h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Remember the third-pint bottles of milk - warm in the summer, freezing in the winter.

Sitting in rows chanting times tables until we were blue in the face - but I have never forgotten them.

Learning "The Lords Prayer" and "God Save the Queen" as part of normal lessons.

Morning assemblies.

Being "whipped" by my junior school teacher (i.e. baring the forearm and trying not to flinch as she wacked it with her palm several times - HARD!) She'd be up for abuse now!!

Gobstoppers sucked through a handkerchief in class - see above paragraph when I got caught!!

Hi, UG.

I loved those bottles of milk - in fact, I drank the ones left over too! But, because (like 1 in 4 people) I am milk-sensitive, I used to get a lot of bronchitis as a result. I guess that was my reward for being greedy. Once my milk allergy was discovered, I gave it up and the bronchitis disappeared. But I still remember how good it tasted!

Do you remember the cod liver oil capsules they gave you with the milk?
And how much you gave in dinner money? (I recall it when it was sevenpence - gradually going up to a shilling or more by the time I left school.)

I earned a few clips around the ear and a couple of canings, but not for anything bad. My sense of humour would get me into trouble, plus I liked to play practical jokes on the teachers. Some saw the funny side, but some didn't....

We never had to sing the National Anthem - but I remember at primary school that we were all taken outside to the pavement, to wait for something like 30 mins, with little flags in our hands, for the car carrying the Queen and Prince Philip to pass by on it's way to Greenwich. The car, when it finally arrived, sped by at 30mph and was gone in a flash. There was hardly time to raise the flags, let alone wave them! I was less than impressed.

Gobstoppers? Never got on with 'em. Acid drop Spangles and Blackjacks were my favourite school sweet - you were allowed sweets in the playground but not in class, off course.

Hi UG & stellarbillynick (can I call you stell?) Enjoying the reminiscing?

The milk was actually frozen on top by the time it got to the school!We had a classroom annexe which was in an old chapel across the street. In the winter, we couldn't write, our hands were so cold, the only heating came from an oil stove next to the teacher's desk!We got "pretty" stamps for good work, can't remember where we were supposed to stick 'em!

Hi, Marnoult

Sounds more like the Gulag than school?

Would I be right in guessing your school wasn't in a city? And an oil stove in a classroom - well, the nanny state wouldn't allow that today, would it?

On the positive side, if your hands were numbed by cold, you wouldn't feel the ruler/cane so much!

Janet and John, Old Lobb - air raid shelters with 'ghosts' in, school meals delivered by van - everthing tasted of aluminium, watery and lumpy custard - ditto gravy.

No, we were in the city! Bristol, but the school couldn't hold all the pupils at one time, so we "overflowed" into that old chapel! Yes, we had meals delivered by van too, in aluminium containers. One day I had the misfortune to be at the head mistress's table, and she made me eat all the cold white fat from the greyish meat I'd put on the side of the plate! Ugh! I went running home after lunch, when I was supposed to stay at "supervision"!

I was "head girl " at one time, but got demoted one day when I was caught eating sweets in the boys' cloakroom. Still don't know if it was for the sweets or the fact I was "trespassing"!Another humiliation was when I was sent out of the class for chatting (!who, ME?)and standing in the hall, the head mistress saw me and said that as I was acting like one of the Infants, I could just join in their dancing class which was going on at the time. How belittling THAT was for a Junior of 10 ! Put me off dancing but not chatting!

I went to a rural infant school, not for long though, after lunch it was my turn to wipe the trestle tables and there was a chocolate someone had left - for me of course.

Pop in mouth spit out of mouth. Ugh! pc. of cold kidney. My mother could do the fat thing though - Irish stew -we could watch the globbules of fat congeal as we fished for the edible bits trying to avoid the lumps of gelatinous meat.

Marnoult: Bit too gobby in class, eh? Exactly the fault I had! Yes, it used to get you in trouble then. But it does seem such a minor offence in the light of current trends in schools, doesn't it?

