School Legends

[Anonymous]

Bricked up Nun

I went to a Catholic school in Hove. The main building was quite old and used to be a convent - we even had a nuns' graveyard down at the bottom of the fields. One of the staircases climbed around an old lift shaft and the legend was that a nun had fallen down the shaft and broken her neck. The shaft was bricked up, with the nun still inside (as you do) and her ghost was rumoured to roam the crypt in the bottom of the building (which was, admittedly, an extremely scary place I never liked going to).

I believe they've turned it all into classrooms now.

 

[Anonymous]

when i used to go to brownies in the late 80's, they used to take place in the local high school. It was very dark, because the brownies/guides only used a couple of rooms or the assembly hall and the rest of the school was quiet.

Anyway it was exteremly scary having to walk down dark corridors to go to the toilet. This was terrifying especially if you went yourself! I used to run there and back! I don't know why because i hadn't heard any scary stories or anything!

 

[The_Discordian]

Part of my old middle school was demolished a few years back and flats were built on the site. Now these flats are supposed to be haunted, and apparently the rumor is going round that this is because there used to be a graveyard on the site!

Obviously anybody who went to school there knows this is complete bullsh*t, but it was interesting to hear about - sort of like witnessing the birth of a UL.

 

[plunkotica]

one of our schools legends was of a guy doing his final exams and getting so stressed out that he put two pens in his nostrils and headbutted the desk, raming the pens into his brain.

 

[stu neville]

Part of my old middle school was demolished a few years back and flats were built on the site. Now these flats are supposed to be haunted, and apparently the rumor is going round that this is because there used to be a graveyard on the site!

Obviously anybody who went to school there knows this is complete bullsh*t, but it was interesting to hear about - sort of like witnessing the birth of a UL.

Interestingly, the local primary school here genuinely was built on the site of a Saxon graveyard (documented in local library complete with photos and so on, and understandably played down somewhat by the LEA) - and as far as I know there's no ghost legends there.

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned the "Gang of Skinheads/ Punks waiting to beat up the entire school at home-time on Wednesday" rumour: certainly remember it doing the rounds at my secondary school (c.1978), evidenced by the fact that it had "already happened at a school in London". Course, it hadn't, but never let that stand in the way of a good scare story, eh?

 

[The_Discordian]

How the hell did your local council get away with building a primary school on a graveyard? I thought that was completely illegal...

 

[liveinabin]

one of our schools legends was of a guy doing his final exams and getting so stressed out that he put two pens in his nostrils and headbutted the desk, raming the pens into his brain.

Yeah we had that one too. I think that is a true urban legend.

On similar lines to the group of punk/skins waiting to beat up kids from the school; we didn't have that one but we did have a couple that used to pick up kids in their blue volvo. The teachers were so worried about it that they called us all into the hall and told us about taking lifts from strangers.

With regards to building on graveyards. I remember when Yeovil towns famous sloping football pitch was demolised, they found that was on top of a graveyard. Didn't stop them building tescos on top of it though.

 

[stu neville]

How the hell did your local council get away with building a primary school on a graveyard? I thought that was completely illegal...

Basically cos they found it mid-construction (this was 1930 odd, and there are Saxon remains all over the place round here) - they then did a dig and recorded everything, and there are no actual buildings on that site (it was under one end of the playground, now the car park IIRC). If it were to happen now I imagine there'd be rather more sensitive handling of the situation.

 

[ogopogo3]

In junior high, there was an English teacher who was supposed to have been a nude magazine pin-up several years earlier. Her rack was impressive, but she was just so hideous in facial features that I'm suprised the rumor lasted so long. As far as I know, it's still going strong.

 

[Anonymous]

one of our schools legends was of a guy doing his final exams and getting so stressed out that he put two pens in his nostrils and headbutted the desk, raming the pens into his brain.

Yup. Had that too. However, people who were 'in the know' could tell you that this "...never happened in England, it was a boy in China!" on the grounds that over there, everyone works really hard at school and gets flogged by their folks if they don't do really well at everything. A slightly blinkered and racist generalisation, but one which became generally accepted as the 'real story' by many 11 year old kids of my generation in Buckinghamshire.
Later on in life, I heard the exact same story told by an adult (or close approximation) concerning an Oxbridge undergraduate doing their finals. The same reasons were cited as the cause for the suicide - ie, high parental expectations, intellectually competitive environment where faliure wasn't an option.
Any other variations on these variations?

 

[raven186]

best university entrance exam ever

Not actually a school legend - but did anyone ever get passed a supposed copy of some lad's university entrance essay. Can't remember his name or the university on the version I first got (I've seen 2 versions of it so far), but it was really funny.

