The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Like most people, I went to primary school. Here are some of my memories from my primary (and infant's) school, Birches Green.

Miss Mcmeanus

I was five years old and running around in the Birches Green Infants playground with my friend, James Edwards. We were probably creating a bit of ruckus because one of the teachers, Miss Mcmanus, came over and told us off. She had two girls clinging on to her, one on each arm, in the annoying way girls did to teachers in the playground back then.

"It's dangerous to run in the playground like that. You could hurt someone or yourselves. Never do it again."

I said, "Yes, Miss McMeanus", or something like that. I really did think her name was Miss McMeanus. I wasn't making a joke.

She said, "My name is Miss Mcmanus".

"Sorry, Miss Mcmanus," I said, trying my best to look humble and apologetic.

As she walked off, the tension lifted and James and I let out a spontaneous, carefree laugh.

Laughing was our mistake. Miss Mcmanus spun around and I swear?e=e fire came out her mouth and nostrils.

"How DARE YOU!" she said, marching up to me. She was targeting me specifically and not James. "Go inside RIGHT NOW and stay there for the rest of your playtime."

So I walked into the school like a sad puppy. I went to my classroom and there was a teacher there, marking schoolwork.

"Why are you here?" she asked, surprised. "Shouldn't you be playing outside?"

"Miss Mcmanus told me to come inside because I got her name wrong", I said. I really did think that was the reason she had sent me inside: that I'd gotten her name wrong.

The teacher was surprised by this news. But then she nodded and went back to marking her schoolwork. She was probably used to Miss Mcmanus giving out cruel and unusual punishments for the slightest of infractions.

When the break was over, Miss Mcmanus and the rest of the children came back inside. She saw me standing dejectedly by the door like a dog that's been punished.

"Tell this teacher why I sent you inside," she demanded.

"Because I got your name wrong," I said, looking sad.

"No! That's not why I sent you inside. I sent you inside because you disrespected me. You disrespected a teacher. You laughed at me as I was walking away."

The other teacher, who had been sympathetic to me up until this point, now looked at me angrily. It must have been a really bad thing to laugh at a teacher at Birches Green.

So I never did it again.

Not while they were within earshot, anyway.

Mr Gospel banning things

Mr Gospel banned anything that had even the remotest chance of causing disagreements, upset or violence.

In practice this meant he banned everything. Conkers: banned. Pogs: banned. Pokemon cards: banned. The game of British Bulldog: you can bet your ass that was banned. In 1999 (I think), he banned Wednesday Club so there were no more Wednesday Clubs after that.

Banning Wednesday Club was the worst thing he ever did. How could he ban something that was pure happiness and joy? Something so pure and innocent? How, in other words, could he kill a mockingbird? In my eyes, banning Wednesday Club was tantamount to treason, but he did it anyway.

My brother says that Mr Gospel even banned running and I believe him. I'm sure he would have banned the emotion of joy itself if he could. If it were up to Mr Gospel, we would have all been strapped to chairs with morphine going into our mouths to keep us sedated and from hurting ourselves. He was like the AI from I, Robot that decides humanity can't be trusted when left to its own devices and needs to be controlled.

At one point, everyone in our class was so sick of Mr Gospel banning things that we sat down in the playground and did the rowing dance to "Oops Up Side Your Head" as a form of protest. But I think he banned that too. Of course he did.

One time, Power Rangers was popular, and we liked to pretend we were Power Rangers, by kicking and hitting each other of course, which is what I think Power Rangers do to each other as far as my dusty memory can recall. But once Mr Gospel got wind of this violent and potentially fun game, you can sure as hell bet that he banned it.

But some kids carried on playing Power Rangers. The human spirit will prevail. So one day Mr Gospel got two Year 6s up on stage in assembly and told them, "Do what Power Rangers do."

Then one of the kids punched the other kids in the face and caused his nose to bleed in front of the whole school, causing Mr Gospel to shout, "This is why you don't play Power Rangers!"

The irony was that the playground was built to be hostile. The whole playground had been paved with concrete. It wasn't smooth concrete either, but concrete with tiny shiny jagged parts sticking out of it. Any fall or stumble was made ten times worse by the hard, rough concrete that greeted your knees and palms. Many a time I fell over and ended up with scratched knees and elbows.

Where was the grass? Where were the verdant fields? There was grass, but this was in the Infant's school. And besides, no kids were allowed to play on the grass. It was just there to look at and for the occasional school sports day. Stepping on that grass resulted in a shrill, shrieking telling off from one of the teachers or dinner ladies.

It was one of the great ironies of life. There, within sight, was a perfect place for kids to play: a verdant field of moisture-rich green. But Mr Gospel wouldn't let us play there. No, we had to play on concrete, one of the hardest and harshest materials known to man (along with the school's chocolate concrete cake).

The time Mr Gospel's car got scratched

One day we were all called into the hall for an emergency assembly. It transpired that someone had scratched Mr Gospel's car and we were all due a bollocking.

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves,“ Miss McManus was saying. “I am appalled by this behaviour. Do you hear me? Appalled!”

