This is supposed to be the yearbook of years nine to eleven, but it is in fact far more than that. How could we possibly know how to have a good time in our KHS years if we hadn't had some practice beforehand? In short, what did we do before everything at KHS? And we can use real names here, because BMS was so ineffectual at punishment that we would actually quite like to see them try to tell us off for it.
Year six passed by in obscurity, with nothing amusing except Mr Watkins ("Shut up! I'm trying to take the DAMN register!") and the appallingly dire Carey Camp, which still exists unfortunately. I urge you not to ever think about it any more. And if you do happen to think about it enough to actually go there, try not asking for a hot chocolate drink. Or should I say 'hot chocolate'. It was actually brown with water, which is an extremely kind description from somebody who has physically been within a hundred miles of it. Perhaps that's where the idea for DOK came from...
Anyway. Year seven was when it really started. Mr Thompson tried to be our class tutor, but failed because he was in fact Jimmé Mk. 1. The same blind and deaf attitude to misbehavior was apparent in both of them. He used to fall asleep in lessons. We know this because David Callis used to get behind him and start cutting his hair. Then again, David's in jail now, isn't he? When not popping pills in Geography, he would enquire as to what we were doing in the most archaic way possible for a 'modern' school teacher. "What are you plotting, ENDLAR?" he would finally shout after half an hour of staring at Daniel Endlar during maths. Thompson was quite astute, though, because Daniel was actually plotting something - I hear it was to do with working out how much of the school he could 'take out' with the minimum number of well placed grenades.
Sealyham is not worth talking about because I can't think of enough good words to write down. It's even better remembering it than actually going there. This was 1995. They had a painting of Mario on the tuck shop door. Mario was ancient even then, and not even a brief appearance on the N64 could stop him becoming an object of ridicule among cynical members of our school. Carter made a DOK out of bodily functions and other 'brew' over the course of the week and managed to get Jay to agree to have it poured on his head in exchange for doing whatever he said for the rest of the week. As if he did.
This isn't particularly funny, unless it was during cross country. Which it always was. The teachers didn't seem to realise that we would only get their school muddy after trying to run through this filth.
I don't know why it was called a smoke bomb, as it wasn't a bomb and there was hardly any smoke either. It was just a small plastic bottle filled with toilet paper which was then lit and thrown out of the window. It didn't work very well, but we found it funny. Well, I suppose the thing we really found funny was the fact that the same thing had been done to the toilets on a much larger scale, and with several rolls of toilet paper. The toilet bonfire. That was it.
At the time, nobody seemed to think as much of this as we probably should have. Regularly, the year seven toilets would flood the downstairs area outside 'Swop Shop'. When the people came to fix this problem, everybody made it their mission to run around the school doing a Mass Flush in the hope of sweeping away the plumber into the sewers. We were unsuccessful.
Dr Harper would often come to BMS for some recreational supply teaching (Please do NOT ask. Perhaps he enjoyed it?). He took us for a 'Silent Reading Lesson', in which he seemed to have the wrong idea, and started to read us a story. It was about a hand which for some reason was special. I don't known because I wasn't paying attention. And that was the thing - nobody was. We carried on with lunchtime as normal, as if he wasn't even in the room. He got rather annoyed and threatened to not read us the story. You can imagine how disappointed we were. If you can imagine nothing.
She's still around, so I won't name names. The thing here was that she got bundled into a corner behind a door and threatened to "...do us for assault!"
The last day of year seven just so happened to be the day Thompson retired. Blackboards were plastered with abuse and doors were barricaded with desks. Walking sticks were thrown behind permanent cupboards. He didn't escape until we'd had enough.
Successive application of the business end of a compass produced a very, very deep scratch in one of the desks which we were delighted to see was still there on our yearly pilgrimage back.
Recently, we went back to BMS for the fireworks night. Nobody was in school, so we thought somebody had better be. Cruising round the pitch black corridors brought back memories. Ahhhh... until we got chucked out.