As prefects in our final year we strolled to the front of the dinner line as other people pushed and shoved each other out of the way to avoid the queue . My lunch varied quite considerably from chips with cheese, to chips with cheese and beans almost certainly followed by a sugar coated doughnut filled with an oozy chocolate centre. We were very healthy. I can't imagine what its like to go to school now where you are encouraged to eat fruit and vegetables. If that had been the case back then I would have been very skinny.
It was always a race to get out of school first before my brother Rob, as whoever got there first got to give their friends a lift home. Although I have many memories of all of us piling in, sometimes the two of us plus Steven, Colette, Jenny and last but not least little Ian who got severely squashed once when I saw a spider on my side of the window. I doubt he's ever got over the trauma. This was all in the back of my mums mini metro which groaned as it pulled up the hill with the weight of too many teenagers. Sometimes I'd walk home with Jenny as we both did a paper round after school on a Wednesday evening. Jenny walked so fast I remember panting to keep up with her but the upside was that we were home in a bout 10 minutes, probably quicker than getting a lift with all the drop offs on the way home. Other times big groups of us would dawdle home down Shirley road, past the sweet shop where there was always a momentary stop to buy ice poles (no matter what time of year). I remember eating a blue raspberry ice pole with gloves on in winter, they were just so good and only 15p.
No matter what school you went to everyone remembers their teachers who always seem to be extraordinary characters. Our teachers at Shirley were no exception and particularly in Science had fantastic names, you can't even make this stuff up. Our Physics teacher was called Mr Bean and for Chemistry Mr Sentence. Its such a shame he wasn't an English teacher I think he missed his calling. Mr Bean was forever taking his glasses off and Shuva and I used to do a tally chart of how many times he took them off and put them back on again. I can't remember the final result but I know it was alarmingly high. Mrs Grant was our Biology teacher a Scottish lady with a fiery temperament who always seemed to amuse the class by accident. She once walked around with a piece of string attached to the back of her skirt for an entire day. Jenny and I tried to advise her that at the front of the class Rory had set the bin on fire by putting in a lit splint but she didn't believe us and instead stood there shouting at us and wagging her finger. She loved us really. She used to bring in various animal specimens for us to dissect, the pigs eyeballs that she pulled casually out of her handbag one morning caused a particular stir... I'm sure the photosynthesis experiment lasted for an entire term as all I remember about Biology is Lisa continually cutting up potato's. We didn't appear to be as well prepared for our GCSE Biology exam as we thought as none of us had a clue how to artificially inseminate a cow. We must has missed that lesson. Mr Sowen another Chemistry teacher pretty much lived in the library (at least these were the rumours). He was perhaps the most interesting character of all, speaking Icelandic, jumping around doing helium impressions and putting mysterious powders into students hands before explaining their high levels of toxicity. Sitting in his lab amongst a collection of pickled hedgehogs and embryos whilst he threw reactive substances into a Bunsen burner was quite an experience.
Languages...I have to be honest as soon as my options allowed it French became a distant memory, however who could forget the French teacher Mrs Loy who had an unhealthy obsession with Barbie and Ken. I remember she had a mini plastic Eiffel tower on her desk and taught me for 3 years which resulted in her still not knowing my name. Karen and Laura used to start Mexican waves around the classroom when her back was turned. She had no idea. I really enjoyed German and did quite well but our German teacher Mr Muldoon was Irish, I don't think much more need be said about that.
For one of my options I chose Design & Tech Graphics, which I later discovered was the class which everyone that didn't want to do anything else also chose. Because of this I became Mrs Miller's teachers pet which was not a bad thing in her class as you did not want to get on the wrong side of her scary shouting episodes. She once accused someone of cheating and after a full blown row he just walked out of the school. I remember designing my own fast food chain outlet and designing a pager, I was also the only person to sit their GCSE exam in this subject out of my class.
Home economics was my absolute worse subject (aside from P.E) and Mrs Graham my most feared teacher. I think I actually used to 'quake in my boots' before her lessons. Mrs Graham used to use myself and Karen as examples of what not to do. Karen used to run over to me to check what my food looked like before making food as bad as I did. Some people never bought ingredient's so they could sit in detention and others bought pre-chopped food so they looked like they knew what they were doing, but they always got found out and disgraced. My mum used to ring Karen's mum in the morning to swap and share ingredients. The Teddy shaped jam sandwich fiasco still gives me nightmares, the foul pepper scones and the dreaded tasting sessions. My biggest problem (apart from not being able to cook anything) was that I never knew how long to leave something in the oven. So I'd trail behind Mrs Miller trying to get her attention, who would just snap 'I'll be there in a minute' and by the time she came over to my bench (last) whatever it was would be burnt and she'd say 'Why didn't you take it out of the oven?' it was a vicious circle.
