The MD 50 greatest school related memories of our youth list. In order.

Number 50

Everybody wearing exactly the same strange sandals in primary school
Number 49

The horrors of the swimming pool foot bath. Floating Elastoplast and ground zero verruca infection.
Number 48

The Snorkel Parka
Number 47

Warm milk and a stale Sports Biscuit served by a smug 'Monitor'.
Number 46

Plasticine.

The supreme pleasure of opening a new packet. No cross colour contamination, plenty of elasticity, yet to be shoved in noses, ears or chewed for a dare.
Number 45

Road safety in the big hall: ‘Any volunteers to be knocked down?’
Number 44

Popping out of school at lunchtime to listen to dial-a-disc or be terrified by Wearside Jack.
Number 43

Mary, Mungo and Midge.

Watched on your own in a freezing cold house when you were off sick from school.
Number 42

The Banda duplicator. Operated by a perma-smoking Technician in a mysterious little room.
Number 41

School glue
Number 40

Izal horror
Number 39

Taught in a portakabin on the playground while part of the school was condemned/flooded/burned down
Number 38

The custard jug
Number 37

The Bunsen burner.

Gas, fire, asbestos and classroom full of lunatics. What could go wrong?
Number 36

Coming home from school with your 'instrument' after joining the school band
Number 35

The rope: the humiliation of not being able to do it Vs the pain and broken bones of falling off from the top.
Number 34

Smoking in the bike shed

"But Sir, they are only Menthols"
"Ah, OK - be off with you" (not even confiscated)

Everyone on Embassy within a year. Then Park Drive, Senior Service, industrial strength roll-ups (later with filter discarded). Gone by 50.
Number 33

"ONE f*cking sausage?"
Number 32

The Overhead Projector (OHP)

"IT'S BACK TO FRONT SIR! IT'S UPSIDE DOWN SIR! THE END'S CUT OFF SIR! IT'S ALL SMUDGED SIR!"

The drama of the blown bulb.
Number 31

The language lab.

Now it's all hub. Then it was all lab.
Number 30

School holiday potato picking. £1 per day.
Number 29

The Duralex school milk glass

When dropped would either bounce or absolutely explode.
Number 28

The magnificence of a decades old graffitied desk.

"Every dog has its day"

Social history.
Number 27

The absolute ball-ache of book backing
Number 26

The ill-fated hockey experiment.

Worst mistake in the history of the school: let's play hockey like the posh kids. Essentially, weaponising lads with long-standing grudges. Mass brawl and multiple hospitalisations in the very first game. Hockey kit never seen again
Number 25

The age of protest. We talked about it. The lasses did it ✊
Number 24

Borrowing a school recorder.

Initial reassuring whiff of Dettol, followed by the horror of discovering a small reservoir of collective spittle in the head.
Number 23

The vault box. Nobody had got a clue what to do with it. Used exclusively for sitting on at school discos or hiding in.

Teachers appeared to be flummoxed as well: "Go go over it in an interesting manner".
Number 22

Getting vaccinated.
Number 21

The school cross country run. Staggering levels of cheating. One 'winner' got his brother to take him half way round on his Honda 50. Regularly got attacked with catapult wielding maniacs as well.
Number 20

The canvas school bag
Number 19

Menu: Mince, Cabbage, Potatoes, Semolina, Pears.

Often on the same plate.
Number 18

The school geometry set. With sinister compass and an even worse double pointy thing.
No 17

The School Trip

Went to an airport. None of us had even seen let alone been on a plane. No money for the observation deck, so we had to watch the planes form the car park. Brilliant day. Came home with dreams of being a pilot/air hostess. Or in one case, a coach driver
Number 16

Getting nits.

'They only like clean hair'.
Number 15

The school bell.

Could be heard from outer space.
Number 14

Your dog following you to school
Number 13

Making paper chain Christmas decorations
Number 12

Sandpit tension.

