When you were at school...

[Saint]

There was a girl I knew from the local girls school whose full name was

Sally Louise Anne Grieg

What were her parents think of

[Plavt]

But then there was Mr and Mrs Ochs who christened their son Olly.........



Plavt.

[Bubbles]

This is true, so I was told.....(bet you're now going to say it's an urban legend, but there is a street called this where I went to work....)


There was a girl called............Cheryl Havelot who lived in Everard Street.

Still brings a smile, and yes, I am simple to laugh, but it's the oldies that're the best....

[Baron Greenback]

Last year the Sun newspaper reported that a Mrs & Mrs Peacock had a son & named him Drew

[Bubbles]

Nicknames...........

Why were so many boys at my school called 'Spud?' Anyone else heard of this name?

We had a girl called 'Bobsy' cos her surname was Roberts...(Bob, bobsy), well that's what I thought all these years till I met a boy from my school last year and he said, 'Nah, not cos of that, cos she had big boobs and they were always bobbing up and down.'.........talk about innocent little me! She did though, could have blackened her eyes with them!!!!!

Had a bloke called Shark........and this was the logic of his name..........Mallett was his real surname......hammer.....hammerhead....Shark!! Talk about around the bushes and back...

Dai Central Heating.................(this one is an old joke).....cos he only had one tooth..........do you get it?

Bubbs.

[Plavt]

Yes Bubbles a guy at work years ago was nicknnamed 'spud'. At school us boys were looking back real cruel with some of the nicknames for teachers; the physics teacher and Irishman with a small beard was 'tufty'

An English Teacher: 'Puffer' in reference to his pipe.

The art teacher: 'Scruff' and his wife 'Dilly'.

The Head Master 'Moggy' - your'e gonna kill me for this - he had a Welsh name Morgan.

The cruelest was a maths teacher named Mr Freeman who was an epileptic we called him 'Fitter Freeman' - gross I know but most of these if not all are no longer with us.

Plavt.

[Bubbles]

Oh, forgot RandyMandy, cos that's just what she was and her boyfriend Dipper....now folks, I don't have to explain this one, do I?

[Plavt]

Oh, forgot RandyMandy, cos that's just what she was and her boyfriend Dipper....now folks, I don't have to explain this one, do I?

I hope not............


Plavt.

[Bubbles]

Well Plavt, you never know, there are some out there who are a bit slow on the uptake!!!!!

Why Plavt by the way, strange name? Whoops, sorry if this is your surname or family name.

[Plavt]

One day sometime ago some website wanted a member name, unfortunately I am not very good at thinking up 'handles' and I really don't remember how I thought that one up just did somehow.

Plavt.

[Loops]

I went through a phase of getting into trouble on a Friday and a letter coming home about it on a Saturday morning. My sister was a year older than me and she was the same, so every Saturday we'd be hanging around in the hallway waiting for the school letters so we could intercept them!

It was usually playing truant, grafitti in the school toilets, smoking and having hair dyed weird colours - nothing too serious (or so I thought at the time!).

[Bubbles]

Who remembers anything like this..........ok I was brought up in the valleys of Wales, but there are rivers and trees everywhere......


When we were about nine/ten/eleven, gangs of us girls and boys used to have gang wars...not bad, just name calling and chucking sticks etc, mostly cos we fancied one of the blokes etc....anyway, somedays in the summer holidays (always seemed so long and hot back then, and it was only 6 weeks)....we'd all get together and forget our differences.

It would start off after breakfast, when we'd be outside playing. Mothers didn't watch with such eagle eyes in those days, we had freedom. Someone would say 'Let's go swimming' and off we'd go, to swim in the river near us. It was a big river, and clean. Lots of deep pools and trees overhanging it. Sometimes you see an amazing site, fish swimming up the river in huge shoals, right by your body, millions of them.

You'd get the boys doing 'bombs.' (Holding their legs so that they'd make a big splash, to soak us) then we'd all get together and lift big stones to put across the river, or part of it, to make a 'swimming pool'.....ah, we thought it was fabulous. Then we'd sit on the bank in the scorching sun and eat our 'mams' sandwiches. Sometimes tomato and salad cream, or beetroot, or fishpaste, or if you were posh, ham or cheese. (Which had gone warm and oily, but tasted great.) Then warm orange squash, or Tizer or coke. Sometimes a kit kat, always unrecognisable as one, melted.

We'd have got there on our bikes, all chucked on their sides on the grass, no one nicked them. Saddle bags at the back. Those little wheeled ones were coming into fashion, what were they called? They're back in fashion now, retro.

And dens, who remembers dens? The places you could build them. Up under trees by the river....in the tree....in caves or under old deserted bridges. Sneaking out old saucepans from home to use to 'cook' on fires you started made of sticks surrounded by old stones. Pass the baked beans.....eaten out of plastic cups with plastic spoons. Wash the pot in the river water....and no, none of us died of poisoning.

What about staying up all night, in your room or in a friends, to watch the dawn? Do kids do that nowadays?

I feel sorry for kids today. They're shepherded to ballet, football, french, maths classes after school. They call them after school 'activities' now.

Bah humbug.......NOTHING can be as exciting as things we did alone, as kids. A little bit naughty (Oh mum wouldn't like that)....a bit scary (Not letting HIM see I can't climb this tree)....but so fantastic.

And home for tea. Watch the telly then have a bath. Read a book and go to bed, without moaning cos we were all so shattered. Listen to tiny red radio in bed, no tv in room then.

Yes, we ate real chips fried in lard, yes we had cream on the trifles, and no, we didn't chuck down vitamin pills, but we were so active, and it cancelled out all the bad stuff we ate.

I firmly believe that it made us more outgoing adults. Some of the children I read to nowadays have no idea what 'playing outside' or 'dens' are. Where are we going to get our next generation of adventurers from?

No, I don't advocate complete and utter freedom for the little ones, but I do think a bit of slack does them the world of good.

Yes, there were pervs around when we were young, but what can you do?

Long live the (politically incorrect) Enid Blyton childhood I say. Adventures, mysteries and toast and honey for tea.

(I am remembering the good bits here, and of course, there were rubbish days, but ....what the heck!)

Bubbs.

[Bubbles]

I mean 'sight' not 'site' doh doh doh.

[Matney]

You are spot on, Bubs, about kids playing and adventures! I remember going out behind our chicken house and building a den amongst the trees. Or going into our hay barn and building cubbies with the hay bales, befriending a raccoon. Going fishing along the dam and staying for hours with my packed lunch, drink, etc.

In my younger days, I was an angel until I went to university away from home for the first time. Tried to smoke cigs and pot, but couldn't take it, partied until the wee hours and my grades suffered the first year, wised up afterwards. Remember trying to see how many girls (it was an all girls school, but the boys school was a mile away--a very short mile )we could fit into a VW. I think we had about a dozen, then drove the car up onto the footpath right up to the front door of the dorm and honking the horn until the housemother came out to unlock the door. She wasn't impressed, but it was all clean good fun, as then she make us cocoa afterwards!

Another time I went out to a fraternity party & drank a bit too much, I was told later that my drinks had pure grain alcohol, made it back to the dorm after the guard had unlock the door for the day, stripped everything at the front door and then crawled up the 3 flights of stairs to my bed. I didn't awake until 4 the next afternoon. I think that was the second last time I was totally drunk. Can't remember much about the last time, except it was over a guy who stood me up, a line of drinks, and vomitting my guts out. Not a pretty site