A quick google search for "Geography teacher 80s UK" brought up a picture of Jarvis, wearing an outfit I'm sure many of you will remember your teachers wearing back in the day. Clearly though, if Jarvis was a teacher, he'd have been up on a disciplinary years ago, if this is anything to go by...
My Geography teacher was Mr. Green. He was a very scary individual, but I liked him. He had a wooden leg, so you could hear him coming down the corridor... clump, clump, clump... and knew to scarper if you were up to no good. His wife taught Biology. I was less fond of her, and she of me. I dropped Biology at the end of the third year as a result.
In our very first Geography lesson, Mr. Green told us all a story. I'm sure it was one he told to new classes at the start of every year. During teacher training, someone advised me to go hard in the first class - set your stall and show them that you'd take none of their nonsense, from the beginning. I'm not sure I've ever managed to do that, since it's not really my style. But you find what works for you.
Anyway, Mr. Green's story went like this...
"I was standing in the lunch queue one day..."
It's worth pointing out here that Mr. Green was one of those teachers who would queue up for school dinners with everyone else. No jumping the queue or asking for priority treatment. That wasn't how he clumped.
"And in front of me were two boys, chatting. Neither of them had seen me, so when one asked the other a question, his response was honest and direct. 'Who do you have for Geography?' the first boy asked. 'Mr. Green,' replied the second... 'he's a right sod, but you learn something.'"
Mr. Green took a pause gave us all a hard stare. "I let that go," he said. "It seemed fair."
