Life lessons from my Cardiff schooldays

SCHOOLDAYS are the happiest days of your life, they say. For every good teacher, however, there were many bad ones.

Being in lockdown, though, does give one time to reminisce, in my case back to the 1960s at Canton High School for Boys in Cardiff.

Perhaps fellow captives might remember the teachers, mainly nicknames only for data protection purposes! There was The Moth, Beaky, Fuzzy, Rusty, Pussy, Clint, Holy Joe, Hiram, Boris and Mr Challoner or Hank as he was known. He was definitely one of the good ones and I still laugh at an incident during the school trip to Italy.

Arriving at the ruins of Pompeii on a Sunday, we found it closed so we climbed over the wall. A policeman on a large motorblke arrived and angrily accused of us breaking in. When he asked Hank if he had ever been to Italy before, he replied: “Yes, but I was driving a tank last time” – not the most diplomatic of answers! Things got heated, with the policeman threatening to report us to to the British Embassy and Hank retorting he would report him to the Chinese Embassy. He eventually let us go.

This was nearly 60 years ago but if any of Hank’s family read this, then I would reiterate what a good teacher and bloke he was.

Then there was Jimmy, who thumped the class joker who he suspected of damaging a window blind. When his victim protested he had no proof, Jimmy said: “No, but life’s not fair so just remember that when you leave here”.

Now that’s what I call a good lesson with a practical demonstration !

Ron Price Cwmbran