Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

Did anything really tragic happen at your school?

302 replies

TattiePants · 23/05/2022 21:11

I’ve spent today thinking about a murder that happened when I was at school over 30 years ago. I think it’s on my mind partly because it happened when I was sitting my GCSEs and DS is doing his now but also it’s been in the local news that another loosely connected child murder may finally be solved.

A boy from year 3 went missing and he was found murdered in a nearby derelict house. In the year prior to that, two other children had been killed in tragic circumstances so it was a really horrible time for the school community. Things got worse when a year 5 boy was arrested for the murder and spent months in custody, missing all his GCSEs. Many of us then had to give witness statements as we knew the arrested boy well. It took over 20 years for the actual murderer to be convicted and unfortunately he’d gone on to murder more boys from my school by then.

In all the years my DCs and friend’s DCs have been at school, they’ve (thankfully) never had anything like this. There’s been fights, teenage pregnancies, minor drug offences etc but nothing on this scale. Did anyone else have something really tragic happen when they were at school.

OP posts:
SirenSays · 23/05/2022 21:53

A boy from my primary school died in a random arson attack.
I remember talking about it with friends and with my parents but I dont remember the school ever actually addressing it.

Then at secondary school we just lurched from stabbing to stabbing. After school, two of my old classmates were jailed for murders.

orangetriangle · 23/05/2022 21:57

sexual abuse from a teacher in primary school

Also in primary a girl was killed knocked off her horse
friends mum committed suicide by putting pipe from exhaust into her car
senior school teacher committed suicide another had a heart attack
in infant school teacher died from cancer and another one in junior school

StopStartStop · 23/05/2022 21:57

Yes. Over fifty years ago, when I was a pupil, one of the boys in my class came to school in tears. His friend, also in the same class had been killed by an articulated lorry the night before. The details were horrific. School had to phone the deceased boy's parents to get the facts.

As a teacher, many tragic things. A boy drowning in a mill pond. A girl murdered by her boyfriend. A death from cancer, aged fourteen. A teacher up a mountain with a school group, dropped dead in front of them.

Cismyfatarse · 23/05/2022 21:57

One of my school friends who had left a couple of years before was on the plane that was blown up over Lockerbie.

BackToWhereItAllBegan · 23/05/2022 21:58

@TattiePants yes, that's the same school. It's only as an adult / parent that I can look back and imagine the terror our parents must have felt at what was happening in our community.

Imnotahippo · 23/05/2022 22:00

Just as I started secondary,some kids (aged between 14 and 17) got into a car (the driver,passenger,3 in the back and 4 in the boot)
driver lost control and smashed into a wall
all dead

two girls walked in to register,sneaked off school grounds and there was a fire
two firefighters lost their lives trying to get the two girls out-it turns out they where wandering round town

when my kids started school they lost a classmate-he had an asthma attack and the family didn’t get help fast enough

another child was moved into his baby brothers room and he put a fuse from a plug in his baby brothers mouth and pushed it right down his throat
the baby died and the family ended up leaving the area

DrSophia · 23/05/2022 22:00

Yes, I imagine that counsellors would be provided now. When I was at school, the levels of care and support were dependent on who your form teacher was! There didn't seem to be a collective way of managing things. Kids came back to school, teachers seemed to 'get on with it' and life seemingly continued. Dreadful really.

Blowyourowntrumpet · 23/05/2022 22:02

Yes, but writing them on an anonymous forum for other people's entertainment is ghoulish.

Badger1970 · 23/05/2022 22:06

I think there were 3 lads in my year who all died in car crashes..... all aged 17. It was horrific at the time going to their funerals and the head teacher telling us all.
This was during the late 80s.

Original poster
TattiePants · 23/05/2022 22:06

@BackToWhereItAllBegan despite it being a very working class town with many social problems, I don’t remember feeling unsafe as a child. Then in the early 90s there were 5 children / teenagers murdered in just a few years, 4 from the same school.

OP posts:
ForAFriend123 · 23/05/2022 22:08

In the 1980s at my primary school, within the space of 6 months one boy died of heart problems, one of leukaemia and horrically one by being knocked over by a milk float (witnessed by several children including myself Sad).

My Mum said the poor headteacher became a shell of himself having to deliver so much tragic news to school and as for any counselling for myself/other children; you must be joking!

FlyingMasticatedParticles · 23/05/2022 22:08

Yes, a boy a few years older than me hanged himself on school grounds at night time. It was very sad.

Overthewine · 23/05/2022 22:08

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at the poster's request.