As I say I can't really remember it, but the question was something along the lines of: 'as we have so many people applying here, what have you done in your life that makes you stand out and what can you bring to our university'. His answer goes into long details of the weird and wonderful things he's achieved - climbed mountains, defended lost tribes etc etc, but the last line was that dispite all this he's never been to university.

The line I particularly liked (and remembered ) was:

I only sleep once a week. When I do sleep, I sleep in a chair.

Words to live by, Childer. Words to live by.

 

[liveinabin]

I understood he also wrote I am an Orange a number of times on the exam paper!

 

[Anonymous]

In my town there's a secondary school that has for the past 30 years had the reputation of having a ghost called the Javelin Man.

Legend had it that some teens were doing javelin throwing practise and in a freak accident, one youth got speared through the neck. His friends, scared of the consequences, hid his body under the school stage, thus hauntings abounded etc.

I'd heard this tale for many years. I went to rival comprehensive where older children claimed that one of our PE teachers had a newspaper clipping of the story from the late 60s early 70s.

Tale 2. With regards to hysteria at school - When I was in junior school we went on a trip to Queen Elizabeth Country Park, near Petersfield. A beautiful place, with a nature trail and lots of woodland. For some reason Bigfoot from the Bionic Woman played on my mind. (it had recently been shown on tv) and i kept assuming that he was standing amidst the trees, watching us. Well, to my shame, I set off a mass hysteria amongst 50 odd school children. Rumour spread that "Bigfoot" was around. Kids were seeing him left right and centre. I remember the fine upstanding school swot declaring that she "could have sworn he was just behind that tree over there" etc. The teachers must have rolled their eyes to the heavens and let us get on with it.
We stopped for lunch in a clearing. Ahead of us lay a thick clump of forest yet to be tackled. Groups of us took it in turns to walk as far into the shrubbery as was possible. Naturally an en masse scream of "Bigfoot!" ensured that no-one got very far. Very thrilling at that age.
I think Bigfoot remained with us for the rest of the trip, even making an appearance as we set off home on the coach.
And it was all down to me. Jesus, how embarrassing.

 

[Creamstick1]

I can remember when i was at primary school there was a story going round about the chelsea whopper clowns. They drove a blue transit van and asked kids if they wanted to see puppets/toys etc in their van. then they would kidnap them, slit the sides of their mouths and make them laugh to open the wounds to make a big clown smile. one day at lunch time someone said that the clowns were hiding in the block of flats next to the school. a mass hysteria broke out with teachers bringing everone back in and telling us it was just a silly story. has any body else heard of them?

Had this at my primary too.

I had had a few spooky experiences at primary school. My mum and aunt were two of the school cleaners at the time, and my mum was the summer caretaker.

One morning around 8am on a glorious summer day (I know, you don't get a lot of them in Scotland), I was shooting hoops in the gym, waiting for my aunt to arrive with my cousin. My mum came into the gym and asked me to help her get out the floorwaxer from the closet. I put the ball down against the wall, and followed her out.

After helping her I went back to the gym, and as I was crossing the dressing rooms (the only way in or out of the gym were two doors, one in the girls dressing room, and one in the boys), I heard an almighty SLAM, as if someone had booted the basketball of a wall. Still calm, I opened the door, thinking my cousin had arrived - to find no-one there. The ball was rolling, and came to a stop after a second or two, quite naturally.

Of course, I panicked and ran outside, only to hear another SLAM, coming from the gym. I was still shaking 15 minutes later when my aunt and cousin turned up.

Plenty of crazy goings on in that place over the years during the summers when the school was closed. Nothing happened to me when school was in session, but I do remember a small child in primary 2 or 3 being terrifed one day, and refusing to go to the bathroom even though he was bursting (in p7, I was a helper in the infant school 2 days a week, and one of the duties was taking kids to the bathroom), saying through little sobs that he was in the bathroom the other day and someone pushed him, no-one was there, no-one believed him, and his parents had given him into trouble over it.

 

[Creamstick1]

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned the "Gang of Skinheads/ Punks waiting to beat up the entire school at home-time on Wednesday" rumour: certainly remember it doing the rounds at my secondary school (c.1978), evidenced by the fact that it had "already happened at a school in London". Course, it hadn't, but never let that stand in the way of a good scare story, eh?

I dunno about skinheads, but someone in the year above me when I was in 4th year at secondary school had pissed off a member of the adjacent areas's 'youth gang', by insulting his girlfriend's virtue the previous Saturday night. Monday morning, the school was abuzz with the story, and a few mates and I had sighted someone we knew from the aforementioned 'youth gang' hanging around earlier in the day when we took our morning trip to the burger van outside the school gates.

Imagine my surprise when we were standing outside at morning break, only to see four people running through the school forecourt straight for where we standing, brandishing freakin' swords!!

