The range of cheap saturday market coats as worn by poor children. Inspired the song 'Nanny Annie Fishy Fanny Condom Fifty-Four'.

A similar kind of thing were 'Kenwood' and 'Pioneer' jackets, which were considered to be a mark of distinction and street credibility.

The lustre faded a little when we discovered they were five quid a pop from the local market.

Since I lived in a town full of pikeys, owning a NaffCO54 jacket was the biznitch. People in Naf Naf coats were pointed at laughed at for being a bunch of hoity-toity poofs. All a matter of perspective really...

We were told a bizzare story from the Bible about Jesus arriving at a city and the children being so happy that the took off all their clothes and threw them at him (so maybe Michael Jackson's messianic posturing fits more snugly with his private life than you might think). People taking their clothes off is more than any group of six-year-olds should be expected to deal with, but Mrs Dodman chose to illustrate this dirty, dirty story with fuzzy-felt style figures with removeable clothes stuck up on a big notice board. Her sensitive treatment of an important moment in the life of our Lord was wrecked by a hall full of children laughing and pointing. The thing is, I can't remember any other Bible stories being dealt with in this way, so it must have been a one-off. Where do you get these things from? Is there an under the counter service at the SPCK bookshop?

Preston's uncle, a keen ichthologist, used to grab Preston, and pin him to the ground, screaming, "NAME 50 FISH! NAME 50 FISH!"

Presumably, Preston was not released until he had named 50 fish. Preston's story should be taken with a grain of salt, however, because he was in special education, and would not have been taught about naming fish.

At a time when 2unlimited shit classic "No Limits" was riding high in the charts, this became a brief insult for the bigger nosed members of the school. In particular, Nathan.

Nose Nose, Nose-Nose
Nose Nose, Nose-Nose
Nose Nose, Your Nose
KNOWS NO LIMITS

(suggested optional extra :
it knows no limits - it reaches the sky,
it flies round the room - and pokes out my eye - Log)

Not that we were racist, or anything, but we had the idea of the Nation of Domination, wherein black people would be put into tubes and forced to drown on their own excrement. Very slowly. We never told that to anyone, and no-one knew what the Nation of Domination was, except a select few. Then came the day that our black friend wanted to join.

If a music teacher is using the National Anthem to illustrate some point or another, it is your duty to the Queen to stand up every time it's played. It's doubly important to do this if the treasonous order is given not to.

If the national anthems of other countries are played, be a part of the global village by standing for those, too. If you are told not to stand to these, say "ar, sir, don't be racist".

Crap looking half red, half blue, credit card style bits of plastic that you received around the time of your sixteenth birthday.

At first these gained much kudos as a mark that you had reached maturity.

That was until 'Pikey Steve' got his, and it was decided that it had been sent by the government as a hint that at least SOMEONE in his family should go and get a fucking job.

My cousin played the innkeeper in his school nativity, and was disappointed to receive relatively few lines. So he improvised. On being asked whether there was any room at the inn, he declared it to be virtually empty, and went on to extol the virtues of his accommodation, including room tariffs.

The Observational Comedy™ Rules of School Nativity Plays

1. Only the Teacher’s pets get to play Mary and Joseph. Only the retards get to play animals.
2. Every costume must contain a tea towel.
3. Despite what you see in SitComs, real goats are very rarely used, and it's even rarer for them to put their heads in the swaddling and eat Jesus' face.
4. Before uttering any lines, one kid must burst into tears on stage and be taken off by a teacher.
5. Lo, there shall be tambourines, and coconut halves, and bells on a stick, and yay, they shall be jangled and clopped.
6. The tea-towel:tin-foil ratio will be affected by the decision to have three wise men (headscarves), or three kings (crowns).
   
   One year, the teachers decided that a foil star dangled from a stick was not enough, and that I would have to dress up as a big fucking star and put on top of a step-ladder for ten minutes.
   
   The innkeeper knocked me over whilst exiting the stage, and I collapsed on top of a sheep, which stood up and kicked me.

A helpful parent made a number of wooden swords for the kids who were cast as Roman soldiers. These proved so popular that it became impossible to persuade any boys to take non-soldier roles. After cajoling, pleading and finally threatening had failed to engender any interest in the other roles, the teachers took the unprecedented step of arming all the boy characters.

And Lo! Shepherds, innkeepers, wise men and even the bloody donkey all celebrated the birth of Christ armed to the fucking teeth with murderous excitement in their eyes.

In Autumn, the hedgerows are full of fat, red rosehips, which can be split open to reveal small, hairy seeds. These seeds can then be shoved down someone's shirt where they will itch like buggery, and cause bright scarlet rashes.

Precociously recounting this fact in a second-year biology class earned me the moniker "Nature Boy" from the indulgent teacher.

This was to be a short-lived glory however, as at the start of the every new school year, I'd be pinned to the ground and covered with rosehip seeds by a snarling mob chanting "NAY-CHUR BUH-MER" at me. When the rosehips ran out, they moved on to conkers.

Autumn is not my favourite season.

A group of about six girls, who claimed to be an "environmental" group and received permission to use the library for our "meetings". We even had a logo, which we drew on our official membership cards and notebooks (crafted from stapled foolscap). In actual fact the name of the club was simply a cover for its real purpose, which was to sit around and write secret-code gossipy messages about Andrea. The club lasted for a week, until the rest of the class found out about the Nature Girls and its crappy name and laughed it out of existence.

The swastika is a potent symbol, massive swastikas made up from chairs in the classroom more so. So we assembled one. It worked, but the culprits hadn't thought about quite how pissed off the Jews might be by this - certainly no-one had considered that they might complain to the head of year. The school, entirely understandably given that about 30% of its pupils were Jewish, took a deeply dim view of neo-Nazism, which taught us an important lesson. Extreme right-wing politics, fascism, and genocide are bad, okay kids?

A cruel show performed by girls, built on the relentless requests by boys for a flash of their knickers. The skirt would be lifted and folded in a carefully calculated fan-formation to the following song;

One, two, three, four,
come on boys and see some more!
Five, six, seven, eight,
Sorry boys you're just too late.

At this point the skirt would be released back to it's full length, just before any part of the knickers had been revealed, leaving the boys to punch their own palms in cartoonish frustration.

A girl in my first school was not such a tease...

If you were quick enough to run back to the classroom after P.E, Helen Whitton would take her knickers off, stand on the desk and turn around. In addition to this spinning top of prepubescent wank fantasy, she would also sit on your lap in exchange for marbles.

Helen now plays for the Sussex County Womens football team (pictured top row, 2nd in from the left).

A universally popular game at my elementary school.

1. A girl shouts "neener-neener-neener" at a boy and then runs away.
2. The boy chases the girl until he catches up with her.
3. The girl beats the boy up.

If a boy does not give chase, that means he wants to cut straight to the beating. It is considered polite to oblige his unspoken wish.

Surprisingly, boys usually played this game enthusiastically and frequently. It lasted for the entire two years I attended the school, with no reaction but bemusement from the teachers at the sight of five-year-old boys happily being kicked repeatedly by girls until they fell over.

One so dull that their joining a group has a similar effect to a funny, popular person leaving. One such personality went on to become the Lib Dem candidate somewhere in West Lothian in the 1997 General Election.

Simon Larkins was so dull he was given a negative nickname. He was known as Simon 'Simon Larkins' Larkins.