As I mentioned previously, I had enormous fun working at the PRU which was my last teaching post. Many of our young people had unsettled lives (to say the least) and many did not have good adult role models. One of the key roles in our unit, as well as teachers, was to offer pastoral support, and in some ways we functioned as a little family with us as the adults, the ‘mums and dads’ with normal affectionate and yet proper relationships.
The glue was our sense of humour, and although we were very serious and dedicated, we also had a great sense of fun… which sometimes continued when we were away from the students! (Sometimes? Sometimes? It always continued away from the students!)
Some of our malopropisms , colemanballs, spoonerisms and Freudian slips (the names have been changed to spare the guilty!):
- Crisps contain a lot of salt and e-factors
- The balls are in motion
- We now have to deal with the outshot of it all
- I’ve been given a form from river island to fill in “ (inland revenue )
- Dave: she fancies me. Joey: she’s so disillusioned
- To a student telling a fib “watch my beard grow whiter!”
- I can see your chin growing longer (Pinocchio’s nose)
- Celebrity sausages.
- If he’s upset we’ll suffer the backlog. (backlash)
- He’s all piss and vinegar.
- Lying out of his seat.
- I never have much success with that toilet in the ladies towel, its either pulled down and not changed or its pulled down all the time.
- Swathey
- A gunpowder plot boy
- She’s not the brightest cookie in the jamjar
- A complete whitewash excuse
- Teenage boys always have their hands down their trousers, haven’t you seen them? Its complicated down there
- The best thing since cheddar cheese
- Meetwins (meetings)
- Joey: when did you swallow the dictionary? Dave: after you. Joey: eeeuw
- Dave: there’s a fly in the ointment. Phil: there are many flies in this ointment
- The ears have walls
- Ear sex… Joey: what’s ear sex?
- That was a bit below the table (below the belt)
- He probably has a bed in his bedroom
Overheard in the staffroom:
Joey: you don’t eat lamb, do you?
Nikki: yes, I do.
Joey: so is it mutton you don’t eat?
Nikki: yes, I eat mutton.
Joey: so what meat don’t you eat? Is it baby lamb? What’s a baby lamb called?
Nikki: lamb.
Lois Elsden 