Poor Mrs Bovington...
The only Cornish teacher in a school full of young Yorkshire miscreants.

God knows how it started, I suspect it's fallen into legend, but for some reason it became known that she really hated the phrase "I 'erd that!", as said in a ridiculous Cornish accent. Which of course, pupils took great joy in saying around her.

I don't know quite what it was that she couldn't ignore or laugh off as childish schoolboy comments, but that phrase got to her like nothing else. Someone I know was standing on a street near our school when he saw her driving past with her window open, so when she had passed he yelled at the top of his voice, in a customarily ridiculous Cornish accent, "I 'ERD THAT!"

The car pulled over.

The shoutee decided it might not be a good idea to stick around, so fled the area rather quickly. But that's how much it annoyed her.

By the time I was in my final year at that school, she was clearly paranoid about it. She used to hussle people up against the walls accusing them of saying it to her and saying that it was "harrassment" and that she would take them to the headmaster. Nobody took her at all seriously until finally, one person was actually excluded for saying it, which shocked the school population. Into large fits of laughter, that she was taking it so seriously...

From then on she used to continue to hussle people up against the wall when she thought she'd 'erd that, often saying with a twisted grin that she'd already got one person excluded from school for uttering "that phrase" as she called it, and that she would have no problems with doing it again.

Shortly before I left that school, I heard her saying to someone that she would go to the police about it next time, as it was harrassment, and for all I know she might be giving a statement right now!

So here's to you, Mrs Bovington. Jesus loves you more than you will know...
( Mushroom, Wed 9 Nov 2005, 14:36, closed)