Every time she said "appalled" I winced, because my name is Paul and it sounded like she was saying my name.

It was his own fault his car got scratched. He parked his car in the playground, which is where children play (Hello? It's a playground? A ground for playing?), so it was bound to get scratched or broken at some point. He should’ve just parked his prize possession cars on the road outside the school and then it wouldn't have been damaged.

School dinners

I hated the school dinners. They smelled like potato, baked beans and sick, although I might be imagining the last one. I hated baked beans in particular and wouldn't eat them. That was the one food I refused to eat but it seemed to be the one food they always had.

One time I pretended the sausages we were eating were penises. "Hey, you're eating a penis," I'd say to my friend next to me. "That's not a sausage, it's a penis." I thought it was hilarious but one of the dinner ladies told me off for that.

Luckily I rarely had to suffer from a school dinner because my mom would make a packed lunch for me. It was like being the 1% of the dinner hall. Instead of eating potato and baked beans, I had:

• a sandwich, cut into little dainty triangles as if I were a prince
• an apple
• a bag of Walkers crisps
• a chocolate bar (Yo Yo, Penguin, etc.)

That's a good lunch if you ask me. Having a school dinner, in contrast, was like the boarding house scene in Oliver, where each child receives a bowl of gruel.

My brother was unfortunate because by the time he was going to school, my family were doing worse financially and we lived off school meal vouchers. Because of this, he had a school dinner every day.

One day he found a fly in his jelly. It was perfectly preserved, like a mosquito in amber. You could have retrieved dinosaur DNA from that fly and recreated the dinosaurs but unfortunately, he scraped the jelly into the bin before scientists had a chance to look at it.

Another dessert at Birches Green was called chocolate concrete. It was harder than actual concrete. Its unusual properties made it more structurally sound than the building we were eating in. If the school roof should collapse, the only surefire way to survive would be to shelter under the chocolate concrete.

Adam and the two desserts

There was one teacher at Birches Green called Miss Darby. She was a mean teacher and everyone hated her. She would patrol the lunchroom making sure that everyone ate every last morsel of their awful food. She made everyone eat all their food even if they weren't hungry.

Adam used to hide the crusts of his sandwiches up his sleeves so he wouldn’t have to eat them.

In Adam's class there a boy in his year called Big 1-year-old. He was huge, like a colossus. He towered over the whole school. Adam was standing next to Big 1-year-old one lunchtime.

Big 1-year-old said, “Can I have a second portion of dessert?”

“Okay,” said the dinner lady, and gave him a second portion.

Adam couldn’t believe it. Two portions of dessert!

He tried his luck. “Can I have a second portion of dessert too?” he asked.

“Hmm... okay,” said the dinner lady, and gave Adam a second portion too!

Adam sat down to eat his lunch.

His friends were finishing up and going out to play. Adam was rushing to finish lunch so he could go out to play too. He got his main course down to a few beans and bits of cold mash and went to start on his double dessert. The dinner ladies surrounded him and told him to finish the beans before starting the dessert.

One dinner lady said, 'You wanted all that food so you're eating it.'

Adam stared at those cold beans all lunch and cried. The dinner ladies wouldn't let him leave. Eventually lunchtime was over and they had to let him go to class. He never did eat his two desserts.

Adam and the detention

In Year 5 of Birches Green, there was a Christmas musical to raise money. Children had to go off in pairs and knock on people’s doors in the neighbourhood to invite pensioners to the school. Adam needed a wee and he was thirsty so he took the opportunity to go inside his own house.

You were only supposed to knock on the houses on your list however. There were two kids over the road and they saw Adam go in. They snitched to Mrs Darby. Adam then had to go see the headteacher. He got detention for weeks and he was banned from out of school activities.

In detention, there was only Adam and some kids who shoplifted a packet of polos (worth 20p). These kids only got one detention whereas Adam got something like ten detentions.

School uniform

We wore a school uniform, which was a white shirt, green jumper, and grey trousers or skirt. When I got home, my mom would ask me why the sleeves of my shirt were green. It was because I'd been using the sleeves to wipe my runny nose.

Occasionally, on special days, we'd get to wear our own clothes to school. Every boy, without exception, wore tracksuit bottoms. This was the late 90s and tracksuits were what people wore in the 90s. Never mind that we didn't do any exercise.

The number of stripes on the trousers indicated how much they cost and therefore your social worth, like a rudimentary tribal system. Trousers with three stripes were Adidias and were therefore worn by the rich and popular kids. Trousers with two stripes were worn by average kids. And God help you if you only had one stripe on your trousers. Only the cheapest tracksuit bottoms had one stripe on them. You'd be shunned like a leper.

Mr Gospel retiring

I wasn't there when the headteacher, Mr Gospel, retired. I'd left the school by that point. But it must have been an emotional day because all the parents loved Mr Gospel. Some parents even wanted to do a campaign to bring him back. Bring him back?! The poor man is retired, let him rest. He probably couldn’t wait to leave. He probably hates children.