School Legends

[NomDeGuerre]

As a bit of background, my secondary school (by the time I attended, a regular state school) was founded in the 16th century and, for three hundred years or more, had been a grammar. As you can imagine, in a building of that age (one that once boasted a forgettable US president as a student, briefly, when his family were in the UK) there were stories of things that went bump in the Double Maths lesson.

A lot of these were stoked by the caretaker, who lived in a little cottage on the grounds and used to love tormenting vulnerable Year 7s with stories of ghosts and ghouls in the art block.

The one story I really remember was grounded in an actual happening. The school used to have an outdoor swimming pool (now a car park) in which a teenage boy called Horace drowned. There's a plaque to him in the entrance to the school, but I can't find any other record of it online...

Anyway, so the legend goes, if you walk up to classroom U30 (the highest point in the school, and what used to be the dorms for boarders back in the grammar school days) and say 'Hello, Horace' you'll feel three sharp taps on your shoulder. Being a natural coward, I never did this.

It's a faith school now for some obscure Christian sect, so I'd imagine Horace has been banished for good and all, by now. Would love to go back and have a poke around at night, though!

 

[Rushfan62]

I'm a school caretaker and can attest that many a school has a phantom crapper
....

 

[Mythopoeika]

I'm a school caretaker and can attest that many a school has a phantom crapper
....

My school had a 'phantom penis drawer', who would leave poorly-scrawled graffiti of penises on walls along with the signature 'PPD'.

 

[Yithian]

My school had a 'phantom penis drawer', who would leave poorly-scrawled graffiti of penises on walls along with the signature 'PPD'.

The best graffiti near my school was a very faded vestige of the early 80s.

The 'artist' had seemingly been interrupted in the commission of his piece, because in two-foot high white letters on a red-brick wall it proclaimed:

SKINHEAEAD!

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

My school had a 'phantom penis drawer', who would leave poorly-scrawled graffiti of penises on walls along with the signature 'PPD'.

At first I thought you meant the place where you keep the phantom penises.

 

[Mythopoeika]

At first I thought you meant the place where you keep the phantom penises.

Penises are kept in drawers, yes.

 

[Lord Lucan]

Penises are kept in drawers, yes.

According to police officer friends of mine, a surprising amount are.

 

[BlackPeter]

As a bit of background, my secondary school (by the time I attended, a regular state school) was founded in the 16th century and, for three hundred years or more, had been a grammar. As you can imagine, in a building of that age (one that once boasted a forgettable US president as a student, briefly, when his family were in the UK) there were stories of things that went bump in the Double Maths lesson.

A lot of these were stoked by the caretaker, who lived in a little cottage on the grounds and used to love tormenting vulnerable Year 7s with stories of ghosts and ghouls in the art block.

The one story I really remember was grounded in an actual happening. The school used to have an outdoor swimming pool (now a car park) in which a teenage boy called Horace drowned. There's a plaque to him in the entrance to the school, but I can't find any other record of it online...

Anyway, so the legend goes, if you walk up to classroom U30 (the highest point in the school, and what used to be the dorms for boarders back in the grammar school days) and say 'Hello, Horace' you'll feel three sharp taps on your shoulder. Being a natural coward, I never did this.

It's a faith school now for some obscure Christian sect, so I'd imagine Horace has been banished for good and all, by now. Would love to go back and have a poke around at night, though!

Just seen your post, lots of this rings bells with me - was this school in Atherstone?

 

[NomDeGuerre]

Just seen your post, lots of this rings bells with me - was this school in Atherstone?

Yes, yes it was!

Queen Elizabeth School, in particular. Are you a former pupil?

 

[Mikefule]

I was reminded of this thread earlier today when I heard the word, "prat" and, unbidden, the memory came to me that "prat means pregnant goldfish." I'm sure I heard this several times at primary and comprehensive school (in the same catchment area).

So I looked it up today. The meaning and etymology of "prat" has nothing to do with fish, whether gold, pregnant, or otherwise.

I then searched from the other end: "what is a pregnant goldfish called?" and, to my surprise, learned that it is rumoured to be twit, tw*t, or twerp — all of which are playground insults, along with "prat" — and, importantly, that goldfish do not get pregnant anyway, as their eggs are fertilised outside the body.

So, in my area, it was "prat" but in other areas, it was different insulting words. The common thread was the meaning, "pregnant goldfish".

We had no ghosts or weird stories of tragic deaths at our school, although sadly there was a kid run over by the school bus one evening.

