I have to say for a CP message board this is one of the worse for message actually relating to real cp stories i have seen, it just seemed to be full of people who enjoy either being rude to each other or talking about stuff NOTHING to do with cp.. Just look at the past 20 message, you would be lucky if 30% are relevent to CP... come on guys get real

Dear danny [sic],

It is with great pleasure indeed that I welcome you to our forum, a non-pretentious, informal group of non-judgemental friends where you can feel comfortable sharing the trauma of your British education, knowing you can count on our full support. We're all so happy to have your enthusiastic input. Might I start by pointing out to everyone that in your first (and only) sentence I believe you mean to use the superlative, and not the comparative 'worse', when comparing our CP message board to others you have seen. No doubt you also mean to pluralise 'message', capitalise 'i [sic]', and use a full stop after 'seen', thus avoiding the first of two comma splices. Additionally, I'm sure you do not mean to change tenses when discussing how the board 'seemed [sic]' to you, follow 'NOTHING' with a modifier, and use either a full stop or an ellipse and not a combination of the two after the third time you use 'cp', which should of course be capitalised. Then to be sure you certainly mean to pluralise 'message [sic]' again, follow it with a full stop, colon, or semicolon so as to avoid a second comma splice in the same run-on sentence, spell 'relevent [sic]' relevant, and finish your sentence (we use the term liberally, of course) with a full stop.

One points these things out, of course, to bear in mind should you turn out to have gone to a boarding or grammar school when you begin to discuss your own CP experiences (when such errors are merely the result of poor typography - a trait of many, many ex-boarding school pupils, it would seem - they are readily overlooked) .

Finally, in honour of your warm-hearted encouragement I shall share a true story that happened to me at school.




Stephanie has a Rather Awful Day

By Steff


It started out in music class at school. Actually it started out weeks before and gradually built up, but for the purposes of this story it started out in music class, which was the last lesson of the day. I was generally a very good pupil – that is to say I got good marks, not that I was always well behaved – but music was never my forte (or my fortĕ). I couldn’t understand why we had to take it. I wasn’t tone deaf; I just wasn’t that talented musically and didn’t really fancy it. In any event, I was in music class when suddenly the teacher said something to me and then wrote my name on the blackboard in the detention column. I was quite taken aback. I really didn’t understand what she was on about. Music class continued (I can’t remember what silly topic or instrument we were covering) and then about fifteen minutes later I heard her yell out ‘Stephanie!’, after which she looked at me crossly, walked to the blackboard, and placed a tick beside my name.

This time I felt very hurt. I really didn’t understand what I had been doing wrong. Talking during class? Not paying attention? Had she mistaken me for someone else? Having one’s name written on the blackboard meant 15 minutes of detention; a name with one tick meant 30 minutes. But more than the dreading the impending boredom of sitting still at a desk I felt indignation for being singled out for no apparent reason. In fact I almost felt like crying. After class I tried to ask politely what I had done wrong, but she just answered back ‘you know perfectly well what you did’.

You must understand, Miss P was not a very nice lady. She had a very short temper and didn’t seem to be too fond of children, apart from her star musicians. She was responsible for more detentions than any other teacher at the school, yet her lessons were the least well ordered. In fact, once she even hit a boy on the side of the head with a book. I rightfully assumed that she would consider it rather bad form to argue the validity of her call, so I resigned myself to spending a boring half-hour starring at the front wall from my desk. (In case you’re wondering, my school did occasionally use the cane, though as far as I could tell this was only for boys. This would have been about 1979, my last year of primary school, and I think that changing attitudes towards education may have been part of the reason why even boys weren’t caned very often. Had teachers been allowed to give spankings I’m sure that Miss P would have found a suitable candidate for one every lesson.)

After what seemed an eternity I was finally free to go, and I went straight home, cursing Miss P the whole way and thinking of nasty things I wished would happen to her. When I arrived home and Mum asked what took me so long to get back from school I realised that I hadn’t even had the foresight to make up a good excuse. It wasn’t as though getting in trouble at school automatically equalled a spanking at home, but I would just as soon she not know, especially since my deteriorating behaviour was obviously being noted at school.

