A dreadful primary teacher, Miss H, at a pretty dreadful (private) school - luckily I was only there for 2 years after we’d moved. She would rant and storm and throw things - even once threw a boy at the blackboard - we were all petrified of her.
All my mother ever said was, ‘Poor old thing - I expect she lost her boy in the war.’
At some parents’ event where I was present, I saw her all pink-faced and simpering at my father, who was both good-looking and extremely charming.
Despite all I’d told him, all he said afterwards was, ‘Oh, I thought she was quite a nice old thing.’
I felt so betrayed!
Some time after I’d left, my folks moved my little sister from that school to the state church primary virtually next door - after my mother had found the headmaster (who had a new Jag almost every term on the proceeds) shouting at little sister, then only about 5, because she was waiting for my mother in the wrong place.
Little sister went from that primary to win a full scholarship at an independent school that is still academically one of the best in the U.K.
At my girls’ grammar school teachers were variable, but not one was horrible. We had a wonderful French teacher, Miss James, who later did a crash course in Russian, in order to teach it to the more able linguists among us. We did A level in just 3 years (might add that I was pretty rubbish at everything but languages.). She helped us enormously with the set books by giving us lists of vocabulary (she bought a Cyrillic typewriter for the purpose) to save us endless time in looking up so many unfamiliar words.
She was the best ever.
