like Tom Brown's Schooldays...
6th! Woo!

Now, my school was one of those Public Schools that people seem to think is either like Hogwarts, or St Trinians. (We did in fact convince some friends' kids that I'd gone to Hogwarts, but that's a side issue)

Cherished memories include:
1) Having to run round the track in my swimming trunks because PE had switched from swimming to Gym without warning and my gym kit was in the wash...Oh, yeah, this was outside and in November...

2) Having classes where there was ice on the inside of the windows in winter...yet not being allowed to wear our coats as that was ill-disciplined. Likewise in summer, you could boil before you were allowed to remove your blazer...

3) Being allowed to wear our own clothes in the 6th form. As long as "own clothes" meant a suit. In grey or blue. With a white shirt. Great - so I get to dress like a bank manager in something that is totally non-hardwearing and that means I can't sit on the grass in summer, or play football, etc, at lunch time. Yes, I can feel the joy of freedom rising already.

4) The swimming pool (now sadly demolished and replaced with a full olympic pool and sports centre) - it was, I believe, the oldest indoor pool in England, or at least in Surrey. Nice asbestos skin on the water, wrought iron rail just below water level to pull your arm out of the socket and a breeze whistling through the doors at the end. Changing room door open to the courtyard, so the teacher could have a sly fag and of course there was no heating on. They used to turn the pool heater on briefly in the morning, so you prayed for an early swim - if it was in the afternoon, you might as well break the ice on the nearest river and jump in...

Still, I actually enjoyed my time there and often miss it - I made friends, played wargames, did a lot of Rugby, tinkered with computers, found my niche and got on with it. Other former pupils include Angus Deayton and the current captain of Northampton cricket club, so it produces and eclectic bunch!
(Chad, Thu 29 Jan 2009, 12:25, 2 replies)

You are an Old Cat.
AICMFP.

Other highlights included ivy growing through the swimming pool walls (and thus causing perpetual fear of an imminent collapse of the roof) and a rugby pitch on top of a giant hill, so that by the time you got to the playing fields at the start of games lessons you were already knackered. Teachers of course had no qualms about arriving by car, and would smirk as they blazed past you into the car park, fragging up clouds of shrapnel gravel that nicely shredded your knees.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Thu 29 Jan 2009, 14:00, closed)

Kingston Grammar School?
I might be wrong though, it was the suits that made me think it was.
(claireyfairy There's a smell in here that will outlast religion, Sat 31 Jan 2009, 17:55, closed)