath thrown in for good measure.[/quote]
Not a thing of my childhood, obvs, but I can sympathise with this at a remove. Friday too? Ouch!

Quote
Sorrel soup (we grew our own) cold, with a hard boiled egg thrown in. What were they thinking?
Never encountered this till I was technically grown up (about 30?) but it's gorgeous!
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #60 on: 05 December, 2017, 08:01:08 pm »
Mr "Birdman" Birchall had a reputation for touching the girls in an inappropriate manner. Mr Elliott had a reputation for touching the boys in an inappropriate manner. He once called me up and slapped my wrist, but at least I was never put over his knee to have my bottom slapped, unlike many of the other boys. I guess I just wasn't his type...
Those wonderful norks are never far from my thoughts, oh yeah!

Mrs Pingu

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Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #61 on: 05 December, 2017, 08:02:48 pm »
Oh god.
Hockey (really, I don't want all my teeth smashing out by crazy teenage girls with limited impulse control) and rounders (really, I don't want all my teeth smashing out by the person in front of me who can't follow the instruction to drop rather than fling the bat when you go for a run).

There's probably loads more but so traumatic I've blanked it out.
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #62 on: 05 December, 2017, 08:11:33 pm »
Learned to swim in Cyprus, the Med.  When I came to the UK I could no longer swim - I guess the cold fresh water with less buoyancy than salt was too much of a shock.  But I learned over again.  None of our PE teachers were weird that I remember.  One of the history teachers had a reputation and decades later I saw the news that a current teacher had topped himself after allegations.

There was a school barber and we got our haircut during lessons.  I was sent during the first algebra lesson and when I got back I thought algebra must have been cryptography.  It was years before I realised it wasn't code for something. 
Move Faster and Bake Things

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #63 on: 05 December, 2017, 08:12:27 pm »
I remember a rare - perhaps a one off even, game of boys vs girls Hockey match at school. As the girls were forced to wear the tiniest, tiniest PE kits, all the boys had spunked in their shorts almost immediately..... Then lost  :P
Those wonderful norks are never far from my thoughts, oh yeah!

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #64 on: 05 December, 2017, 08:19:45 pm »
My recollection is that I refused to join the cubs on the grounds that I'd have to swear allegiance to the Queen.  Given that I was probably about eight and my parents were conventionally conservative, I doubt my own memory.  But I never was a cub or scout.

I hated swimming, but later became proficient enough to pass my 5-star canoe award (which included abandoning ship and towing your canoe to shore).

I actually disliked being told what to do in any sphere unless I really respected the person, but there were several people I did respect.

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #65 on: 05 December, 2017, 08:28:53 pm »
Gosh yes.  School medicals.

Some fearsome haridan of a matron or worse, sweaty and shifty school quack playing with my bollox.  Cough?  I nearly vomited!



Edit:

Love that my mobile translated haridan to Harrison.   Pity I didn't spot that earlier.   :-[

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #66 on: 05 December, 2017, 08:32:30 pm »
I don't know anyone who actually got the dreaded cane, but there were always stories by kids who had an older brother who "got the cane" a couple years ago.
Your reputation just fell. You don't know anyone who got caned, you weren't badly behaved enough to get caned?

 I got caned regularly from age 6.

From age 8-9 I was sent to be caned just about every day (psychotic teacher). The deputy head realised something was wrong after a couple of weeks and sussed out that it happened at the same time every day; when the teacher ran out of patience with the class.

2-3 times a year throughout teenage years. Finally stopped when I was 16, sent to be caned, refused to hold my hand out, picked up the blackboard ruler instead and swung it at the deputy head every time he swung at me.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

ian

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #67 on: 05 December, 2017, 08:37:58 pm »
Caning stopped when Mr Taylor our genuinely old school headmaster retired. He was fair (in the fact that he caned everyone regardless of guilt). To be honest, he didn't put much effort into it, but I guess he was caning in volume, so it was probably quite tiring. Growing up in the 70s and 80s was a tyranny of violence. Schools were like some kind of Mad Max dystopia crossed with a super-max penitentiary, everyone was ready in a moment to start yelling 'fight fight fight!' Then you went home and got a clip around the ear for 'that look on your face' or some other misdemeanour.

Of course, Mr Taylor's regime was replaced by something far, far worse. We had a born-again, guitar-strumming, sing-a-long-a-Jesus replacement. I would have taken a lot of beatings to shut him up. Detention involved campfire christian songs. It was terrifying.

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #68 on: 05 December, 2017, 08:40:52 pm »
I went to boarding school aged about 12.  Can remember being quite homesick at first.  The school matron was, I kid you not, a young blonde  Scandinavian who noticed my homesickness and invited me to her room to help me get over it.  She was very charming and since then I have always felt an affinity for blonde Scandinavians.
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rogerzilla

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Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #69 on: 05 December, 2017, 09:02:09 pm »
Cross-country.  Came last every week with the obese kid.  Then I got a new GP who advised taking Ventolin before exercise, not when I started wheezing (when you can't get it deep into the lungs anyway) and came second the following week.  I'd spent the best part of five years thinking I was desperately unfit.  On the bright side I now have a vast lung capacity, can hold my breath for 3 minutes, and can reliably blow off the scale on a peak flow meter (sadly this does not translate into VO2 max).
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

ian

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #70 on: 05 December, 2017, 09:06:03 pm »
We didn't do cross country on the basis we'd all go to ground the moment we hit the tree lines at the bottom of the playing field and teachers couldn't be bothered walking that far to check.

Pingu

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Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #71 on: 05 December, 2017, 09:11:10 pm »
The Scottish education system was obviously far too civilised to employ the cane as a means of punishment. The strap was deployed instead.


Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #72 on: 05 December, 2017, 09:13:09 pm »
The Scottish education system was obviously far too civilised to employ the cane as a means of punishment. The strap was deployed instead.

Tawse.
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Kim

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Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #73 on: 05 December, 2017, 09:14:17 pm »
everyone was ready in a moment to start yelling 'fight fight fight!'

Did that really happen?  I always thought it was something they made up in 1950s children's books, along with all the other things that didn't make sense.  (Corporal punishment, while obsolete by the time I reached school age, was still on the cusp of living memory.)

In my day, in the rare event of a proper fight breaking out, the spectators would gather round silently to avoid attracting premature teacher attention.  You'd get the odd shout of encouragement, but no suspicious-from-across-the-playground chanting.  Eventually the crowd would become too large to go uninvestigated, or some swotty type would fetch a teacher.

Re: Activities you hated as a child
« Reply #74 on: 05 December, 2017, 09:16:46 pm »
I used to love cross country. What's better than stretching your legs in the open countryside? Cycling I guess, but the principle is the same....
Those wonderful norks are never far from my thoughts, oh yeah!