However, we did have a moderately pretty and fairly young English teacher who I remember used to tease and pretend to flirt with one or two of the better looking but shy lads in the 11-12 year age group: what we called "1st year" in those days. She was rumoured to have been caught having sex with a 6th former (16–17 year age group) in, bizarrely, one of the science labs. We were at that age when we were just starting to be aware of sex, and there must have been something in the water, too, because in that same year, the head of year (geography teacher) married the art teacher and the French teacher married the Latin teacher.

 

[Naughty_Felid]

I was reminded of this thread earlier today when I heard the word, "prat" and, unbidden, the memory came to me that "prat means pregnant goldfish." I'm sure I heard this several times at primary and comprehensive school (in the same catchment area).

So I looked it up today. The meaning and etymology of "prat" has nothing to do with fish, whether gold, pregnant, or otherwise.

I then searched from the other end: "what is a pregnant goldfish called?" and, to my surprise, learned that it is rumoured to be twit, tw*t, or twerp — all of which are playground insults, along with "prat" — and, importantly, that goldfish do not get pregnant anyway, as their eggs are fertilised outside the body.

So, in my area, it was "prat" but in other areas, it was different insulting words. The common thread was the meaning, "pregnant goldfish".

We had no ghosts or weird stories of tragic deaths at our school, although sadly there was a kid run over by the school bus one evening.

However, we did have a moderately pretty and fairly young English teacher who I remember used to tease and pretend to flirt with one or two of the better looking but shy lads in the 11-12 year age group: what we called "1st year" in those days. She was rumoured to have been caught having sex with a 6th former (16–17 year age group) in, bizarrely, one of the science labs. We were at that age when we were just starting to be aware of sex, and there must have been something in the water, too, because in that same year, the head of year (geography teacher) married the art teacher and the French teacher married the Latin teacher.

Thanks I too believed "prat" was a pregnant goldfish and yes I got it from school.

 

[escargot]

I then searched from the other end: "what is a pregnant goldfish called?" and, to my surprise, learned that it is rumoured to be twit, tw*t, or twerp — all of which are playground insults, along with "prat" — and, importantly, that goldfish do not get pregnant anyway, as their eggs are fertilised outside the body.

Yup, as a teenager I was told 'twat' meant 'pregnant goldfish'. Made no more sense then than it does now.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... The meaning and etymology of "prat" has nothing to do with fish, whether gold, pregnant, or otherwise.
I then searched from the other end: "what is a pregnant goldfish called?" and, to my surprise, learned that it is rumoured to be twit, tw*t, or twerp — all of which are playground insults, along with "prat" — and, importantly, that goldfish do not get pregnant anyway, as their eggs are fertilised outside the body.
So, in my area, it was "prat" but in other areas, it was different insulting words. The common thread was the meaning, "pregnant goldfish". ...

Yup, as a teenager I was told 'twat' meant 'pregnant goldfish'. Made no more sense then than it does now.

I think nonsense is the whole point.

It strikes me that the key elements in this puzzle are (a) there's no such thing as a pregnant goldfish; (b) this non-existent thing is consistently associated with insulting or 'dirty' words; and (c) the association is almost always reported as having been encountered in one's childhood / school days.

Now why would an association between a nonsensical fixed point of reference (pregnant goldfish) and any of a number of 'bad words' originate and persist? I can think of three reasons which aren't mutually exclusive and are within the range of things kids might do:

(1) The association arose as a running joke or gag to the effect that a word of unclear meaning actually meant something that made no sense.

(2) The 'pregnant goldfish' bit was an all-purpose response whenever someone asked you to define a word for which you didn't know the meaning. In this sense it served as an evasive deflection akin to those conversational tactics discussed elsewhere for deflecting unwanted questions.

(3) The nonsensical alleged definition was a widely known all-purpose excuse to give when challenged by authority (i.e., adults) for having been overhead uttering an unacceptable word (whether you knew its actual meaning or not).

 

[Fluttermoth]

I was told the 'twat means pregnant goldfish' at primary school. Was it Robert Browning who used it in a poem, seemingly thinking it related to nun's headwear, and no-one was brave enough to tell him the truth?

My secondary school biology master (who was an absolute legend, so many tales I could tell about him!) had an affair with our RE teacher. They'd both been at the school for many years and were in their late 50s (I'm guessing), it was a massive cause célèbre. They ended up going off to Africa to be missionaries

 

[BlackPeter]

Yes, yes it was!

Queen Elizabeth School, in particular. Are you a former pupil?

Yes I am indeed!

 

[NomDeGuerre]

Yes I am indeed!

Oh wow, small world!

Would love to hear any legends that did the rounds while you were there (or if you ever had a run in with Horace!)

 

[BlackPeter]

Oh wow, small world!

Would love to hear any legends that did the rounds while you were there (or if you ever had a run in with Horace!)

