School Days - memories & outings

A couple of years after school and my first years at Alfred Herberts, I went to Butlins with a co-worker friend and her parents. On arrival at that wonderful institution(!), I was dying to visit the Ladies. The parents went to book us in and my friend waited outside for me. There was the toilet block surrounded by bushes and trees with the signs Lads and the other side Lassies. I eagerly entered the first entrance after seeing the letters on the sign Lad... and got the shock of my life when a gentleman stared at me and turned away. I flew out of the doorway and noticed I had gone in the Lads thinking I was going into the Ladies, the sign being partly obscured by the bushes and greenery. I have never forgotten the look on that gent's face. My friend commented 'that was quick'. It was just a blur after that.

I believe that the trend for quirky loo identifiers have resulted in people wandering into the wrong one.

I'm with you on this one, Helen. Loo identifiers, thanks to the modern one-size-fits-all obsession that pervades our planet nowadays, have become confusing. It has been exploited by comedy, in the pre-PC days of Benny Hill: English visitors to Germany. The loos had DA-MEN (ladies) and HER-REN (gents) split across double doors, so the prankster girls, for a giggle, obscured one of the doors of each loo, so that the only words showing were MEN and HER, with resultant outrage when the visitors were going into the wrong loos. There is a tendency these days to dispense with words, and use pictures, in the hope that they are instantly recognisable. These use the stereotypes that we grew up with, i.e. boys always wear trousers, and girls skirts (or dresses). The problem is that some signs are clear because the legs are straight in both cases, but on many versions, the female only has one leg which is tapered, whereas the male legs are splayed apart as they go downward, at a similar angle to the edges of the skirt. Hence the confusion. I frequently have to stop and look carefully at such a sign before proceeding. Well, you don't want to get arrested now, do you? Thankfully, the issue is slowly being resolved by the introduction of unisex cubicles, each with its own toilet, washbasin and hand dryer.

I also admit to having been caught out by loo signs. On one occasion the Gents and Ladies were on alternate floors in a high rise university building and, running up the stairs, I decided a quick visit was in order before my next lecture. I saw the sign "MEN" and entered to find an unfamiliar layout and retreated to the hallway only to discover I had entered the door marked "WOMEN", the "WO" part hidden by the doorframe as I initially approached from the stairs. Fortunately I was alone!

A true story from a KHVIII trip... [apologies if already posted] The Rhine's Signs The signs said "Damen" and "Herren", it was quite problematic at first, But on a school outing to Germany, you expect things to go for the wurst. And some of us managed quite reasonably well, thanks largely to expert tuition, But Adrian's plans for a nice trip away stood no real chance of fruition. He wasn't the brightest, he wasn't a champ, but in truth he was not a bad bloke, But he could be a little naive at times, and was often the butt of a joke. Well, there we were on the banks of the Rhine, and poor Adrian was caught really short, And couldn't remember a single word of the German that he'd been taught. "Which one do I go to?" He plaintively asked, and we were too keen to assist, 'Cause how would it look if your best mate at school would have chosen the wrong place to piss? In German, we told him, a plural is shown by words ending in "E" and then "N". So "Herren" is simple - the plural of "hers", it couldn't be easier then. But "Damen" is different - the prefix means "the", so "da men" is the German for "gents". And we said it straight faced and he took it quite well, and he thought that he knew what we meant. Well, I don't need to tell you what transpired next, and he raced out at speed and red faced, But we stood back and stared at the beautiful sight of the fraulein by whom he was chased. When she caught him, they spoke as we vainly looked on at him clearly enjoying the chat, And, on his return to our party, he said, "She's invited me back to her flat!". Well - how fair is that? We regretted our prank, and it rankled the rest of our stay, That the dork of our class got the girl of OUR dreams, and we went forlornly away!

I was seventeen before I came face to face with a French loo. Met with a couple of raised footprints in a kind of drain that you stood on, and before you knew it, up to your ankles in water etc - wasn't the brightest start in learning French.

They had those in St Malo too, Kaga, 1952ish.

I watched a large group of mixed school kids walk out of Cannes railway station, down the rocky slope of a rocky garden, and there was a large cave in the rocks. This was split into by a wall - one side ladies, the other was gents. It was quite open and you could see what each was up to more or less, and no one took any notice, except their backs towards you - this was 1950 time.

Well you have all seen pictures of the evacuation, but I doubt you can imagine the cruelty behind it all. Within a couple of days kids of all ages were snatched away from their parents and literally whisked away, were told little and what they were told was by officious looking individuals. Some really had it made clear they weren't wanted. When you reached a new village school, in most cases you weren't going to be accepted until you took a beating by the older village pupils, often farmers' sons who had never missed a meal. The village school lessons could be completely different. The first morning I was told to stand up in class and quote the catechism - when I failed, six strokes of the cane and stand in the corner all morning. Later on I found the cane and broke it - from that moment I was an outcast, by teachers and pupils. Of course there were some that enjoyed it but the odds were in favour of those that did suffer.