Lines and plenty of them
The teaching was very strict. The teachers stood at the front of the class with all the desks in rows, facing them. We learned our tables out loud and recited them daily.

When we were punished, we were caned. That was the main punishment: it made us scared to do it again ... Other punishments were being hit on the hand with a ruler, or you did lines and plenty of them.

The school dinners were appalling - they were that bad! They were cold or had no flavour at all. Even the favourites weren't very appetising.

PE was the worst during the winter. The games were hard and extremely tiring. The games included hopscotch, skipping, rounders. The girls played netball and the boys played cricket in the summer.

The uniforms were awful. They were uncomfortable and not very fashionable today!

Muriel and Brian Waine
Sunderland

The 'bulge' and overcrowding
My memories of 1950s education aren't too good. I started, I think, in 1951. I was a new arrival, just moved to Shaw, our town, and never fitted in - I was too shy, at first, and I think it became a habit. I ended up badly bullied, which stayed with me for years and left me with depression. That part was hell.

The teachers were good, as I recall, I remember liking them. They tried very hard, anyway - they had to keep our crowd controlled! It was the other pupils I didn't get on with. I hated games, too, which didn't help - still do! I can remember getting caned on the hand, and once getting walloped on the backside with a cricket bat, I don't remember what for!

O-levels were a terror. I never did get any; in fact, I don't remember sitting any. The 11-plus was everything. I was a 'borderline' failure so missed grammar and ended up in a secondary modern: Royton & Crompton near Oldham.

Grammar school places were at a desperate premium at the end of the 1950s because of the 'bulge' - kids born in 1947 as dads were demobbed. All through early school, there were always too many of us in our 'year', never enough textbooks, pens, desks or even room for us all - sometimes we ended up out in the corridor (hard to see the blackboard from there!). Even in the dreaded games and PE, there was never enough equipment.

I loved to learn, loved to read but with overcrowding and the bullying, I think I missed a lot. I remember being the only kid in the class allowed to use a biro, as I was left-handed and couldn't use a dip pen properly - though, oddly, calligraphy is one of my hobbies now! The few times I had school dinners, they were terrible: lumpy custard with a skin, cabbage (I still can't stand it) and so on.

Not very happy memories on the whole.

Ian Winterbottom
Westhoughton, Bolton

The Red Hand Gang
I lived in Birkenhead on what's now Merseyside. I started school in mid-1950s. I remember from an early school age being hit on the legs by the teacher's hand, then progressed to getting the ruler on the hand, until we were in secondary school when we got the cane.

The first year in the secondary school was frightening, with an all-male teaching staff who all seemed to be over six foot with big booming voices. Also scared of the third and fourth years who would, as a school initiation, throw you down a steep embankment full of bushes at the side of the school.

I remember that, at one point in my first year, the fourth-year boys decided they were going on strike, so when the whistle went to end playtime, every boy was warned by the fourth years not to go into school or they would be in trouble. So we didn't, and the teachers caned the whole school.

Games - or 'sports', as we called it - was good. We had a good selection of sports to take part in. In the gym, we weren't allowed to wear underpants under our gym shorts, and when we went out of the changing rooms into the gym, we had to drop our shorts to prove we weren't (I often wonder if that would be allowed now - I don't think so). If we were caught with our underpants on under our shorts, we were made to go and take them off, and when we went back into the gym, the teacher got hold of our hair, pulled our heads down and slapped us on our bare backs. We would end up with the red imprint of his hand on our backs (he called us the 'Red Hand Gang').

The careers teacher was an ex-sergeant in the army, so the only careers advice you got was to join the army or serve your apprenticeship in the local shipyard. I know we went to school not long after the end of the war, but all the teachers seemed to think they were still in the forces and tried to run the school more like a military establishment.

I think there was only about seven or eight people who stayed on to 16 to take the GCEs. The remainder left at 15 and were glad to do so. Like most, I learnt more after leaving school by going to night school and technical college on day release from my apprenticeship.

Dave Jones

One lump or two?
I went to a standard primary/junior school from 1954 to 1959, failed the 11-plus, then to secondary modern from 1959 to 1960. Then I was awarded a scholarship to a high school for art and crafts, where I went until leaving in 1964 without any formal certificates. My contemporaries and I accepted the fact that those of us destined for 'the professions' would go to a grammar school and those for 'the trades' would end up in a secondary modern. The system seemed to work better than the comprehensive system.

I found that the teachers knew and taught their own specialist subjects thoroughly, and could also competently teach any other subject. They demanded - and, in the main, received - the respect of the class, and also gave it back. Discipline, and students' attention, was maintained by having the desks in rows, so the teacher could effectively teach, maintain order and supervise. Each year remained in their own classroom and at their own desks, the teachers moving from room to room at each subject change, giving a certain stability.

Corporal punishment was reserved for only the most serious offenders, and was mainly exemplary. It certainly worked for me. 'Six of the best' did not get many repeat offenders, especially when dished out in front of the entire school!

School dinners were just about edible. The trick was to hold your breath so as not to inhale the all-pervading smell of boiled cabbage. The custard, like the gravy, was usually dished out on a 'one lump or two?' basis. In later life, I found that, if I could stomach school dinners, I could eat just about any exotic food from around the world.

Although I was, and still am, a sportsman of below average ability, I found games/sports very enjoyable and an invaluable asset in engendering both teamwork and an extremely important competitive spirit, which set us up for adult life.

Uniforms were not bad at all as I remember, except that it was still traditional at that time for boys to wear shorts until the onset of puberty demanded longer trousers! This was most embarrassing for those, still pre-pubescent, who started secondary school still wearing junior school shorts! Uniform ensured that school was a place for learning, not a fashion parade.

Greg Simpson
Kingston upon Hull

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