Will have a think - still online at work - did you ever go down into the cellars under the main house -very strange area

 

[Little_grey_lady]

I was reminded of this thread earlier today when I heard the word, "prat" and, unbidden, the memory came to me that "prat means pregnant goldfish." I'm sure I heard this several times at primary and comprehensive school (in the same catchment area).

So I looked it up today. The meaning and etymology of "prat" has nothing to do with fish, whether gold, pregnant, or otherwise.

I then searched from the other end: "what is a pregnant goldfish called?" and, to my surprise, learned that it is rumoured to be twit, tw*t, or twerp — all of which are playground insults, along with "prat" — and, importantly, that goldfish do not get pregnant anyway, as their eggs are fertilised outside the body.

So, in my area, it was "prat" but in other areas, it was different insulting words. The common thread was the meaning, "pregnant goldfish".

We had no ghosts or weird stories of tragic deaths at our school, although sadly there was a kid run over by the school bus one evening.

However, we did have a moderately pretty and fairly young English teacher who I remember used to tease and pretend to flirt with one or two of the better looking but shy lads in the 11-12 year age group: what we called "1st year" in those days. She was rumoured to have been caught having sex with a 6th former (16–17 year age group) in, bizarrely, one of the science labs. We were at that age when we were just starting to be aware of sex, and there must have been something in the water, too, because in that same year, the head of year (geography teacher) married the art teacher and the French teacher married the Latin teacher.

I was told tw*t was a pregnant goldfish, and that was at secondary school!

We had a teacher who when I started in year 7 (first year of secondary school) was rumoured to be sleeping with a sixth former. We were an all girls school and he was one of 2 male teachers, the other one was in his 60s, for a few years, so I always felt it was easy to make up a rumour about him. Someone once made a snarky comment in a lesson with him, and he just blushed, but we still didn't take it seriously. After all, he was married to the maths teacher Fast forward to me being in the sixth form at the school and we discovered (as in I actually saw the evidence) that the rumours were not only true, he and the maths teacher had split up and he was living with the girl, who was obviously no longer in the sixth form. To make matters worse, he had some interesting tastes in his internet history and left the school when it all came out

 

[Fanari_Lloyd]

My junior school was next to the church and graveyard (the wall of the school yard separated it) We got used to it, even though my grandfather was buried there. It was a lovely small village school, and the school house was attached to it.

My parents were offered the school house to live in temporarily when I was about 7, (in the 70’s) after the head teacher moved out, which seemed quite cool to me.

I remember my parents spending some time after work painting and doing various things. The windows of one bedroom and the kitchen looked onto the graveyard.

I used to go with them sometimes (we lived in an extended family in the next village, so not always) and was there one night (autumn, I think; it was dark). My mother was doing something in that one bedroom, (measuring curtains?) my father was downstairs
I remember sitting at the bottom of the stairs when Mum‘s footsteps rattled over the bare boards and she hurtled downstairs.

She refused to stay another moment, and we never did move in. It was only years later she said she had seen something through the window, down in the graveyard that terrified her.

The blue arrow shows the school house.

 

[Krepostnoi]

My junior school was next to the church and graveyard (the wall of the school yard separated it) We got used to it, even though my grandfather was buried there. It was a lovely small village school, and the school house was attached to it.

My parents were offered the school house to live in temporarily when I was about 7, (in the 70’s) after the head teacher moved out, which seemed quite cool to me.

I remember my parents spending some time after work painting and doing various things. The windows of one bedroom and the kitchen looked onto the graveyard.

I used to go with them sometimes (we lived in an extended family in the next village, so not always) and was there one night (autumn, I think; it was dark). My mother was doing something in that one bedroom, (measuring curtains?) my father was downstairs
I remember sitting at the bottom of the stairs when Mum‘s footsteps rattled over the bare boards and she hurtled downstairs.

She refused to stay another moment, and we never did move in. It was only years later she said she had seen something through the window, down in the graveyard that terrified her.

The blue arrow shows the school house.

View attachment 31651

I'm extremely envious of the fact that you grew up in Uffington - no wonder you found your way here.

 

[Fanari_Lloyd]

I'm extremely envious of the fact that you grew up in Uffington - no wonder you found your way here.

Well, technically I grew up in Kingston Lisle, just up the road, but I went to school in Uffington. Best years of my life living out there

 

[Kondoru]

Betcha I can blow the blowing stone better than you!

 

[Fanari_Lloyd]

I haven’t tried since I was about 14, Kondoru! My friend and I used to wander down to the Blowing Stone quite often, and learned if we sort of pursed our lips and did a raspberry it was more effective And quite pathetic really.

Quite (what I call now) a li i always place, all around there. Not really scary stories, but just odd things that made you feel you were always on the edge of ‘something’.

