Robin Springall
10-23-2008, 10:25 AM
A group of us from school got together again last weekend, and our wives fell about laughing at the old school names and nicknames. We didn't really see the funny side of it, as we just used the words as parts of our normal school conversation, but I suppose they are rather amusing. Anyway, here for your enjoyment are the ones which I can still remember after far too many years :)
Masters were universally known as beaks; although some schools referred to the headmaster as the archbeak, we just called him the head man.
Each house had a matron, invariably known as the hag; none of them was under 60 years old, and they really were pretty dreadful.
Class (as in "lessons" as opposed to rooms or years) were hash, so you went off to hash or you had history hash.
You didn't have a bath, you had a tosh. Prep, or homework, was called banco. Afternoon sport fixtures were put on a large board headed "Turning up."
Each school term was called a quarter: the academic year started with the oration quarter (O.Q.) even though precious little orating took place, thankfully; the long quarter, following Christmas, was of course the shortest, and the cricket quarter was between the Easter and summer holidays. Oh yes, those were called breaks. Mind you, each day also had break around 11am between hash, but that
break was of course different from the holiday break. Anyway, we knew what it was all about, even if our wives couldn't follow it at all!
Then there were the nicknames:
The head man was OVO (Oliver van Oss). Pansy Baldwin taught Latin, and did far too many teapots. Hammy Sparks was somewhat tubby and wore shorts. Arse White (A.S. White, esq) was a history beak. Norman Evans, my housemaster, was Dumbo because of his spectacular ears. Mrs Evans was Knockers, and secretly rather proud of it (or them). Alex Crapper was so-called after he left a log in the bog, which required a small thermonuclear device to shift.
I can't remember any more, but the reminiscing was good fun. Most of my contemporaries are either lawyers, bankers, or doctors (all very grand) but they calm down a bit once you get some drink in them, and then they start behaving all right again!
Masters were universally known as beaks; although some schools referred to the headmaster as the archbeak, we just called him the head man.
Each house had a matron, invariably known as the hag; none of them was under 60 years old, and they really were pretty dreadful.
Class (as in "lessons" as opposed to rooms or years) were hash, so you went off to hash or you had history hash.
You didn't have a bath, you had a tosh. Prep, or homework, was called banco. Afternoon sport fixtures were put on a large board headed "Turning up."
Each school term was called a quarter: the academic year started with the oration quarter (O.Q.) even though precious little orating took place, thankfully; the long quarter, following Christmas, was of course the shortest, and the cricket quarter was between the Easter and summer holidays. Oh yes, those were called breaks. Mind you, each day also had break around 11am between hash, but that
break was of course different from the holiday break. Anyway, we knew what it was all about, even if our wives couldn't follow it at all!
Then there were the nicknames:
The head man was OVO (Oliver van Oss). Pansy Baldwin taught Latin, and did far too many teapots. Hammy Sparks was somewhat tubby and wore shorts. Arse White (A.S. White, esq) was a history beak. Norman Evans, my housemaster, was Dumbo because of his spectacular ears. Mrs Evans was Knockers, and secretly rather proud of it (or them). Alex Crapper was so-called after he left a log in the bog, which required a small thermonuclear device to shift.
I can't remember any more, but the reminiscing was good fun. Most of my contemporaries are either lawyers, bankers, or doctors (all very grand) but they calm down a bit once you get some drink in them, and then they start behaving all right again!