I told her that I was playing with a friend, but was not so ready with a response when she asked ‘who?’ and ‘where?’.

‘You got in trouble at school, didn’t you?’ she asked knowingly.

‘No, really, I just took a while getting home’ I responded – or something to that effect. We repeated this process of interrogation and denial several times before she suggested that she could ring the school the next day to find out. It occurred to me that unless the music teacher were on hand there would likely be no way for them to verify that I got a detention, but I most certainly did not want my mum discussing my recent behaviour with anyone at school. I finally broke down and confessed, but insisted upon my innocence and the injustice meted out by Miss P.

‘Come here’ she said sternly, taking me by the hands as she sat at the table. She then launched into a long speech about how poorly I had behaved of late. The previous evening my brother (half-brother, actually) had been looking after me, as she had a job at the time that kept her away several evenings of the week. To say the least, she had received a very poor report from him when she came in late and tired the previous evening. My brother, who is eight-and-a-half years older than me, lived away from home at the time but would often help out by staying at our place whilst my mother worked. (Staying close to home also gave him a first-hand opportunity to keep apace of mum’s mental condition, too. When I was younger such problems would occasionally result in an extended ‘visit’ by my grandmother, but she was in a retirement home by now and my brother and aunt and uncle were tasked with making sure Mum was knitting with both needles. Thankfully this incident fell amidst a period when she was relatively stable.)

At any rate, the previous day my brother had come over after work to find me not at home – I wasn’t supposed to leave the house between when I got home from school and when he arrived – and after I did get home I’m sure I made a right nuisance of myself for the rest of the evening until he finally managed to get me to go to bed. I wasn’t exactly the most grateful child, taking no care of the fact that he would obviously prefer to be at the pub with his mates or out with one of his girlfriends. In fact, I’m surprised that he never spanked me, given my general disregard of everything he said. He did, however, give a full report to Mum, who now relayed it to me, along with everything else she had noticed in recent days.

I didn’t want to hear about it, and I remember playing a little game of tug-of-war a few times as I tried to pull away from my mum and she, still holding my wrists, kept me near at hand. I also remember her squeezing my arms ever more tightly and becoming progressively angrier as she audibly reminded herself of just how naughty I had recently been. Finally she let go of me and I looked forward finally to being by myself.

Instead she slapped her thigh and said ‘come here’ very forcefully, her tone making it very clear that she didn’t intend for me to sit upon her lap.

‘But Mummy, please…’ I began to beg.

‘No, you’re going to get a-----------------------

(This story has been terminated in the interests of those wishing only to have message [sic] relevent [sic] to school cp [sic].)

'follow 'NOTHING' with a modifier, and use either a full stop or an ellipse and not a combination of the two after the third time you use 'cp', which should of course be capitalised. Then to be sure you certainly mean to pluralise 'message [sic]' again, follow it with a full stop, colon, or semicolon so as to avoid a second comma splice in the same run-on sentence, spell 'relevent [sic]' relevant, and finish your sentence (we use the term liberally, of course) with a full stop'

I think just reading part of your response (copy of above) proves my point that intead of talking about CP you would rather sit and write very clever messages such as the above to try and prove how far more intelliagant you are to everybody else...very sad!

Sure your name is not Sarajane, Steff?

She has that 'oh so superiour' put down approach too, funily enough

Marvin

Marvin and Anon,

Please let me extend the same warm welcome given to danny (with a lower-case 'd') to you.

Though you're not the first to wonder, I believe a read through the messages below (up to 30% of which are about CP) will confirm that I'm a little more credulous than dear, dear Sara. In fact, I would reckon that only about 90% of the CP stories - and perhaps even fewer of the detention stories - on this and the 'other' forum are complete rubbish.

Oh, I forgot to ask Anon - out of purely genuine curiousity, just what did they teach you during English lessons at the comprehensive or secondary modern?