Best teacher

[give her dixie]

Mickey Harte in St. Ciarans, Ballygawley. Dont know where he ended up after that.............................

[Aerlik]

Paddy Kawumba (also RIP) was Ugandan, a refugee from Idi Amin's regime. And he taught Physics, not Biology. Too much time in the sun and in your forties it seems.

Mrs Convery and Dolan both excellent teachers, although the incompetence of their departmental colleagues (Walker and Scroggy (RIP)) enhanced their abilities. Mr Maguire couldn't hold a candle to either Joe McGurk or Martina Campbell.

Top three I had were Deirdre Bradley, Vera McGuckin (RIP) and Colm O'Kane (Basil). Honourable mention also to Mickey 'Fish' Kelly.

Far too many teachers of that era thought their role in life was to terrorise and brutalise the youth of south Derry.

Far too many also with (RIP) after name, including Mr Small.

Are you absolutely 101% sure that Patrick Kawumba was Ugandan???  I'm 99.999% certain he was Kenyan.  And he taught ME Biology, as I didn't study Physics. That I'm 200% sure of.  When did he die?  He would only have been in his 50s now, wouldn't he.

Yes the incompetence of Mrs Walker nee Ingram was something to behold.  If she wasn't flirting with you she was telling you the grammar was in the back of the book so go and learn it by yourself and you'll be right, whilst chewing gum, looking out the window and rattling her effing bangles.  There was a fell called McNaney from Moneymore in my class and she decided to call him Nannygoat.  Well, the night of the parents meeting was some craic when the lad's mam challenged her in front of everyone.  I never saw anyone go as red and she burst into tears.  Classic.

I found out Scroggy was dead a few years back when I met a maghera girl, niece of Mrs O'Hagan in Tennant Creek, NT.  Sad to hear.  I got onl really well with Mental.  he was very witty in his own eccentric way.  I had Fish and wee Joe but couldn't get the way they taught.  Fish was a right bar steward at times.  I remember the day a Dungiven fella who shall remain anonymous as he still lives there, turned to Hutchy on the way to class in the auld extension and asked if "Mr Fish" was coming to school today.  Fcuk me the place erupted.  Hutchy went ballistic and said Dungiven fella, not the slowest lad in the class was made to suffer for that one.

I met Flash at the opening of the Dungiven hurling pitch three years ago.  He was another eccentric intellectual - he was by all accounts an extremely intelligent man.  We had a great chat.  He was born in a wee cottage beside our farm in Kilrea.

No honoruable mentions for our venerable headmaster I see.  God he was a hard wee fecker.    But we had some great debates in RE class.  One that comes to mind was the morality of war and I'll never forget him telling us that we had a God-given right to kill to protect ourselves.  Class went silent.

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

Geez FOSB you musta took the winda out of Timmy's sails, as he definately was not in the top bracket in my day!

Not at all Norf, we were model pupils (the leather helped though  ). What did you have him for? We had him for Spanish, and as I understood it he was initially a Physics teacher in the school, and when Spanish was introduced they had no teacher so Timmy stepped up and mastered the tongue in short order.

[boojangles]

My Construction Studies teacher in Pats Cavan was a legend.Mr Gunn-He was a Roscommon man,probably just in his late 20's at the time.In my Leaving Cert year he practically did all my Woodwork project.I left it on the long finger and with 2 days before the deadline,I came in dying the morning after our End of Year mass to find that he had done half my project. I ended up with a B3 in Honours and should have failed it by right.

[muppet]

My Construction Studies teacher in Pats Cavan was a legend.Mr Gunn-He was a Roscommon man,probably just in his late 20's at the time.In my Leaving Cert year he practically did all my Woodwork project.I left it on the long finger and with 2 days before the deadline,I came in dying the morning after our End of Year mass to find that he had done half my project. I ended up with a B3 in Honours and should have failed it by right.

School must be wile craic up north.