School visitors

[Trickyvee]

Anybody remember any special visitors coming to the school?

We had the fire brigade a couple of times. In the infants they brought a fire engine which caused untold excitement and we all got to sit in it, but in the juniors they only brought a mobile unit where we made badges (although making our own real pin badges was quite cool).

More surreal was a visit from a group of Morris dancers who I was rather puzzled by and wary of even at that age. I can still feel the unease I experienced on being waltzed around the yard by a old, beardy Morris man who I felt was particularly strange because he had gold bits around his gums.

Finally there was a blind man who seemed to come to one of our assemblies every year and would frighten the life out of us each time by telling us the story of how he became blind at 10 by getting a rusty bit of metal in his eye

[Marine Boy]

Re: School visitors

...Finally there was a blind man who seemed to come to one of our assemblies every year and would frighten the life out of us each time by telling us the story of how he became blind at 10 by getting a rusty bit of metal in his eye

Charming! lol

I think I remember the visiting theatre people best. There was one excellent little play where an actor came out, sat on one of those big antique chests, and opened I diary. She read from it, and the stories came to life. I was transfixed.

[Trickyvee]

Re: School visitors

Charming! lol

Lol he wasn't scary really. He came in to tell us what it was like to be blind, but his story about the rusty metal had me paranoid for weeks. I wouldn't go near any nails or our rusty garden gate!

[Richard1978]

Re: School visitors

I can remember the fire brigade coming almost every year before bonfire night to talk about firework safety.

There were at least travelling theatre a year, the same puppet show came 2-3 times.

One time a man from an animal rescue centre came in to talk about animal cruelty & to be responsible when looking after pets.

[FLYING SAUCER]

Re: School visitors

Here is a strange memory, I think I was in 1st School, and it was the zenith of the Cold War, and we had some Russian people come to our school, 1972? Anyway, my mum cut a pale pink rose from the garden and removed the thorns, and wrapped the stalk in tin foil, I remember presenting it to this Russian Lady (she was only young, and as I recall quite glamerous!)

She responded in presenting me with a little enamel badge (somewhere at home - I do not know what it says!) I must find it out.

[big kid]

Re: School visitors

i can remember the police coming into school giving us a lecture on staying out of trouble, how to cross the road safely, reporting crime and every now and again they'd bring the dogs with them and put a show on to let us see the dogs in action. happy days.

[Morton]

Re: School visitors

Primary School Assemblies used to loud, stuffy and the kids were never behaved. No matter how much the teachers yelled, assemble time was always a living nightmare. But when the Police showed up as guests for an assemble, all the kids were well behaved, sitting neatly and nice and quiet.

[TooSoonTom]

Re: School visitors

We had puppet shows, stage plays, a folk group who sang a song " Little Tim Maguire loved to play with fire" (anybody?), but the best was the Cresta Bear "It's frothy man!". We had a bottle of pop and a plastic glove puppet each

[Sly]

Re: School visitors

We had so many visitors to our school. Some of them never really made any sense.

The fire brigade would come with Welliphant or whatever that red monstrosity was called.

PC Pape was the school police officer and we would have him round every month or something like that. Once we did have the helicopter that a select few of us were allowed to go up in. My parents thought I was lying to them that I had been in a police helicopter until the teachers confirmed it.

We had some Vicar who's name I forget who would come for the Christian festivals that usually happen. His neck used to freak me out.

There was one thing that came that I wasn't entirely sure what the hell it was. Some guys would come with a robot and they could program it to do funny stuff. What was the point of this? Answer on a postcard please.

We used to have music weeks where we would study one type of music a day. In the afternoon we would get pushed into the assembly hall to see a band or a specific type of music.

Mr Proctor was an old man that used to come in and teach art just out of generosity. He was so well liked with the kids at the school that when the weather was bad they would do his shopping, and clear the snow from his path. In the summer holidays they would do his garden.

Eddie Gray taught us how to play football one term. Leeds United had won the cup and I think all schools in the area had this.

