Forget-me-nots
As our schools are contemplating how to make classrooms safe, Derek Lamb remembers a more reckless time
It was dangerous at school, says Derek Lamb
SCHOOL is often described as “the happiest days of your life”, and mine were certainly enjoyable. But I think they also qualify as the most dangerous. Now, in no way was my school negligent; it simply followed the practices of the time when it came to health and safety.
Games and gym were probably the most hazardous. Rugby is a contact sport and we played without gum shields or head protection. Crosscountry running presented an entirely different risk. We ran without supervision, with nothing more than a handful of winter mixture sweets for protection. On one occasion, our run was combined with returning some netball posts to a school that was on the route. It was a cold and foggy morning and the posts were heavy and awkward. Against the odds, no boys were injured and the posts were delivered, largely intact.
In summer, we faced the hazards of cricket balls, javelins and other missiles. On one memorable occasion, an errant discus hit the PE mistress, sending her to hospital with concussion.
Our science lessons were enjoyable as they were often interactive. Bubbling test tubes, acids and Bunsen burners were all closely observed without any eye protection. Safety glasses would certainly have been helpful when a gas jar of oxygen exploded during a demonstration. We were not entirely without protection, however.
There was plenty of asbestos in the labs, mostly on the benches to protect their surfaces.
Physics was taught in novel and creative ways. We once spent a lesson running up the fire escape to measure our individual horse power. Being competitive 15-year-old boys with the girls to impress, we tackled the unforgiving concrete steps two or three at a time, with several trips and barked shins.
School trips today require an assessment of risks and strict adherence to pupil-staff ratios. In the 1960s, the only paperwork was booking the coach (no seat belts) and calculating the cost per pupil. More than once, we wandered unsupervised around London’s West End, having arrived early for a matinee performance. No harm done, although we did have some interesting stories to share about some of London’s more unorthodox attractions.
My favourite trip was to the Tottenham gasworks. The combination of steam, smoke, smells, freewheeling coal wagons and flaming retorts was spectacular, all the more so for being viewed close up with no hard hats or safety glasses to impede the experience.
Lessons and trips were not the only sources of danger. Senior boys were conscripted into setting out the stalls for the local summer fête, not in itself particularly dangerous, even though it did involve riding on the back of an open lorry to and from the council depot. Today, people attend a dedicated training session on heavy lifting. The tables were stored in the attic of an old house and had to be manhandled down narrow stairways.
It’s fortunate that the hazards we faced remained potential rather than actual. Despite being a new school, we had no medical room or matron to supervise it. Our BCG inoculations were administered in a stock room sitting next to the Banda machine and piles of textbooks. Perhaps some of the staff had a smattering of first aid; fortunately, I never needed to find out. Ironically, the only serious injury I sustained happened on my very last day. I arrived home early and, having forgotten my key, decided to climb in through an upstairs window.
The scar on my left hand is evidence of my fall, and I acknowledge that the decision to attempt the climb was wholly mine. However, would I have made that decision had my judgement not been shaped by years of hazardous secondary schooling?