 

[Reverend D]

1. Teachers' Adultery. It was common knowledge at my schools that certain teachers were having affairs with each other, as they would often be seen together outside of school hours. Later, I realised that they probably just walked home in the same direction.

2. PE Teacher Was Secretly A Rugby Commentator. A PE teacher was rumoured to secretly concentrate on rugby for the BBC. Turned out that he didn't, but his voice was strikingly similar to that of BBC rugby-guy Bill McLaren. Said teacher did have a very unusual appearance though: about 5'4" with the flattest head I've ever seen. Imagine the top of Herman Munster's head being placed atop a normal head, and the whole thing then balanced on a body too small for it.

3. The Cruncher. An elderly female teacher was rumoured to have a home made contraption in the little storage-room behind her classroom. The machine was said to be like a metal vise attached to a table with a hacksaw blade attached. The teacher was rumoured to take any misbehaving male pupils into the room and use the machine to inflict pain on the genitals. I won't say what she was rumoured to do to female pupils, but let's just say it involved polyfilla. As I'm sure you'll expect, her classes were always impeccably well-behaved.


Y'know, now I think of it, the people I went to school with didn't half talk a lot of rubbish.

 

[catseye]

I think the incidence of teacher/teacher affairs is probably no higher than any other workplace which inflicts long hours, stressful conditions and not a lot of opportunity for a social life onto its inhabitants. I spent twelve years working in a secondary, where there was a far lower incidence of affairs than might reasonably have been expected, but then the head and another teacher at my children's school ran off together.

Maybe there's something about my presence which puts people off sex...

 

[escargot]

It was only years later she said she had seen something through the window, down in the graveyard that terrified her.

I'm guessing either a. Mother never told you what it was or b. You've read that well-known book called 'How To Keep An Idiot In Suspense'.

 

[Fanari_Lloyd]

She never told me, Escargot She told my nan (her mum) who was really vague about it, too. And then I forgot about it for years and never remembered to ask for the details. Wonder if my dad knows? I’ll have to text him and see. (He was/is the kind of bloke who would normally have been: ‘Oh, don’t be so stupid, etc, etc,’ but I don’t recall him saying anything at all).

 

[escargot]

I think the incidence of teacher/teacher affairs is probably no higher than any other workplace which inflicts long hours, stressful conditions and not a lot of opportunity for a social life onto its inhabitants. I spent twelve years working in a secondary, where there was a far lower incidence of affairs than might reasonably have been expected, but then the head and another teacher at my children's school ran off together.

Maybe there's something about my presence which puts people off sex...

The former Mr Snail was a high school teacher and heard interesting stories of colleagues' affairs/adultery.

One pair, who were both married to other people at the time, stood out a little as She was over 6' tall and ginger and He was barely 5'4''.

They'd be spotted wherever they sneaked off to together, like the couple in Last of the Summer Wine, but somehow thought they'd kept it quiet.
This was a big joke to everyone else.

The ex and I took the kids for a visit to a place called the same as Her surname. Being discreet here so bear with me; let's say it was Cheddar.

You could buy souvenir badges saying (something like) 'I WALKED THE CHEDDAR GORGE'. (The actual wording was obscenely suggestive in context.)
I did of course secure one and dare the ex to sneak it into the bloke's staffroom pigeonhole.

To his credit he did, and the bloke went absolutely gibbering APESHIT with rage. Wish I'd seen it!
I heard from many others that he went ballistic, threatening to punch anyone who laughed and to personally beat the crap out of whatever FUCKING BASTARD put THAT FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT there, etc.

This was nearly 30 years and a. the bloke STILL doesn't know and b. it's STILL funny.

 

[escargot]

She never told me, Escargot She told my nan (her mum) who was really vague about it, too. And then I forgot about it for years and never remembered to ask for the details. Wonder if my dad knows? I’ll have to text him and see. (He was/is the kind of bloke who would normally have been: ‘Oh, don’t be so stupid, etc, etc,’ but I don’t recall him saying anything at all).

An honest but ultimately unsatisfying answer.

I do hope your Dad remembers. Sounds terrifying.

 

[Fanari_Lloyd]

An honest but ultimately unsatisfying answer.

I do hope your Dad remembers. Sounds terrifying.

Very unsatisfying. I used to plague my nan for her ghost stories too, when I was young, but they were not so ‘immediate’ I suppose.

A few months after we did move, into Swindon, and that house was awful, like a brown-out constantly, even though it was very light with big windows, gloomy, oppressive atmosphere. I’d have preferred the other

And the school I went to there had a ghost legend: Something In The Library (where I naturally spent a lot of time reading Unwins Book of Ghosts and similar!)

I’ll text and ask him.