As for standing in the corner, it happened to me only once - at 14! I couldn't believe it, because no one at our school could remember that ever being done in a Secondary school. Primary, yes. That's when I felt like you did when you were put with the infants. Nothing worse than feeling like a fool!

Grumpy: It's funny, isn't it, how they went to so much trouble to force all that gristly (and grisly) fat down you? Insisting you eat it, even though they knew you would be sick.

But, fat aside, I loved school dinners and never understood why other kids didn't. Perhaps it was because my mum wasn't a great cook. She always did her best and sometimes she and my dad would go without to feed us kids. My biggest memory from childhood, was feeling hungry all the time - except at school.

Secondary school produced even worse dinners. My mate Nitsua - reverse spellings- well his Mum cooked for the other school down the road and their meals were excellent - I sampled some as she used to take home the 'surplus'. The thing was they had the same produce as we did as it was all central purchasing.

I ended up cycling home for lunch, 3.25 miles through traffic. Boy did I clock up some miles with the paper round as well.

One of the classrooms at my junior school was a tin one with a temperamental stove in the corner. When it broke down (which was often) we did lessons wearing hats and coats.

In the summer though we took our desks outside to be taught in the fresh air.

Loved the dinners at my secondary school. Good plain cooking - shepherds pie, stew, meat pie, cheese and potato pie. You knew what day it was by what was cooking. No choice of menu either - you ate what you got or went hungry.

Hi Daffodiligold - like the moniker. Welcome, you've found where some of the 'Boomers' hang out. I'm quite new to this lark. Beats school.

Did you get the dreaded school dentist and nit nurse?

Aaagghh, the school dental check-up!! You knew you were for the chop, if the dental card showed a BLACK tooth on the drawing!! And no injections! Gas mask on the face, and an idiot who said "Blow up the balloon" and I was out for the count, took in too much gas one time, and they couldn't bring me round!

BTW, I also like your pseudo, Daff! (sorry, no daffs in the smiley list!)

I could tell you dentist tales enough to make strong men wilt.

How about the treadle drill that vibrated so much that it would loosen any remaining milk teeth.

Then there was, sorry about this - throwing up in communal sinks where they deposited the limp bodies to 'recover' whilst the next victim was seen to. I was ill for 48 hrs afterwards.

Hi all,

Memories surfacing of a dark green caravan in the middle of the playground, housing the dreaded school dentists. Ouch!

Have had a phobia about dentists ever since.

I did as well, for many years I did not go - thank goodness modern dentists are so good. I'm very lucky now with an excellent NHS dentist. When I was running to get to a mock exam I slipped and broke my front tooth. I was the first person our dentist had done a cap. It took half a day to do - hot plastic moulded and a glue that smelled like evo-stik. Still it lasted over twenty years.

How about this: I still correspond with my primary school teacher!! When we had him in 3rd year juniors, he was just out of training college. He went on to become headmaster at another school, and his two daughters are now also teachers. He was great, and he's still in touch with dozens of old pupils. I teamed up with another pupil from those days, and we went to see him. He brought out all our reports and photos taken at school,including the ones of me wearing the reglementary green knickers for gym in the playground!Despite the difference in age, he remembered more than me from those far-off days.

I would think that is pretty unusual. Most people just move on. I can remember an English teacher who was not long out of college, which meant he was only about five years older than we were. A big gap then, but now!!! He was a good teacher an got me through my 'O' leves lit and lang.

We also had a lot of war returnees, some sad cases there. I wonder what sort of impression we made on our pupils.

Just returning to dentists for a minute.... My Mum used to travel me back to "her" Mum's dentist for my check ups. He was an elderly man, with a hearing aid. I am sure he practised his "fillings" technique on me, because I had many fillings before I was 11 and we couldn't afford sweets, so I don't know how my teeth would have been so rotten.

However, he would wave the old treadle drill needle above my mouth and say "If I hurt you, just shout!" and then proceed to unplug his hearing aid (because the noise of the drill was too much) and drill away blissfully unaware of my rising screams!!