School days pranks, japes and other silliness!

[OneHungLow]

Looking at this interesting post about Boeing breaking the paper aeroplane distance record I was apt to think of school days and all the silly things we did that invariably went wrong, resulting in mirth, punishment, pain and ignominy.

The funniest moment, I think, came when at age 13 we designed a big paper plane out of one of the large sheets of heavy coloured paper generally then used for "projects", usually for sticking on additional sheets of copied/plagiarized library book text and irrelevant photos stolen/cut from magazines like National Geographic, about sundry worthy, but tedious subjects, like the gold mining industry, or the tribes of the Amazon basin etc.

The paper plane itself was a beauty, and definitely the biggest one I had seen to that date and we launched it across the classroom behind the French teacher's back, one hot Transvaal afternoon.

It flew beautifully and as straight as a die, or maybe an honest arrow, across the desks and clean out of the open window on the other side of the classroom, which was on the 3rd floor of the building. What it did thereafter must go down in the annals of flight, and good or bad luck for the designers, as it performed a perfectly controlled descending 180 degree turn and flew with unerring accuracy clean through another open window of the matric classroom on the first floor where the headmaster was giving some lecture on Pliny, Pythagoras or another equally boring person, when the paper plane struck, he later insisted assaulted, him on his bald head. His roar of rage was heard across the classrooms on all 3 floors and caused general uproar elsewhere, but the problem for the enraged man was identifying from where the errant projectile had arrived and we would have avoided discovery if we had kept quiet, but our delight when we realized what had happened was too great, to loud and too long, and he huffed and puffed his way up the stairs, cane in hand, sense of humour en retard, to punish the perpetrators of his aerial bombardment! The paper plane was seized and held as evidence of our "crime" but its presence continued to evince a certain amount of amusement, not to say admiration, amongst some teachers too and it was later, sadly, destroyed, as was the way in these things.

[Hydromet]

When the Mini Minor first appeared, they were often the target of pranks. Two teachers had them when I was in high school. One was completely filled with crumpled sheets of newspaper. The other was bounce/lifted and placed between two buildings, with only about a foot front and rear of it.

No damage was done and both teachers, wisely, took the pranks in good spirit, and after all the fun, the cars were cleaned/returned to its original position. Had the teachers reacted otherwise, they would doubtless have been victims of further pranks just to see their reactions.

[Ex-Ascot]

OHL that is brilliant. Not so exciting but at University our most boring lectures were statistics. It was an old fashioned tiered lecture room. Great for throwing paper planes from. The lecturer Dr Brown (why should I remember that after all those years?) never turned from the chalk board. He would rabbit on for an hour and then walk out surrounded by paper planes.

Not school days but I am sure there are a few here who can tell of Royal Air Force pranks.

[Hydromet]

Ex-A, it sounds like we had the same Stats lecturer. Ours did the same. No paper planes though, everyone was asleep.

[Boac]

In 'the good old days' the Wing Commander attached to 'oversee' the Sparrers at Kemble was the ''Supersonic Peanut', Sid Edwards, a bonzer chap, who's office entry style was to smack the door hard with his hand to open it. Of course, soon all hinge screws were 'adjusted' so the next time he did it....................................

Poor Sid was also sent an authentic looking request for a survey on the team consumption of energy snacks which required a significant amount of table-ticking all day over several days.

He took it all well, in his usual way.

[OneHungLow]

This jape was brought to mind by a light hearted comment made by Boac on another thread.

It was a tradition at my school in Cape Town that the final year might be given some leeway in the performance of minor japes and the letting off of some steam before they left on study leave prior to the matriculation examinations, and then onwards, generally to perform their two years military service, or on to higher education, but the final year above me took this tradition to another level altogether when Rob Colussi, then all round high achiever, and Springbok swimmer, borrowed his father's PA28 (he was fully licensed at 17) as one does, and with the help of another final year pupil, in contradiction of the 500 foot rule and sundry other ZACAA regulations, flour bombed the boarding masters' accommodation block with unerring accuracy, much to the delight of the rest of the school, the ETA of the bombing run being timed to perfection with the main school assembly. The powers that be took a very dim view of this incident and the whole class was expelled, rusticated, and forced to sit their examinations elsewhere, and the old boys banned for 10 years from returning for school reunions. The ZACAA remained oblivious to the event however, fortunately for the pilot.

Our year's jape, the following year, turning the school swimming pool light pink by throwing phenolphthalein (universal indicator) into the water one day before a school gala (which necessitated that the pool to be drained, cleaned and refilled and the gala delayed) was but an expensive blip on the radar screen, a mere footnote in the pantheon of lame japes.

Edit - Having been reminded about Rob, I see that he too has become part of the ZA diaspora.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news ... 54597.html

Oh well, I presume he is well fed!

[Hydromet]

OneHungLow, we have the same "Muck Up Day" tradition in Australia. We did nothing quite so exciting, but the theme of our mischief was newspaper placards. Various witty placards were made by cutting up real ones. Most have been forgotten, except for one. We had a music master and two junior music teachers, Miss Moon and Miss Couch, who were probably only three or four years older than us.
The knowing grin on Miss Moon's face when she saw the sign was worth seeing. The smirk on Mr. Russell's face when he told us to remove it was priceless. The placard read "FIRST MAN ON MOON RELAXES ON COUCH".
Miss Couch's reaction is unrecorded.

[llondel]

I remember a few good ones, although I wasn't directly involved in most, merely an amused observer. A bunch of 13yo kids lifted a teacher's Mini so that it had two wheels either side of a ditch.

Another was at university, where the lecturer expressed his displeasure at beeping digital watches (remember those?) on the hour. For various reasons, the hour-long slots all started at 15 minutes past, so there were plenty. One day, 3pm rolled round and he was in full flow, when the lights dimmed, Big Ben was projected on the screen and the soundtrack chimed three times. He was rendered speechless, but I suspect he was impressed.

[1DC]

I suppose my 13492 on the boring thread is more suited here!!

[tango15]

A prank from my schooldays ran as follows:
Because our school was in the centre of the city, there were no facilities for grass sports. For football and rugby, the school laid on an ordinary Corporation bus (as they were then), to take us to another part of the city called West Derby. It so happened that it followed the same route as the number 99. The indicator was blank, so a few of us decided to fashion a device in woodwork class that would allow us to open the door to the indicator board. On a subsequent journey all went well and people kept putting their hands out for the bus to stop. The masters were unaware, because they always sat downstairs. Apparently, this was soon reported to the depot, and we were caught out several journeys later. Four of us were summoned to the head's office, but none of us would confess to doing it, so the head, to his perverted delight, administered the cane to each of us, and a warning was issued to all at assembly the following day.

For those of us who lived in the south end of the city, the journey back required a change at Penny Lane bus station, which I gather was instrumental (if you'll pardon the pun), for the Beatle's song of the same name.