What is it some teachers do that make you remember them?
That second year infant teacher at St P&Ps, who'd threaten to "tan your bacon". She used words I didn't know, but I watched her put a boy over her lap and smack his bottom. She told me off for not knowing the opposite of sharp was blunt.
Mrs Pearce, 1st year juniors at P&Ps when I was too young to be in the juniors. I think that was her name. She was kind to me when I was very young and nervous.
Mr Warren, 2nd juniors at St M’s who gave Jacqueline D and me the ruler for talking. We weren't talking; we were facing each other. He told us that when we said "Man does this" it means mankind and includes the women and us girls in the class.
Miss Thompson who taught French. I heard she was related to the priest and poet Francis Thompson. In first year, she taught her students about how the French make le poisson d’avril, paper fishes andpin them to the backs of the people they wish to tease. In second year, two of our class applied this knowledge. They were the two brightest (Peeny C? and Penny S?) and it was a bit odd that they were at the front asking her questions, but one was distracting her while the other pinned on the poisson d'avril. The class didn't realise until she was leaving the class room at the end of the lesson, when we all saw, but Anne B gasped out loud and Miss Thompson came back in demanding to know the reason. No way would I have said anything because it was too good a joke. She threatened the whole class, and I would have taken the punishment because it was worthwhile even though I'd not thought of it or done it. However, the culprits admitted it.
Honestly, Miss T should have been laughing in the staff room with pride that her lessons had elicited such knowledge.
Mr Ryan, my GCE maths who taught the year's bottom set and didn't expect much of me as he revealed when I got my results, “you did better than I expected." Thank you Mr Ryan.
Mrs Bleslin helped me pass GCE maths because she taught me maths privately on Saturday mornings for nearly a year She was Irish, widowed, and had had a stroke which was why she didn't teach in a school. She was lovely to me, encouraged me, gave me chocolate biscuits.
Mrs Phyllis Dalgleish, collect head of drama who cared how her students did. Years later, I would have liked to contact her to tell her how much I appreciated her lectures and directorship of our productions but she'd died before the web provided a means of contacting her.
Phyllis Ethel (Phyl), late of Digby Stuart College, Roehampton, passed away peacefully on 27 June, 2004. Cremation at Eastbourne Crematorium Main Chapel on Thursday, 8 July at 12.15p.m.
