If you were at primary school in the 80s

[isabellerossignol]

I've spent what seems like all morning printing off worksheets for my primary aged child. And I was suddenly struck by a vivid memory from primary school. Hand typed or handwritten worksheets that were printed on a machine, in the days before printers, with really poor quality paper and all the writing came out with a bluey/purple tinge.

I've had a Google and apparently it was called a Banda machine, and was used a lot in schools because it enabled relatively cheap printing. Does anyone else remember it?

The thing I remember most is that the printed sheets had a really strong, distinctive smell. If I could smell that now, I'd feel like I was 8 all over again.

I still have my Latin verse literature exercise book from 1992 which includes an example:

And pink custard...

Yes! I used to produce our school newspaper on one of those things! Until the headteacher got software for the computer which I could use instead.

Did anyone else have

• sausage pie (pastry case filled with sausage meat) - made in a roasting tin, so the middle pieces had no pastry edges.
• punk pudding - sponge pud in a roasting tin, with splashes of different coloured food dye all mixed up in it. Usually with green custard!

@zaphodbeeble are you my sister? 😬

Loved 'How we used to live' . I wonder if it has aged well.
My mum was a teacher and would sometimes let me work the banda machine if I was at her school because mine was closed for a Baker day (as they were called then) and hers wasn't.

@StirCrazy2020 we had Apuskidu for singing

@Corneysjazzband I remember the taped music lessons. We did one that was a story called The Choir Outing, we listened to the story on the tape then sang the songs as they came along. It was about a welsh choir going to London to enter a competition.

@AvoidingTheWineAisle I definitely remember singing streets of London and when I'm sixty four.

Also remember the teacher covering the acetate for the OHP with a piece of paper and pulling it down so we could follow the lyrics for the song. My favourite was Colours if Day.

Does anyone remember someone from the railway coming in and showing us videos of children losing limbs and dying on railway lines? That scarred me for life. Also, the fire brigade elephant and 'matches matches never touch'

BBC TV wheeled in (still doing that in early 2000s btw) to watch Through The Dragons Eye

@zaphodbeeble I had a strawberry shortcake flask and lunchbox.

Lunch was usually shiphams pasta sandwiches, yoghurt, packet of crisps (no fancy flavours though groaned if I got cheese and onion and tried to swap with someone), piece of fruit and a chocolate biscuit - of a penguin/club/54321 type - except we didn't have the real thing we had supermarket copies and got the piss ripped out of us as a result!

Squash in the flask in spring/summer mums home made soup in autumn/winter

My favourite primary teacher reading to us all of the C.S. Lewis books over the course of our year with her

We had dickens - Oliver Twist, a Christmas carol

The wind in the willows and charlottes web

They're the ones I remember.

How we didn't fall asleep I don't know - not because they were boring but because this was at the end of the school day and it was very calm and soothing.

They had that in the 70s??? I'd genuinely be interested to know how long you think computers have been around?

And pink custard... and banana custard! Loved banana custard

@BikeRunSki not sausage but other "pies" made in a similar way - savoury mince filling, corned beef and tomato, chicken and gravy...

But also desserts -

A massive jam tart and you'd hope to get a middle piece as more jam less pastry! Also something the school cook called (this Is possibly very outing)

Farmhouse tart - which I have NEVER come across anywhere else and can not find a recipe for - pastry as per your description but sweet. Bottom layer jam, middle layer I think some kind of frangipane and top layer custard like in a custard tart and the whole lot topped with chocolate sprinkles. If anyone has a recipe I'd be amazed and immensely grateful

Fine Fare Yellow Label crisps-

So much I remember here!

BBC computer being wheeled in and being so excited if it was your turn on Granny's Garden (never did complete it )

TV room and watching How We Used to Live, Words and Pictures with a weird balloon with feet, Let's Go Maths and Badger girl.

SMP, Fletcher books and Reading Workshop which was cards with text and questions - different colours for different levels.

Can also confirm that hippy hymns was not just a London phenomenon. In our North West Primary we had With a Little Help From My Friends, Streets of London and a random one about a boy whose dad had been arrested for sitting down at a nuclear protest Maxwell's Silver Hammer was also in the hymn book but thankfully we never sang it...

Also these bags with matching jelly shoes. We didn't have uniform at primary (early 80s) and everyone wore them. The bags were useless because everything fell out of them !

@zaphodbeeble that’s why you “lined“ them with a Chelsea Girl or (later 80’s) a Next carrier bag. 🤣

Did they clip together or did I imagine that ??

I never had one, I had a Rucanor sports bag. It was one or the other at my school.

Thanks for this , I've been trying to remember the name of those sheets

RonBurgundy the fire safety elephant was called Wellyphant (because he had wellies on). When they came to our school, there was someone in a Wellyphant costume who didn't speak, just... stood there, nodding sagely at what the fireman was saying. Was quite unsettling. "Matches matches never touch, they can hurt you very much."

And yes, those public safety films were terrifying. I can remember ones about not flying a kite near power lines, not running onto a railway line to retrieve your football, not playing on the slag heaps outside a coal mine, and not daring your friends to run across the mud flats. I imagine some of these were quite regional!

There was always one about fireworks with the little girl grabbing the sparkler and the drowning one with the voice of Donald Pleasance

Found it ! 'Lonely water'

m.youtube.com/watch?v=xZWD2sDRESk

Well what a lovely thread this is

I’m 42 and went to primary school from 1982-1989. I was there for a couple of years and someone set it on fire, arson attack. The school was saved but we were taught in portacabins while it was being fixed up.

I remember books called “Jennifer yellow hat” and things like that. Also the “funny bones” series and big thick workbooks to complete for our first holy communion ( catholic school )
I remember the smell of the school hall that also doubled as the dinner hall and me and my friends used to collect rubbers and swap them. We also had a tuck shop.

When I was around 8 or 9 there was another arson attack and this time the school burnt to the ground. We were sent to the local secondary for a couple of years and taught anywhere they could fit us in whilst a brand new school was built. I have many recollections of country dancing.

New school was finally built in 1988 and I was in year 6. We had a year there and it was wonderful. My 17yr old went there too and my 9yr old dd is there ( pre lockdown ) now. Nothing has changed and it’s like walking down memory lane every time I do the school run.

Sorry that was really long!

Miss Moss, my high school Geography teacher in the 90's used one. She was awesome. Had a dyed black beehive, huge costume jewellery and rewarded right answers with sweets and a chocolate bar for big test marks. It was pretty weird seeing the reproduced copies of handwritten tests in purple ink.

In my 1980's primary we were already past that type of copying. But my school was pretty well funded to be fair.

It's not so much the smell I remember but the noise!

We had a box of Ladybird books each with its own question sheet- you read the book and then answer questions. We did this every Friday afternoon. I loved the one about budgies! I think it was called SRA.

I bloody loved these. I'm sure we had them in first year at school too. We had them to do as a stand alone lesson, or could do them if we were finished other work. I used to just blast through them.

Awh, the days of Dick and Dora,Nip and Fluff and TV on wheels playing Bagpuss for a treat..those were the days

Crikey this thread is a trip down memory lane. Yes yes to clutching warm shiny duplicator paper to your face, and then colouring in purple outlined pictures.

I had that maths book. Alpha, Beta etc.

Folk songs in assembly.

Getting out the little square cushions to sit on to watch the big telly on wheels, and hoping you didn’t get a damp one.

Music and movement in vest and pants in Infants School.

Singing Together - oh how I loved Singing Together! I loved it so much I stole my copy at the end of each term and I still have my little collection hidden away somewhere