How could I forget...
My old maths teacher.

He had several obsessions, the most obvious of which being maths. He was a great teacher because he was just so passionate about his subject. He would get a sometimes worrying amount of pleasure from solving equations. He could easily spend half an hour telling us about why the date was so significant (1/3/08 - today is a fantastic day, anyone know why? If you square 1 and 3 and subtract them you get 8!). He never seemed to realise that it didn't really phase us in the slightest.

He loved Japan, accompanying us on our school trip there. Unfortunately this had its cons, as you will realise after sitting for an hour trying to understand maths with Japanese drumming blaring over the sound system. He also spoke some basic Japanese, as did a few of us, and I can tell you not many things are funnier than hearing someone speak Japanese with a scouse accent.

He also declared one day that he had logged the levels of rainfall in his garden for the last 10 years, and was genuinely offended when, upon him offering to share the data if anyone wanted to use it as a basis for their coursework, someone said what we'd all been thinking and came out with "but sir, rainfall is sad!"

Possibly his greatest obsession was sundials. No idea why, but he'd go on about them for ages. He almost died of excitement the day someone brought one in to be evaluated.

He had a strange thing about bow ties, too. Our school system was on a two week basis, and he wore a bow tie on week one and a "straight" tie as he called it on week two. Apparently this was in our interest to help us remember which week it was because there's two vowels in straight and one vowel in bow. Duh. One of the ties he wore bore the title HMS Woodcock on it. Now this isn't overly hilarious, but take it from me, when you're standing at the front of the class, all eyes on you as he marks your work not laughing has never been more difficult.

He also grew a Jedi style braid once which was the day he won my respect.

But the finest moment has to be this activity he arranged for a group of people. I think it was Japan themed and part of it involved smashing a melon with a hefty piece of log. One girl picks up the log, swings it back and WHAM! right into his face. I wasn't there, but I know a few people who claim they've never laughed so hard.

Apparently he's head of maths now though. Hats off to you sir!
(Sebastiano, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 20:20, 1 reply)

there was a teacher called Miss Woodcock at my high school
one day my mate referred to her as Miss Timberdick
( weaver., Mon 3 Nov 2008, 23:02, closed)