Sadistic Woodwork Teacher
Our woodwork teacher in the first year was “Mr Clough*” a truly twisted and sadistic individual. Mr Clough used to delight in humiliating pupils by telling them off in vastly exaggerated, sarcastic John Cleese as Basil Fawlty type of voices or whacking them with a lump of wood called “Fred”. Fred was mysteriously found damaged one morning and was replaced by “Joe”.

I was struck on the arse once by “Joe” for the heinous crime of holding a set square the wrong way. After hitting me I was then humiliated for 15 minutes. Yep, he was a bastard!

A boy in my brother’s class suffered an even worse fate at the hands of Mr Clough. Instead of telling him off for his supposed misdemeanours Mr Clough forced the lad onto the low shelf under his woodwork bench and proceeded to nail strips of 2”x1” wood at regular intervals around the perimeter of the bench.
Having thus imprisoned the boy in a cage he carried on with the lesson and only released the boy at the end of the lesson. The next week the boy was too scared to go to woodwork and was found hiding in the toilets! I think Clough realised that he had overstepped the mark and fearing being reported was actually nice to the boy.
If there is such a thing as hell, I’m sure a special place is reserved for Mr Clough.

*(Not his real name as the bar steward isn’t dead yet and I am mindful of slander and libel!!)
( Vambo, Wed 4 Feb 2009, 15:08, Reply)