I actually really enjoyed History at school. The first year we had Mr Evans who used to swear in class to make us giggle and confiscate peoples cigs which he was later seen smoking. The rest of the time I had Mrs Harker all the way up to GCSE. She used to put on a documentary and tell the 'fellas' to quiet down. Shuva and I used to challenge ourselves by bringing in a selection of sweets which were hard to eat quietly. The best ones were individually wrapped Murray mints as they were impossible to open without rustling. Strawberry laces were also quite amusing as they always attracted attention. Shuva and I always sat together in front of Eve and Becki. Shuva made me laugh so much during our mock exam when she decided that the NLA was the National Lawnmowers Association. Mrs Harker didn't find it quite so amusing.
For some reason the teachers always thought I was good at Maths until year ten when someone finally realised I wasn't and moved me down a set. When we first started school we had Mr Parker who we thought was really cool as he played electric guitar in the school concert. Later on I had Mr Cloves who had an obsession with Jestive biscuits. Lots of the girls fancied him (not I, I'd like to add) but he was funny especially the mix up with the 'Crutch of the matter'.
P.E was pretty awful at school (for me) apart from the last year when we got to go offsite and do things like aerobics and aqua. I did enjoy Mrs Francis aerobics session which concluded with 10 minutes of relaxation lying on the floor (that was my favourite part) and trampolining was good fun trying to do as many swivel hips as you could in a row. Mr Box was a stereotypical P.E. teacher, I have a not so nice memory of him making a chubby former self attempt to climb out of the pool without the using the steps, to an audience. It was always best to have P.E. at the end of the day because then you could try and sneak out of school without getting changed back into your school uniform. If you forgot your P.E. kit you had to wear something from lost property which essentially meant a smelly item of clothing left behind by a random. I suppose it was a good incentive to remember your kit. Cross country was hideous, it always seemed to be freezing and I couldn't run, at all. I think I actually only ran (walked) it once possibly twice as I used to beg my mum to write me a note to get out of it. My memories of Netball consist of standing in the middle of a cold winter playground 'blocking' the girl of my nightmares (the tom boy with more muscles in her arms than I had in my whole body) and lamely waving my hands in the air while the teacher screamed at me from the side lines 'BLOCK!!!' What happened to junior school P.E. where you just ran and jumped about in your pants to music. They've just got it all wrong.
My favourite lesson was Music, in fact I think this kept me sane. As well as taking music for GCSE I had drum lessons which usually took place during other lessons (bonus) . The worst thing about this was that you couldn't hear the bell in the practice room and so when I came out of my drum lesson I quite often ending up walking into the wrong class. Mr Hart was quite strict and would sometimes do a playful drumroll on my head with his drumsticks if I wasn't paying attention, but my favourite lessons were the jamming sessions where he'd play piano and I'd play along on the drums. Mr and Mrs Aston were our music teachers and also used to run the concerts and drama productions. Our music room was at the very top of the building so when we set up for school concerts we had great fun carrying the drum kit down all the stairs to the school hall...
I remember in year 9 Mrs Aston always used to make Colette and I put our blazers on which were by then 2 sizes too small and we composed an awesome little tune entitled 'We are Warnock and Harvey' (Colette will remember that one). When Eve and I joined the orchestra we would wait for Mrs Aston to hand out all the music to the various instruments and then tell us to make something up to go with it. I always used to mime in the choir which now makes me laugh because I am always singing. I played my GCSE drum solo at a school concert which was nerve racking mainly because it sounded so loud echoing around the school hall, and I'll never forget Dad winning the raffle prize at the school concert because he was wearing lary bright red shorts and Rob and I pretended we didn't know whose dad he was. The drama productions were brilliant, I had small parts in a few of the early ones and in the last few years played the drums for the music. There was an excitement about rehearsals and performance nights. Having a program with your name in it. Something funny always used to happen during rehearsals, like when Mr Aston ripped his trousers on the piano and when Rob used to blow Fish's music off his stand when he was about to start playing the Tuba. The orchestra would get smoked out by the dry ice machine and I swear the music for the Fame Game got faster and faster every night to the point where I thought my arms might fall off. I was definitely not sad to leave school in year 11 but I was sad to leave music.
I have a limited selection of school photographs most of which are terrible and thankfully blurry but I do love this pic of my music class which sums up the best of Shirley for me and there's some faces in there that are still a part of my life including Jamie (who would have thought back then that we would be together), Charlotte, Eve and Mr Aston who recently taught me to drive! Couldn't have predicted that one either!!
So many memories these are but a few, add yours in the comments I would love to hear funny stories I've forgotten all about!!
