A Song We Used to Sing in My Schooldays

Here's one I remember;

A hunner an ninety nine,
Ma faither fell in the byne,
Ma mither came oot wi the washin cloot,
And skelped his bare behind.

Translation on request.

We sang a version of "Glory, Glory Hallelujah" in UK primary school.

At secondary school we had more questionable tastes, if we were confined at lunch time due to bad weather we would often have a singsong, including one about the digestive system of Farmer Brown's Cow and a version of the Banana Boat Song in which a class of thirty-plus white boys would pretend to be Jamaican. Good times.

In Primary school we used to sing "Good King Wenceslas" as "Good King Wenceslas went out/ In his Austin Seven/ Bumped into a roundabout/ And now he's up in Heaven". An Austin Seven was a small, cheap, prevalent car of the period.

At some pretty early stage I myself used to sing the hymn line "Let angels prostrate fall", having found out what prostrate meant, as "Let angels drop down dead" and a well-known bit of the national anthem as "Send her victorious/ Happy and glorious/ Longtoreignorious."

Boy, did some people have peaceful childhoods.


Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school.
We have tortured every teacher, we have broken every rule.
Tomorrow afternoon we're going to hang the principal
when the boys come marching on

Glory, glory hallelujah!
Teacher hit me with a ruler.
Met her at the door with a loaded 44
And she ain't going to teach no more.


And who could forget
....
On top old smokey
All covered with blood
I shot my poor teacher
With a rubber band

I went to her funeral
I went to her grave
Some people threw flowers
I threw grenades

In our school when I was a teen-age boy, we used to sing a song that went something like this. "SEE MY FINGER, SEE MY THUMB. SEE MY FEMALE TEACHERS, BARE SPANKED BUM.

From my memory:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school.
We have tortured every teacher, we have broken every rule.
We have shot the secretary, we have hung the principal.
The kids go marching on.

Glory, glory hallelujah!
Teacher hit me with a ruler.
Shot her in the attic
With a German automatic.
And the kids went marching on.

Then there was:

On top of Old Smokey
All covered with blood
I shot my poor teacher
With a .44 slug

I went to her funeral
I went to her grave
I didn't throw flowers
I threw hand grenades

Which saddens me. My nieces (13 and 16 years old) would probably get arrested for singing those songs now

Rikspanks, your nieces should be given a good spanking on their bare bottoms, if the principal or headmaster would catch them seeing that. And I can assure you their "Ooohs", and "Ouchs", from their lips, would sound BUTT sweet music to those heads of education.