My friends and I ran like hell into the building through an open fire-door, which we bolted behind us, and continued running!

one of our schools legends was of a guy doing his final exams and getting so stressed out that he put two pens in his nostrils and headbutted the desk, raming the pens into his brain.

Something similar happened to a friend of mine at primary school (man, am I the freakin' UL master today or something? ).

He was demonstrating the sequence in 'The Wrath of Khan' where the mind-control-slug-thing crawls into Chekov's ear, only he was motioning toward his ear with a pencil in his hand, overbalanced, fell off his chair, and drove the pencil into his ear. Not far, just far enough that he can now hardly hear a thing through that ear.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

H.C. : "Legend had it that some teens were doing javelin throwing practise and in a freak accident, one youth got speared through the neck."

Within the last couple of months there has been a fatality at the Barlow
School, Didsbury where a lad was killed on the sports field. Not by a
javelin but a discus.

I can remember the weight of the discus and the shot as well as the
destructive possibilities of the hockey-stick and I am rather surprised
there aren't more deaths and serious injuries in school sports.

I'm ashamed to recall that at school we thought the javelin was a good
excuse to act out scenes from Lord of the Flies.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm surprised that probably the most widely told story when I started High school isn't here.
The story goes that apparently this girl in one of the senior years at my school, who my mates sisters friend knew, had an unfortnate accident on the school bus while being caught ...ummm...err....well...pleasuring herself with a test tube and although I won't go into to much detail, needed a serious operation to remove the broken glass.
We were all very surprised when we met some kids from another school, and a girl at their school had done this as well.
Spoke to a another kid recently who was starting high school, who also told me this story, so its still doing the rounds here 15 years later.

 

[Anonymous]

The Javelin accident definitely is not a UL (Well, the death part, not the ghsot part ). Many high school sports leagures do not allow the Javelin or hammer throw for the very reason that there have been accidents like that.

 

[Anonymous]

There was a similar incident at my school, only no injuries were sustained... some silly student went out to retrieve their projectiles while everyone else was still hurling theirs... somehow managed to avoid injury... i should know, cos it was me what done it

 

[paulsamotis]

school UL's - skinhead gangs

I remember when I was at junior school in Widnes (now Cheshire, then Lancashire) in about 1973 when I was nine; we had a very odd day when a rumour swept the school about an imminant attack. So the story went, a gang of skinheads, called the "greenjackets" (who had alledgedly attacked other schools in the neighbourhood) were advancing on our school intent on murdering everyone! I've no idea how this started, but the story was gleefully spread by older boys and it all got rather hysterical, girls in tears etc. I can remember myself, taking up position at the top of the school, looking up the street so I could call the alarm when I saw them coming!

Obviously, the fear evaporated over the next day when it became clear they weren't coming, but it has stuck in my mind ever since, as the sense of terror the story inspired was very real. The Headmaster even had to raise the issue in assembly to reassure the kids that it was all nonsense.

I suppose it was about the time of "skinhead" /National Front scare stories in the press, so maybe that was the root cause?

 

[Anonymous]

The Javelin accident definitely is not a UL (Well, the death part, not the ghsot part ). Many high school sports leagures do not allow the Javelin or hammer throw for the very reason that there have been accidents like that.

My Dad told me it happened to a student at his school in Belfast probably 50 odd years ago when he was a lad, apparently the boy died of pneumonia, which was a nice way of saying he died from a javelin throught the chest. I never doubted it.

A very strange legend we had at our school was about a large stone (Drennin Stone) on the school grounds which may have been a druid stone or something, anyway it was reputed to be the gateway to an underground/faeri realm or so we liked to believe when we were young and impressionable.

 

[Anonymous]

My School Legends (Oxford)

Just thought I'd add a couple of things to this thread.... my first post ever, so bear with me if I make a mistake....!

I went to a rather posh school in Oxford (I was lucky enough to get a scholarship, i.e. my fees were paid for - I'm not your average 'boarding school snob')

Anyways, the school had 3 famous alumni:

Kenneth Graeme (wrote 'Wind in the Willows') - in honour of old Ken we had the 'Kenneth Graeme Literary Society'

Laurence Olivier (Actor) - in honour of him, we had the Acting Society

Douglas Bader (World War II Flying Ace... lost both his legs, escaped from behind enemy lines etc.). Would you believe that they named something after him..... "The Douglas Bader Sports Centre" - People, please!

Anyways, the UL at my school was that the hall was haunted by a ghost, who you could hear shuffling across the stage. People linked it to old Dougie B as I guess with 2 prosthetics he might shuffle a little? First hand accounts from the school prefects who locked the hall last thing at night were that they had heard this ghost, and wouldn't go into the hall alone last thing at night.