BaggiesBride · 23/05/2022 22:09

There was a boy in the year above me who fatally set himself on fire. He did it on the school playing field during a weekend. He was 14. Another sad episode was a young couple aged 17, again in the year above me, the boy drove to a local beauty spot and put piping from the exhaust into his car. Within days his girlfriend, unable to live with this, jumped off the motorway bridge. So sad, all with their lives ahead of them.

tootiredtoocare · 23/05/2022 22:14

Our high school had a driveway that circled the school building. Deliveries came in one side, around the back of the building, and left through the opposite entrance. A couple of lads in the year above me, aged about 13/14, and being invincible as young lads tend to believe they are, tried to jump onto the back of a delivery truck to hitch a lift. Only, they fell off and under the wheels. One died at the scene and the other in hospital a few days later. I'd walked past the two of them in the corridor about 5-10 minutes before it happened and I'll always remember them laughing and joking around with each other. I'm very glad I have that memory instead of the memory some of the other kids have, who saw the accident. This is over 35 years ago. That was when schools started banning deliveries during start/finishing/break times.

SuziLikeSuziQ · 23/05/2022 22:16

Yes, mid-late 90s several deaths of pupils at my school in my year or the year or two above/below, mainly due to car accidents, including a good friend right at the beginning of uni, and two girls hit by a bus at the same time outside school. We seemed to have a couple of remembrance services/funerals every year for a few years, it was so tragic.

Also, my DH's then-girlfriend was a teacher when she was murdered. I often wonder if her pupils think about her much and hope they weren't too affected by it.

BackToWhereItAllBegan · 23/05/2022 22:17

@TattiePants same, I never felt unsafe and I don't think the area actually had a major crime problem outside of the incidents we're talking about it, although I may be looking back with rose tinted glasses.
We used to play in the cemetery alone for hours, probably around the age of 8 or 9, and the only thing we were worried about were the creepy giant Angels on the graves!

imnotwhoyouthinkiam · 23/05/2022 22:17

A lad I knew from Drama club died of a heart attack at 13. We weren't at the same school, but were told about it on Thursday night rehearsal and had to be in school the next day. (Not strictly an 'at your school story)
Support at the time amounted to "that's awful. Get on with your work to help take your mind off it"

I mentioned it to my dc the other week (it came up in conversation some how) and I couldn't talk about him without crying. He died 25 years ago.

MrsAvocet · 23/05/2022 22:19

A girl who I was quite friendly with when I was young died of a heroin overdose in sixth form. I'd moved away by then so had lost touch with her but I still think of her nearly 40 years later and wonder what really happened. She was bright and had a great deal of potential. Not that it's ok for anyone to die like that of course, but if you'd looked at our class when we were younger you would have thought she was one of the least likely to get involved with drugs. Just goes to show that you really can't predict these things, and that someone's life may well not really be how it looks on the outside.

EarringsandLipstick · 23/05/2022 22:23

Blowyourowntrumpet · 23/05/2022 22:02

Yes, but writing them on an anonymous forum for other people's entertainment is ghoulish.

Exactly this.

This is a truly horrible thread

Workyticket · 23/05/2022 22:23

Are you in the North East op? Saw on the news that someone's been arrested for an historic child murder at last

AugustSeptemberOctober · 23/05/2022 22:24

Three girls a bit older than me were walking to school in the next village one snowy day. A car skidded into them and one was killed.

When I was about seven, a classmate always used to complain that his legs hurt so he couldn't do PE. The teacher would tell him off for messing about and make him do the lesson anyway. It turned out he had cancer and he died later that year. Towards the end, my mum used to put together "treat boxes" to take to him with sweets and funny books in. I remember him waving from the window the last time we took one to his house Sad

My best friend's dad was a scout leader and is now a convicted paedophile (which came as a huge shock to everyone who knew him).

A teacher fell off his bike and hit his head. Went to bed and never woke up again.

A caretaker was cycling to his job at the school when he was hit by a lorry and killed.

Life is so full of tragedy isn't it Sad

Original poster
TattiePants · 23/05/2022 22:26

@imnotwhoyouthinkiam we were in the middle of GCSEs but it was very much ‘get on with it’ at our school too.

@BackToWhereItAllBegan we walked through the cemetery every lunchtime and me and a friend were sent to Mr F’s office to tell him in excruciating detail about the man who’d just flashed us. He had us straight in the car trying to find him - no idea what he would have done if we had. Hmm, perhaps not as safe as I like to remember!

OP posts:
BertieBotts · 23/05/2022 22:27

Nothing tragic happened at my school. At DS1's school a seven year old girl was murdered by her mother's ex-partner. I didn't know her but I went to the school memorial event to show support and I was so struck by the way the mother had requested the Lord's Prayer. "We forgive those who trespass against us". I thought that showed such incredible dignity, I will never forget it.

motogirl · 23/05/2022 22:28

A girl in the year below me was raped by a long term supply teacher, locked into a cupboard then he tried to blow up the school by opening the gas taps in the science lab - unfortunately for his plan, the ill fitting windows thwarted his plan and he was discovered and convicted