Following a conversation with Andie, I thought I would challenge myself to name as many teachers from my own schooldays as I possibly could, along with the contribution they made to making me the person I am today, for better or worse. Mostly the better, I think, which doubtless they’ll be delighted to know if they do happen to be reading this, as unlikely as that might be.
If you are one of my old teachers and you are reading this and I forget to mention you, I apologise in advance.
Anyway. Let’s consider these in roughly chronological order.
At primary school, our early years were accompanied by Mrs Place. I have to admit I don’t remember a great deal about her, but I think given my tender age at the time, that can probably be excused.
Class 2 in primary school was taken by Mrs Robson, whom I also can’t remember a great deal about. I do remember her not being there one day though, and me being tricked into saying “shit” to Mrs Powell the cover teacher by Natalie Forster, the bitch.
Class 3 was taken by Mr Edwards, who had a bit of a mullet and a moustache. He liked to play the guitar at every opportunity, meaning that “Circle Time” (the point of which I’m still not sure of even having been a primary school teacher myself) more resembled a campfire singalong than anything more meaningful. It was fun though.
Class 4 was taken by Mrs Barrett, a formidable lady by all accounts who had some very old-school values. The rest of the school was terrified of her, because she had a withering look that could cause geese to fall dead out of the sky if she so desired it. Once you got into class 4, however, it became apparent that she wasn’t so scary after all, and even had something of a sense of humour. Her insistence on strict discipline meant that she ran a tight ship, and her class achieved well. Crossing her made you feel like, as cliche as it sounds, you had let yourself down.
On to secondary school, and my form tutor was Miss Quirk. She was Scottish, had short black hair and said “poem” as “poyem”. She taught Maths, but I don’t think I ever had a lesson with her.
Elsewhere in the Maths department was Mr Wilbraham, who may or may not have had a drinking problem. He was certainly rumoured to have a drinking problem, but I can’t say we ever saw any direct evidence of that. He was another of the Mrs Barrett breed — regarded with fear and misunderstanding from afar, but actually turned out to be very pleasant to work with once you were in his class. He didn’t help me enjoy Maths, however.
The English department was my second favourite department. At various points, I was taught by Ms (not Miss) Derbyshire, who was a bit like Victoria Wood when she was being funny; Mr Bowie, who was the obligatory male teacher whom all the girls fancied, was very cool and convinced me to explore the music of Jeff Buckley; Miss Idziacszyk (I think I’ve even spelled that correctly), who was a good, knowledgeable teacher, particularly at A-level. On one memorable occasion, Mr Bowie came with us to a local recording of Songs of Praise which our steadfastly secular school had, for some reason, been invited to. On that occasion I had my shortest ever relationship with a girl — we went out for a week, during which time I saw her once, kissed her once before she decided she wanted to go back to the way things were before.
The Music department was my favourite department. Initially staffed by Mr Murrall and Mrs Choy-Winters, later by Mr Murrall and Miss Garrick (whom my erstwhile best friend Craig fancied the pants off) and even later by Mr Murrall, Miss Garrick and Mr Wrigley. All of the teachers in the department were laid-back, fun and a pleasure to be with both in lessons and outside. By far the highlights of my time at secondary school were the school concerts, during which staff and student were able to interact in a way that just wasn’t possible in the normal classroom.
Up in the Upper School were the Geography and History departments. Here, two particular teachers stood out — Mr Mason (pictured above) on the Geography side, and Mr Watts on the History. Mr Mason had long hair and a porn star moustache, and always spoke in a calm, quiet voice. Instead of shouting when he got angry, he went quieter. It was terrifying.
Mr Watts, meanwhilem was the exact opposite. He could shout your face off, and frequently did. Despite his deservedly formidable reputation, he was an excellent teacher. Okay, I can’t remember a lot of what we covered in History, but I certainly remember the lessons I had with him — and the occasions he looked out of the window, saw a year 7 kid and just tutted and shook his head.
Mrs Lloyd taught Integrated Humanities and Sociology. She knew a lot about her subject and was also one of those teachers whom it was very easy to talk to. Perhaps it was the nature of the subject itself, which often dealt with issues that affected us directly, or perhaps it was just her nature. Either way, I remember her very fondly.
Then there’s the senior staff. I have fond memories of Mr Cragg the erstwhile head teacher for understanding fully why I turned around and lamped Murray Crofts in the face after the little cunt had been harassing me all day. And Mrs Knight, who was a motherly figure to much of the school in many ways — right down to inflicting embarrassing discipline on those who stepped out of line. (One of the worst punishments, particularly for younger kids, was to be forced to have lunch with her, or to to be on “Five minute report” to her.)
There are doubtless plenty of others I’ve missed — Miss Cuthbert, who was one of heads of Sixth Form, and regularly tried unsuccessfully to get us all being a bit more religious; Miss Stafford the art teacher, whom I didn’t spend a lot of time with (as is probably apparent from the pictures which accompany these posts); Mrs Graham the formidable and terrifying Home Ec teacher.
I know one thing, though — as difficult as schooldays were at times, I’ll remember the adults who got me through it for the rest of my life, even more so than those whom I considered close friends at the time, but have since drifted far away to pastures unknown.
I now know first-hand how hard your jobs were, Sirs and Misses. I respect you even more than I did back then. Those of you who have the courage to remain in education with the kids of today, I salute you.
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