Now, I can add something to this; one lunchtime I happened to be in the hall on my own, playing the piano (ah, what a virtusoso I am). I stopped, as I thought I heard a noise on the stage that I was on. The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up, and then I heard quite clearly a footstep, then a sort of shuffle (like a foot being dragged), the another step.... I guarantee there was no-one else in the hall, let alone on the stage! Suffice to say I pretty quickly 'exited stage right' - I didn't tell anyone else about this for fear of ridicule.....



Last of all, kind of on this topic, boarding schools in the 80s and 90s were potential IRA targets (you may laugh, but a kid from my prep school was Nicholas Knatcbull, who was murdered by the IRA with his Grandad, it was a famous murder, but for the life of me I can't remember his grandad's name).

Anyways, there were notices pinned up around the school saying that in the event of a bomb scare, the chapel bell would be tolled and the pupils should make their way across the road to safety on the paying fields - assuming the main bit of the school (including where the chapel was would be the 'main target')

All fine, however it worried me slightly as I was the 'official' school bell-ringer...... great!

 

[chockfullahate]

i recall that at lister drive school in liverpool during the early 80s, a story about a ghost who apparently haunted one of the upstairs class rooms. One day it apparently left a message on one of the blackboards, which I remember one lunch time some of us reading, but to this day cannot remember what it said... Young as I was at the time, I remember thinking that the teachers had something to do with it...

 

[Anonymous]

A day not so long ago it was wet lunch every one was in . Nearly every one was going to the toilets turning the lights off and saying in the mirror blood Mary to see the head of Mary tudor.candy man to have him touch you on the back or black jack man to have a red mark in the middle of the stomac.(you had to say them all sepertly three times.) a boy called frankie hall claimd they all work.DO THEY?:eek!!!!:

 

[Anonymous]

Aah reading UL's brings back fond memories of how gullible people at my school were. At my old school the ghost story (that was "oh so real!" pfffft!) was the tale of the nun. My school actually was run by nuns but what most pupils didn't know was that nuns ran the school up until the 70's most think the nuns were from long ago. The tale was made up by a very sneaky teacher, my mum hehe, she loved frightening annoying pupils by telling them that the school attic was haunted by the ghost of a nun who had been sealed up in the attic and had slit her throat out of desperation. I tried explaining to my classmates that it was just a story but every now and then you would see a bunch of secondary girls running down the stairs screaming......(oh how I laughed! mwahahaha).......There is one mildly creepy thing about my school attic, there are various doors with strange names on them, but there's one door that was sealed, and it had a sign on it saying "paradise". I really liked the school attic and we tried to get that place for our 6th year common room 2 years ago but unfortunately it wasn't safe (no fire exits)....sigh....

 

[filcee]

...Legend had it that some teens were doing javelin throwing practise and in a freak accident, one youth got speared through the neck. ..

This accident does happen, my mother-in-law was on the receiving end of a javelin during a PE lesson at school. it stuck in the top of her head, just under the scalp, without piercing her skull. She lived to tell the tale (and give birth to my Beloved).

Originally posted by joelarkins
Last of all, kind of on this topic, boarding schools in the 80s and 90s were potential IRA targets (you may laugh, but a kid from my prep school was Nicholas Knatcbull, who was murdered by the IRA with his Grandad, it was a famous murder, but for the life of me I can't remember his grandad's name).

His Grandad was Louis Mountbatten, murdered by the IRA while sailing.

 

[James_H]

in first school, we had a mythic explanation for why no running was allowed in the corridor, which reads like this:
A kid was running down the corridor, when he tripped and banged his head on a table, which split his skull and caused him instant death. We all believed it.

 

[James_H]

Were you a Teddies' boy, Joelarkins?

 

[fluffle9]

when i was about 5 my friend told me that the toilets were haunted by "the ghost of john", so i wet myself because i was too scared to go to the loo!

we had a persistent rumour of children being abducted by men in a white van that even resulted in a letter being sent to parents about the dangers. unfortunately as you can imagine this led to wide-spread hysteria because there are an awful, awful lot of white vans around.

we did the bloody mary thing in the loos, saying it 3 times and turning around 3 times in the dark or something. i recall being one of the few brave/cynical enough to actually complete the task, in the apparently correct belief that it was absolute nonsense. doesn't stop me being somewhat creeped out by mirrors though.

there was a kid on that show 999 (remember that?), which my parents used to insist on watching every week, who slipped and impaled himself through the neck on a javelin and was fine because it missed everything important, so that one's definitely true.

 

[GNC]

Re: running in the corridor, in the David Lynch film Lost Highway, a character trips and gets the edge of a coffee table stuck through his head. I remember an interview with Lynch where he said it's the type of thing his mother warned him about, so maybe it's a proper urban myth?