Thursday 19 December 2013

How Times Change

Behind the bike sheds; in the copse at the far end of the playing field; in the outside toilet block. They were the archetypal hiding places when kids surreptitiously smoked at school (or still do).

If you got caught, it was detention, 100 lines, a couple of sides on your least favourite subject. Maybe a letter to your parents if you were really unlucky.

So, consider this real life conversation, overheard by one of the little Ps at her school today.
B: So why did you get an e-cig?
A: Mr Jackson (the head teacher) caught me smoking in the school grounds.
B: {gasp}Where?
A: Behind the sports hall where I thought no-one could see.
B: What did he say?
A: That I'm lucky not to be kicked out already, but if I'm caught again, that's it!
So, what's your position? Appalling evidence that kids are using e-cigs? Or great that kids are reducing harm by using e-cigs?

Neither. The conversation was between two teachers.


8 comments:

#EUvapeson said...

If the kids are already smokers then it's a travesty that the EU wants to take the safer alternative away from them and condemn them to a life if addiction to KILLER tobacco.

Although I think we all know that governments worldwide are doing all they possibly can to keep world population numbers down while simultaneously milking all they can from the sick and dying.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

I think you missed the last line. ;)

maxlimit said...

got a weeks lunch time detention for smoking in the 6th form bogs, those were the days

Sam Duncan said...

And yet there are fools who say the regulatory state infantilizes people.

nisakiman said...

Yes, it's a stark illustration of the pass we have come to, DP, when the teachers are in that situation.


When I was at school (60s), the staff room was always a fug, and the headmaster (whom I oft had occasion to visit, being a somewhat rebellious boy) would chain smoke throughout the usually painful (the words "six of the best" generally formed part of the closing comments) interview. They all smoked. The french master, a fearsome man (reputedly very much in action in the French Resistance during the war), would sweep down the corridor, robes billowing out behind him, his pipe clenched firmly between his teeth wafting the pungent scent of Burley in his wake. And woe betide any poor soul who interrupted his passage. I'd love to see a headmaster try to castigate him for smoking!



And now what do we have? Teachers hiding behind the bike sheds to have a smoke....


I despair.

ChrisPrice4 said...

You will have to stop doing humour, Dick, it completely messes up the comments. Please remove all traces of sarcasm or irony.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Nutters, and no mistake. ;)

woodsy42 said...

I went to a mixed secondary school. Private space behind the bike sheds was much to valuable to waste on smoking, there are some things more important to a hormone fuelled adolescent than smoking :-)