Surviving School In The Eighties UK

Apart from messing about with Bunsen burners, what else did you play around with at school to annoy your classmates or, if you were brave, the teacher?

Bunsen Burner - photo source https://www.facebook.com/everthing1980s

Me? Well, just like my main character, Dylan Wolfendale, in my debut novel ‘Crulus,’ I went through comprehensive school in Wales during the eighties, and there were lots of things that were used to prank or annoy your classmates and teachers.

There was that annoying green slime-in-a-pot, which you could set ‘time delay’ charges on the ceiling and wait for them to lose their grip and splat onto someone’s head during the lesson. Spud guns were all right for a laugh if you could nick a potato without annoying your mam too much, although the spud ‘bullets’ were more annoying than painful.

If you preferred loud distractions, cap guns, cap rockets and fireworks were the way to go, although you needed serious balls to let off a firework (usually a ‘banger’ lit and thrown by hand) in the school grounds. I remember trying to squeeze as many caps as possible into my cap rocket in order to get the loudest possible ‘explosion’ when you threw it. You could also just bash a whole roll of caps together under a stone to achieve a similar sound effect.

Spud Gun, Whoopee Cushion and Cap Bomb, photo ©️Llrâc Nôdbé

In the classrooms themselves you were limited to what you could do and, more importantly, get away with. One simple ‘weapon,’ which needed no smuggling skills, was the trusty Bic pen—not the one with four refills built in, though. The Bic pen lid was great for chewing whilst being stressed with homework or exams, and the case itself—with refill and plastic end plug removed—became a perfect pea shooter. Although, the peas were actually wet, spit covered, paper balls that were rolled up and blown at classmates or stuck to the ceiling next to the dried blobs of slime.

The odd stink bomb strategically placed under the teachers desk or chair leg would guarantee to clear the classroom and undoubtedly get you detention and/or lines, and it was common for a teacher to be hunting down the culprit after one was smashed in a corridor. By smashed, I literally mean smashed—the stink bombs were small, liquid-filled glass vials.

Stink Bombs

In my novel ‘Crulus,’ Dylan’s form teacher, Mr Harwood, is like most teachers in the eighties; they had their own weapon of choice to ‘educate’ their pupils. The most obvious one that a Gen X person would think of is one that every teacher had close to hand, because probably every classroom had one—the dreaded chalk board rubber, which was a hefty lump of wood with felt bristles on one side, which the teacher used to clear his or her chalk from off the rolling black board. Said board rubber was often launched at the head of unruly pupils, whilst wooden rulers were great for reddening palms. Some extreme teachers, like Mr Harwood, even had wooden gavels, leather straps or tawse, and even hocky sticks to maintain order in class.

Mr Harwood's Desk, Draigwen Town Comprehensive School, photo ©️Llrâc Nôdbé

Personally, I think the complete removal of corporal punishment was a bad idea by the UK government. Yes, there were some teachers, and parents, that took the punishment to a whole new level, sometimes bordering on abuse, but I do believe people like that would have physically abused kids regardless of the rules at the time. For me, just the fear of being punished was enough to make me behave, although, when I did misbehave, I was always punished twice, once by the teacher and once by my father, when he found out about my indiscretion. One thing I certainly gained from it was respect for my elders and authority, even though I hate being told what to do.

School Absence Letter ©️The Whizzkid’s Handbook by Peter Eldin

Going back to the lighter side of eighties schooling, Whoopee Cushions, fake blood, and fart spray from the joke shop in Porthcawl, or the Matchrite ‘Joke Shop By Post’ were also good for a few laughs, but they’d get confiscated if you were caught, which was just a waste of your pocket money. Incidentally, there was no Internet or online shops in those days, so buying from Matchrite meant getting a paper postal order from your local Post Office to the value of your purchase and sending it snail mail to the company. Sometimes it was weeks before your items arrived through the post.

Matchrite The Funny Business - Joke Shop By Post

There are probably loads of other school antics that I’ve forgotten about, but one thing I do remember is the wonderful book that helped me to survive school—The Whizzkid’s Handbook by Peter Eldin.

Now when I say it helped me through school I don’t mean that in the literal sense as it certainly wasn’t one of my official educational schoolbooks, but it definitely helped me in the earlier years to take my mind of the bullies and actually have a laugh. Whether it was making a ‘Teacher-Distractor,’ learning to fire the ‘Classroom Shooter’ or simply just cheering myself up by learning new definitions such as:

BACTERIA – the rear door of a self-service café

BIPLANE – what the pilot says as he jumps out

DENIAL – a river in Egypt

INFANTRY – baby soldiers

SCHOOL – a place where they teach you things you’ll never need to know when you leave

The Whizzkid's Handbook, photo ©️Llrâc Nôdbé

Books, whatever the genre, encourage children, and adults alike,  to broaden their horizons, to leave the real world behind, and delve into a world where imagination is boundless. It enables them to read the wonderful joined-up words that some amazing author—who was saved from being mentally unstable, penniless, and stressed out—spent months or even years bleeding onto page after page and, one day, finally plucked up the courage to publish.

'Crulus' will introduce the younger generations to schooling in the eighties and should allow the Gen X to reminisce of times gone by.