21st Century Dodos: A Collection of Endangered Objects (and Other Stuff) (16 page)

Blackboard Rubbers

With the death of the blackboard comes that of the blackboard rubber.

Yes, I know that whiteboards also have rubbers, but they don’t leave a comet trail of chalk dust as they fly towards the head of an unsuspecting child who is busy nattering to his best mate about the fact that he can see Jessica Hunter’s knickers.

This is almost as much fun as the sound it makes as it connects with said boy’s head and showers his school blazer with chalk.

Not that teachers are allowed to do that sort of thing any more, more’s the pity.

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Antiseptic in the Playground

OK, this is what used to happen.

You’d be playing British Bulldog in the playground, get splatted by the fat kid in the class above you, and end up with a torn trouser leg and a grazed knee full of grit and dirt.

Holding in the tears, you would hobble over to the dinner lady on duty, present her with your mortal wound, and she would take you to her medical box which contained only three items:

• some cotton wool
  
• a box of plasters
  
• a bottle of mysterious liquid
  

She would then proceed to douse the cotton wool with the mysterious liquid, press it against your knee, tell you to stop being a big baby (as you experienced pain greater than childbirth), and then plonk a plaster over the top and send you on your way.

Nowadays, when a child falls over in the playground, parents get a letter a little something like this:

Dear Mr and Mrs Stack,

Your son/daughter received an injury at school today. The graze was treated with distilled water. No medication was given to your child.

If you have any questions regarding the incident, please do not hesitate to call us.

Yours sincerely,
The Headmistress

ps Please do not sue us.

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Calculator Watches

It is hard to believe now, in a world in which school playgrounds are awash with iPods, mobile phones, Nintendo 3DS, and all manner of other devices, but the most impressive thing a kid could bring into school in the 1970s was a calculator watch.

That is partly because it was one of the few things you were allowed to bring in. OK, so none of those other things were invented then, but these were the early days of portable (albeit very basic) electronic games, and pretty much every school in the land forbade pupils to use them there.

A calculator watch, on the other hand (pun noted, but not intended), was perfectly acceptable. It was, after all, an educational item, although woe betide any child foolish enough to wear one during a maths exam.

Casio was the manufacturer that really went to town on calculator watches, producing a wide variety of versions, each more swanky and with more scientific functions than the last.

Not that many people used their watches for such elaborate equations. They were all too busy with the hilarious result of the sum 6,922,251 x 8.

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Satchels

Whatever happed to satchels? We all used to have them. Slung over the shoulder with just enough room for your schoolbooks, a Spam sandwich, and a Club biscuit, plus a few chewed stubby pencils.

I suppose they were replaced by sports bags with swooshes or three stripes, and designer handbags from knockoff stalls down the market.

A shame, really; I still think they are rather cool. Indiana Jones had one, you know.

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Ice Cream Bricks

Please tell me I am not the only person who remembers these. I have been asking around, and cannot find anyone who recollects them. I am not talking about the blocks of ice cream you can buy in most supermarkets – they are still (thank the Lord!) readily available, and only a quick slice with a sharp knife away from forming the perfect dessert – no, I mean the individual rectangular cuboid of vanilla ice cream that slotted into cones with square holes.

I’ve confused you now, haven’t I? Allow me to elaborate.

At my primary school summer fête there used to be an ice cream stall run by the dinner ladies. They had individual blocks of ice cream, about the size of two Weetabix sellotaped together, but with square corners, wrapped in paper. They also had stacks of wafer cones that had rectangular tops rather than the traditional round ones. When you bought your ice cream cone – they were 10p in my day, but this was a long time ago – they unwrapped a bit of the block, shoved it in the hole, finished unwrapping, and handed it over.

It was the ideal way to serve hundreds of kids without needing a scoop, a tub of hot water, or getting your hands dirty.

Come to think of it, I seem to recall that we would get served these treats once or twice a year at school dinners. I am guessing this was probably the first Monday after the fête!

I haven’t seen any of these rectangular beauties for a good 30 years. I wonder if they still exist?

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Corporal Punishment

This was on its way out when I was a lad back in the ’70s, but it was only eradicated from all British schools as recently as 2003 (where the last private schools in Northern Ireland finally stopped the practice). It was banned in state schools in 1987. The year I left. Coincidence? I think not.

In olden times, the weapon of choice for headmasters and teachers was the cane, a whippy piece of bamboo or similar wood, that would administer a good whack and a mighty sting to whichever part of the body it was applied to with force. To this day, the classic image of a posh schoolboy hiding a book down his trousers to deaden the pain of six of the best is well known to all.

But it wasn’t just the cane, the slipper was also a common punishment implement, presumably because the flexible sole gave it a bit of heft. I can recall my PE teacher using an old trainer to spank the kids who forgot their kit. The fact that he used to administer this punishment in the showers probably harmed his reputation more than it acted as a deterrent.

Some teachers, such as my history teacher Mr Milne, were more creative with their punishments. He would stand behind the offending boy and pick him up by the little straggly bits of hair by the ears; if you didn’t manage to stand up in time with him, then it was agony.

But hilarious to the rest of the class.

And that was the thing. Apart from some extreme cases of proper cruelty, I don’t think most kids minded corporal punishment. It added some excitement to school life. Getting caught doing something wrong got you a wrap over the knuckles or a blackboard rubber hurled at you across the room, and that made it more risky, gave it an edge.

I know I sound like a real old fogey, but discipline in schools now is a genuine problem; there must be some connection between
this and the fact that a teacher can no longer give someone a whack. If my son came home from school and told me he’d had a clip round the ear for being cheeky, I’d say it served him right. Many other parents would sue, the teacher would be suspended, and it would be front-page news.

So, while I am not mourning the passing of a proper bare-arsed caning, I do think it is a shame, for both teachers and pupils, that the war of Us v. Them isn’t made that little bit more dangerous by the allowance of a tiny amount of violence from the grown-ups.

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