There was a blind school thing that led to a blind week. We did a lot of learning about how blind people live and how to treat them in society. We had to write to a blind person which meant using one of those braille machines.

The most unexplainable one was occasionally when the street sweepers came we were all taken outside to watch it zoom around cleaning up. I have no idea wtf all this was about. Even thinking about a valid reason to why this would happen now I have no idea.

The biggest one had to be former pupil Ernie Wise coming back for a visit though, it was on tv and everything. My Mum still has it on VHS somewhere, it was the first time I was on TV.

There is probably some I have missed. We were always having people coming to see us in some way or another.

[sf1378]

Re: School visitors

At primary school we had visitors like Father Graham who was a young priest. He came in and talked about God and religeon, he was very modern, he'd talk about world religeons and 'stuff'. I remember he wore a long cassock and once as a cheeky kid I looked up it-I still remember his grey long socks and sandals....lol. We had a local bobbie on the beat called PC Manetta, he was very nice and would talk about 'Police Stuff' and 'stranger danger' etc. I think he did the bigger kids cycling proficiency too, which my Sister passed....

We had the Fire Brigade come in too.

At bigger school we had Laurie Sanchez, who apparently was a Reading F.C. player in the 1980s and had been an ex pupil of my school. He brought in a copy of the F.A. Cup, it didn't impress me as I didn't like footie or know who the hell he was!

There was once a Priest who was also a Clown/acrobat-believe it or not-he came in for one assembly and did a performance where he had to cross a tightrope on stage-it was about 'belief and faith in God and oneself so one could overcome any obstacle'....yes....

We had careers talks too. One old lad came in to chat about 'working in TV' and he basically put us all off....lol. We nicknamed him 'Meridian Man' as thats the channel he worked for at the time....lol.

I remember seeing Louis Mansi who played Von Smallhousen in Allo Allo at our Diamond Jubilee Celebration Mass at School, he was also an ex pupil and he was extremely short-he was a nice man and I got his autograph in my souvenir booklet...He stuck in my memory as when you saw him on screen you didn't think the actors playing Herr Flick or Helga etc must also have been of average heights compared to Mansi....

[wispa lover]

Re: School visitors

We also had a local cop who would visit our school once a year along with an anamatronic car called Bobby, they would tell us about how to avoid strangers and all that stuff.

[Trickyvee]

Re: School visitors

A fishmonger came in once and showed us how to gut a fish (not sure why) but he also prised out the eyeball and set in on the desk to 'keep an eye on us'. He also brought in some seafood for us to try - prawns and crab sticks (notice how they are called seafood sticks these days as the internal mush has never seen a crab) and pickled mussels. It was the first time I'd had a mussel and hated it. I avoided them for years afterwards but realised later that fresh ones are actually really nice!

[nuttytigger]

We had the usual police, fire brigade etc.

I remember owls being brought in one day, dunno why!

Also had a visit from Glen Michael, that caused great excitement that day! I remember getting his autograph on a paper towel lol.

[darren]

Re: School visitors

tes we ad the police and the fire brigade come quite a few times.

we also had a lot of well known northern ireland sports stars show up.

[screamqueen]

Re: School visitors

We once had a random Chinese man come in to tell us about China and encourage us to learn to speak Mandarin. This was at a small village primary school in which there were exactly six children who weren't white, and none were Chinese. It was also in the early 1990s so they were a bit ahead of their time.

Other visitors included some orchestra performers, some other musicians who brought in unusual instruments to show us (I remember they had a bouzouki), a Theatre in Education company who did a play about recycling, the NSPCC talking to us about stranger danger, and the usual police/fire brigade. At my secondary school, we got a representative of the OB tampons company to talk to the girls about starting their periods - surely that was unfair product placement? Also remember a particularly nasty visit from the police in Year 10 who made us watch a video showing exactly what would happen if we fell off a motorbike and weren't wearing protective leathers. It did the job though, to this day I've never got onto a motorbike ...