Lad in the middle with the hammer looks like he's gonna blow. But those are not the shoes of a hard man.
Number 11

The school Bible with the utterly terrifying picture of the devil in it.
Number 10

6th formers. No uniform. Strange and wonderful albums under their arms.
Number 9

Old school desks with inkwells. In a new 70's school. The Head explained: 'There's a good reason for that: the Local Education Authority are all Communists'.
Number 8

The Trainee Teacher *sigh*
Number 7

A kid with a pot on at school after falling off the Witches Hat.
Number 6

An abacus in every classroom
Number 5

Getting your head stuck in the school railings.

Ears soaped. Then the fire brigade,
Number 4

You best friend emigrating with his family, never to be seen again.
Number 3

The Video.

The technician had to go on a course to operate it.

Two strong lads needed to wheel it into the classroom.

'Tracking' was always an issue.

Ended up under armed guard as within a week, most of Airdrie had cleared a spot for it in their front rooms.
Number 2

Diving for a rubber brick in your nylon pyjamas.

Then inflating your pyjama bottoms to make a buoyancy aid.

Never quite getting the smell of chlorine out of them.
Number 1

Our Ma

We got caned, suspended & made to wear a ribbon for refusing to cut our hair. Our Ma worked in the school kitchen. She thinned our hair with a Trimcomb (nothing off the length) & silently served it to the Head on a plate when he passed through the servery.
All the dinner ladies threatened to go on strike if any action was taken against her. None was.
'Bad effort. 2/10. Please see me.'
Once, we had no wallpaper so we were forced to use our sister's Jackie.

The only lads in Airdrie with a David Cassidy/Horse history book.

Metro-sexual revolutionaries.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Memorial Device

Memorial Device Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @memorialdevice

18 Nov
The MD Top 40 greatest car related memories of our youth list. In order.

Number 40

The original Krooklok.

Ours could be opened by swearing loudly at it.
Number 39

An oil stained Haynes Car Repair Manual
Number 38

The Morris Minor Traveller

Sanding & varnishing. A car.
Read 42 tweets
16 Nov
The MD top 40 Christmas presents of our youth list.

In order.

Number 40

The Popeye alarm clock.

For years, the greatest thing we possessed. Ticked louder than Big Ben, with an almost silent alarm. Useless but beautiful. ImageImage
Number 39

Toffee with a HAMMER!

The hammer later being used as an actual DIY tool. Image
Number 38

Scalextric.

17 people in our front room. A record. A car flew off on a bend and ended up in the fish tank. Still talked about in Airdrie to this day. Image
Read 41 tweets
8 Nov
The MD guide to the 50 greatest 70s household dangers. In order. Part 2.

Number 50

The Pink Panther Bar. Officially the sweetest substance ever made. Enough sugar to turbo-rot teeth. Enough e-number to destabilize a child for 8 hours. Why dentists drove sports cars in the 70s. Image
Number 49

The phone lock/party line combo. Da had another accident with the electric carving knife? Need an urgent ambulance? Better make sure you've got the key and the neighbours aren't using the party line. And it's after 6pm because nobody dared use the phone until then. ImageImage
Number 48

The borrowed school recorder. Initial reassuring whiff of Dettol, followed by the horror of discovering a small reservoir of collective spittle in the head. A germ farm. ImageImage
Read 50 tweets
6 Nov
The MD guide to the 40 greatest 70s household dangers. In order.

Number 40

A car battery permanently on charge. On the kitchen table. Sparking and giving off fumes that made the dog wobble. And leaking sulphuric acid.
Number 39

The sixpence in the Christmas pudding. Chipped teeth, emergency deployment of the Heimlich maneuver and various nasty conditions caused by 'retrieving' the accidentally swallowed coin.
Number 38

Dental mayhem. Fillings ragged out with a rogue Toffo. Lose teeth removed with a bit of string and a door handle.
Read 44 tweets
3 Oct
The MD guide to the top 30 coolest* bass players of all time. In order.

*Not the best - the coolest. There may be some crossover.

30. Cáit @rockyoriordan O'Riordan Image
29. Dominic Aitchison Image
28. Gerry Love Image
Read 30 tweets
2 Oct
The MD guide to the 20 best looking rock n' roll bands of all time*. In Order.

* not the prettiest bands, the bands that looked the best together.

20. The Pretenders Image
19. The Manic Street Preachers Image
18. Pink Floyd ImageImage
Read 20 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!