Memories of secondary school in the 70s (or thereabouts)

[waltzingparrot]

Pink custard and Spam Fritters (not together)

Budgie Jackets

Smoking in the toilets at breaktime (with lookout)

There was a phase of piercing friends' ears with a safety pin in the corridors (any old safety pin, no antiseptic) If you were lucky, they'd agree to do it at the weekend with an ice cube behind it.

Bomb Alerts - always seemed to be piling out to line up on the school field - garrison town.

But best best memories of packed lunches on the school field with your friends in all that glorious sunshine.

Essex 74-79

Bumping because I'd love to read these. I didn't hit secondary school till the 80s - we had crap ravioli rather than spam fritters but smoking in the loos was still going on. Tuck shop with Panda fizzy drinks and those puff crisps that were a cheap knock-off of Wotsits. Going to the chemists at lunchtime to buy make-up then spending hours in the loos trying it on. It was the era of triangle perms and big hair, so the changing rooms were always fugged with clouds of hairspray - Silvikrin in the green cans was popular. White stilettos were the footwear of the fashionable set, complete with orange patches on the heel where the self-tan had rubbed off, and fraying pencil skirts that had split and been sewn up 100 times.

Should add, this was in SW England, mid to late 80s.

bomb alerts...yes! filing out to the tennis courts in the freezing cold, whilst we all knew who had made the phone call!

I was early 80s. We had external huts as classrooms as well as the main buildings. We spiked and drank vodka there!

Ear piercing too. Needles sanitised with said vodka.

Roller lip gloss. I think it was max factor.

There was a shop in Edinburgh called Razzle Dazzle. Shoes and bags. We all wore them to school.

Shaders and toners in our hair. White high heels.

Yes, to sewing up pencil skirts!!

Not spiked - smoked!

Oh, yes, Shaders & Toners. The advert in Jackie magazine showing one dull side of hair and one with amazing golden/red highlights ... the reality, staring at your hair in the mirror trying to convince yourself that there was a difference if you stood in the right light.

Bay City Rollers were big in 79 - girl in my class was always getting in to trouble because she kept turning up to school having sewn a strip of tartan on the bottom of her school skirt - rebel.

Grey Gym nickers - which were basically just a pair of big nickers - they'd be illegal now surely.

Was everybody allowed to go out of school at lunchtime? We used to go up the chippy or back to my friends house for 30 minutes. When did they stop kids leaving school premesis?

Knickers!

The 70s:

1. The senior mistress inspecting our skirts to make sure they were regulation length
2. We had to wear massive grey school knickers over our own
3. We had to wear flat sandals indoors, so by the 5th form, that meant Clark’s as nobody else did them big enough
4. We could wear a made to measure dress in the 6th form - we could choose our own pattern, which had to be approved by the senior mistress, in case there was too much cleavage!
5. School dinners - spam fritters, fatty meat in stews, fantastic roast potatoes, sago, tapioca, rice pudding, junket, custard tart, spotted dick - all these desserts we never eat as adults! I had packed lunches, as soon as they were allowed!
6. The head did not use the cane on the boys, after allegedly breaking a bone in a boy’s hand. The deputy head did it instead!
7. If we got into trouble, one punishment was writing out the school rules by lunchtime; but this risked detention for having done it in lessons and not paying attention. I kept a copy in my bag, just in case to avoid that scenario.
8. The deputy head taught all the first years French one period a week to get to know them. He was so fearsome, two girls in my year vomited separately with fear before the lesson.
9. He took my set for O level. He used to tell us the verb must agree with the pronoun, and the adjective must agree with the noun. Make a mistake and he said it was deliberate disobedience - he kept us in every lunchtime for a week, writing said instruction out as lines. Having got both wrong, I had to stay in every lunchtime for a fortnight - never made either mistake again! I got a Grade 1 in French! Still, if you were good at French, he looked after you and would rescind unreasonable punishments from other teachers!

10. As a grammar school, the question was

“Are you going to university; or do you want to work in Woolworths?”

No in between in the days when they regarded polytechnics and vocational courses (other than vets, medicine or dentistry) as not even worth considering! You had to toe the school’s line, such as playing in the school team whether you wanted to or not; or they would not give you a good reference for the UCCA form!

We had red gym knickers at my secondary in the 90s. 70s and 80s school sounds fun!

The boys outside the PE block spending break time relacing their 12 hole DMs.

Had to have the latest bag - barrel, transparent etc

And shoes - wedges, heeled lace ups

And haircut - farrah flicks, shaggy perm, purdey

Smoking in the lavs - none of which had locks on the doors and were covered in graffiti. Roaming at lunch time and buying chips and one fag from the shops. The cane was still in use (boys) and the slipper(girls)
Harrington jackets, rope weave bags, pencil skirts and mini skirts
< South Yorkshire 1977 - 1981>

Ah, mine was a comprehensive school. Don't think the teachers had aspirations for their pupils. We did those psychometric tests in the last year and yet all the girls came out as secretaries or nurses - what are the chances of that.

Gym knickers for PE are a humiliation I will never forget.
One computer for the whole school.
Perms, I had the most horrific perm....

@Popcornismandatory Did the shopkeeper sell you one cigarette?

Gosh, I had such a tame experience (1977 onwards). One blonde girl did Shaders and Toners, but is think she left after a year.

@waltzingparrot yep the corner shop nearest the school sold single fags. This is in the days when as a ten year old I could go to the shops and buy a whole pack for my mum no questions asked!

I remember boys being routinely slippered for not doing as they were told.
The young male teachers used to play football on the field every lunchtime, and the girls all flocked to watch and cheer when their favourite got the ball!
Also remember spam fritters, which were lovely! Also chocolate custard, and cups of coffee as an alternative to pudding (always with milk, and heavily sugared).
People flicking elastic bands in your face.

History teacher smoked in the classroom cupboard during the lessons
At least 1 person gave birth in the loos each year
6th form lunchtime in the pub with the teachers
Teachers went to the bookies for you as unlike the pub the bookie was a bit age strict
English teacher had affair with one of my classmates

(this was 6th form so early 80s)

Blotting paper in shoes to induce fainting in assembly-dozens fell each week

At primary boys did football and girls sewing

Ear piercing with a compass and cork at lunchtime

We did PE and athletics in aertex shirts and navy knickers, even the summer when the school field was being reseeded and we used the field belonging to the college over the road. Had to walk there in shirt and knickers, with the college students whistling and catcalling at us.
It was a police college...

Everybody wore necklaces and earrings with these on.

@CovidClara Were you at a comprehensive too?

I remember in the sixth form (1974), regularly squashing six of us into a tiny car to drive to a pub at lunchtime.
Being the smallest and skinniest, I had to lie across three people’s laps in the back, with my feet sticking out the window. We couldn’t just walk to the pub near the school, as all the teachers drank in there!
We avoided the school dinners as they were revolting. Spam fritters dripping in grease, tough pigs liver with a greenish tinge, boiled to death cabbage, cornflake tart on concrete pastry, semolina, tapioca.
The mashed potato always tasted of cigarette ash - we suspected the cook smoked over the pan and let the ash drop in...

80's - perms, sun in, pan stick, dewberry oil, loose ones ( single fags), wash off fake tan, skirts rolled up, detention where you were made to just sit there ( I tippexed dots all over my hands and arm) . I went to all girls convent across the road from a boys boarding school. We used to sneak in when they were allowed go to the smoking shed after study and get off with them. Nuns who hated you because they had taught your granny and didn't like them.