Bully almost dismembered......
In Brief...... Hardest kid in our year was Graham Dimelow.
The kind of kid who would punch you hard as he walked past just......because he would.

Anyway.

Metalwork lesson: Don't know if children are still allowed to do such things but lathes, milling machines etc. are in full swing, being operated by poorly supervised 14 year olds. Somebody is using a lathe with a bar of metal in it about 4 feet long. this means that part of the ragged ended metal (about 18" perhaps) is through the headstock of the lathe and spinning around quite quickly.

In these circumstances, standard practice is to put a piece of brightly coloured rag on the end to warn passers-by. No brightly coloured rag has been placed on the end......

It is about 1975 and school jumpers are made of indestructable man made stuff like nylon or other equally hard-wearing sweaty stuff.

People examine floor or ceiling as Graham Dimelow comes walking through the room......
People look up as the blood curdling screaming starts. He's walked past the spinning bar and the sharp spinning end has engaged in the "weave" of his jumper.

Lathes do not stop under such circumstances but continue slowly in their task. the front of the jumper is twisted into a thick, rope like sausage and, as the material is twisted up, Graham's waist is gradually reduced to ever smaller proportions.
The noise changes from a sort of suprised grunt, to a Arrrrrrrggggh, to a EEEEeeeeeee as, all air is squeezed out and organs are moved about.

Credit to the kid on the lathe, he stops it before death occurs and as people do in the seconds after something like this we all proceed to loudly exclaim "Fuckin' Ellllllll" and do errrrr......nothing.

Hero of the moment is Mr. Beckett, the "Hard Man" metalwork teacher who dashes over, takes one look, runs to the wall and returns with a large hacksaw. The twisted part of the jumper is sawn through and returns to normal size. Graham falls to the floor, gasping for breath.

Nobody Laughs.

After a short interval, Graham recovers and gets to his feet, the hole in his jumper went from waist to neck and armpit to armpit.
Mr Beckett went outside for a smoke.

Years later, it still makes me cringe, five more seconds would have resulted in a kid being literally squeezed in half before our very eyes.

Length? about 4 feet.
Diameter? About 12" round the waist.

Ian.
( Unklian Lives in the only country where "Glass" is a verb., Fri 30 Jan 2009, 9:39, 1 reply)

Bullying prick deserved it.
Pity he didn't lose an arm or two.

I hate bullies, can you tell?
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 16:23, closed)