So old school

Can you guess what this is?

It is part of a slide rule.  Remember briefly being taught about them in school, but was never all that interested.  Maths was certainly not my thing!  Wasn't much good at science either.  Slide rules were used for calculating ... things.

Could never get the hang of using the slide rule - far too complicated for my brain - even looks complicated, doesn't it?  Thank goodness for modern calculators!  Were you good at maths?

Love, Liz

Class TV

I wonder how many of you remember lining up, in twos, hand in hand in primary school and being marched to the gym hall or assembly room to watch TV!?

Of course when we got there we had to sit in total silence watching the (what seemed then) huge TV set which the teacher wheeled into the room.  Then the problems usually started!  We'd get there about five minutes before the programme was about to start, because it usually took that long for the teacher to switch the TV on, and then adjust the aerial so that we could actually watch the programme.  I remember there was usually lots of "interference" when the screen would go all blurry and the sound would be awful!

Sometimes, I remember one particularly elderly teacher who couldn't get to grips with this "modern wireless thing", the whole rigmarole involved someone from the class having to go and find the janitor because he was the only one who could actually get the TV to work.  If we were lucky, we caught the last five minutes of the programme before being marched back to class with Miss in a very bad mood and 20 hard sums to finish before playtime!  Oh happy days!

The advent of video recorders helped, although sometimes it was a bit of a hit or miss, depending on whether the "janny" or whoever was in charge of this task, actually had the TV on the correct channel while recording!  How the class loved those occasions!

These brochures from the 70s brought back a few memories.  There was Watch, the BBC version of Schools TV and Seeing and Doing produced by ITV.  The teachers' guides were good, with lots of follow-up material and books to read to class.

I'll leave you with this - "I Love Sixpence" - remember that song?  Bet it will stay in your head for the rest of the day now!  (I remember it as I've Got Sixpence - Dad used to sing it to us when we got our sixpence pocket money.)

Love, Liz
Many thanks to everyone who joined in with my last post "Where in the world" - it was fascinating to find out just where lots of you come from. xxxxx

Scary Maths!

I was pretty rubbish at maths in school!  I liked arithmetic, or "sums" as we called it, but I could never get my head around complicated calculus, trigonometry, formulae and such.

 

I found this case of old mathematical/drawing instruments - more like instruments of torture to me!  Don't they look scary?  I wouldn't have a clue what they are for.

 

Funnily enough my husband and sons are fabulous at maths/physics etc.

 

This book was my husbands when he was at college - its a foreign language to me.

 

Were you good at maths?

 

Love, Liz

School is Out ... For Summer!

The Greenock schools break up for the summer holidays today!  Time really does fly - or is that just an old age thing!  Hope the weather is more like this -

 

than this -

 

Love, Liz

Time Flies!

Greenock schools start back today!  Hardly seems any time since they broke up for the holidays!

I kept my son's first school bag and some of his little workbooks.

I've seen trendy versions of these bags(as handbags) in some shops in all sorts of colours - very expensive.  Wonder if I should start using it?

Another sign of the advancing year - on a visit to the garden centre yesterday, they were putting out their Christmas cards!!!!!  Can you believe it????

Love, Liz

Greetings from Greenock

Schooldays

Many Scottish children went back to school today - end of the summer holidays!

So I thought I'd do a school related post.

First of all - this is my school report card from the 1960s - its funny to see Mum and Dad's signatures in it - brought a wee lump to my throat!

I seem to have been a reasonably consistent pupil!  Such early promise - pity it didn't last!

Not as politically correct as today!

These illustrations come from a school reading book from Australia - "Seaside Story" issued by the Department of Education of New South Wales.  You may remember another one of these books from this post.

Sweet illustrations.

I always feel that once the schools go back, then summer is over and today's weather is confirming that!  There is definitely a bit of a chill in the air.  I hope we have a few more sunny days to come though!

Love Liz

Brilliant School Books

A friend and I were having a chat about reading books we used to have in primary school and how wonderful some of the stories were.  Not only did we learn to read, we also learned lots of interesting facts along the way.  The story I can remember which really made an impression on me was the story of Grace Darling.  My friend said that she had some old school books and that one of them had that story.  Here it is!

I loved this story – so exciting.  I am sure it was this series of books which started off my love of reading.  There were potted versions of “The Three Musketeers”, “Aesop’s Fables”, cowboy stories, adventure yarns and many folk tales from around the world!

The questions on the story were challenging!

They had great illustrations and straightforward facts.

There were some lighter moments too!



Are you an Alert Bert or a Potty Lottie?



Looking through these books really took me back to my schooldays – whenever I got a new reading book to take home, I devoured it on the first night!   I was a strange child – I adored primary school.  I suppose I was very lucky – I remember most of my teachers with great affection.  They were wonderful!

Hope your schooldays were good too!

Love, Liz

Swapping Scraps

Ok - looks like this blog is becoming a bit of a nostalgia-fest!

Do you remember these?  Scraps - although we used to call them mottoes.  These are my original ones - found them in an old Yardley's Red Roses Soap box. 

We would put our mottoes in an old book, take them to school and swap them at playtime.  If I remember correctly, you put the ones you wanted to swap up to the top of the page, slightly sticking out and exchanged books with your friends to decide which ones you wanted.

Do you remember trying to collect sets - like some in the picture, you could get different sizes and having one of each size was amazing - I'd never swap those!

My most favourite one is the little girl with the red hat and basket of flowers - I really loved her and would never in a million years swap her.  The rather tattered baby was also a favourite.

Ah …. the simple pleasures of youth!

Love, Liz