Best days of your life

When I was a young ambassador coming towards the end of my primary school education we had the most beautiful teacher. My time in Miss W's class happened to coincide with the realisation that girls may not in fact be icky. We would stand in yard like wise old sages, He-men and Skeletors in hand, ruminating on the aesthetics of Miss W. At that time I don't think any of us knew if he were leg, breast of bum men but all the lads agreed - she may have been strict but she looked nice.

Of course, coming from a not-so-leafy suburb of Dublin we were a little more rough-and-ready and certainly less articulate than you might expect from self professed sages. We thought we knew about sex - older brothers had told some of the lads and they helpfully transferred that knowledge to the rest of us. Like a crazy game of Chinese whispers however, much of the actual detail was lost or misconstrued - but one thing was certain... we knew boobs were somehow important in the overall scheme of things and Miss W's certainly seemed OK.

That summer, a navy, woollen, v-neck jumper made it into the rotation from Miss W's wardrobe - and it featured heavily. She mustn't have had any blouse or t-shirt to go with it but that didn't seem to bother her because it wasn't particularly low cut. At the bottom of the V, was some kind of large anchor shaped brooch (it was the 80s). While it didn't have the splendour or mystique of the Tara brooch, we loved it due to one particular property - it obeyed the law of gravity!

Miss W. would lean over your desk to correct your homework, gravity would do its thing and the jumpers bounty would be revealed. They were only breasts in a bra - but, being the most any of us had ever seen, it was like the 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre '. I can almost remember them glistening in the sunlight like something from an Indiana Jones movie but I am sure that must be a side effect of nostalgia for I do not recall them having any kind of metallic look about them.

When Miss W. was the supervising teacher on yard, we would laugh at the boys from the other class purposely getting into trouble. They would run on the grass (strictly forbidden) or bash lumps out of each other in order to get a ticking off. Miss W. would stand in front of them, bend over (for she was far taller than us) and administer a finger-wagging tongue lashing (DON'T). It was like the ultimate teacher fantasy - only they didn't know it at that stage.

Reading through some previous posts yesterday, I was thinking again about foxy female gardaí
and my mind drew potential parallels between the rise in gangland crime and the boys in yard. I couldn't help wondering if the rise in murders, tiger kidnappings and robberies was because, on a subconscious level, the criminals want to get caught and want a ticking off from a stern female garda wearing librarian style glasses with her hair in a bin and a pencil stuck through it?

Wonder where Miss W. is now? She must be 40 or so at this stage. Would I recognise her? What does she look like now? Did she know exactly what she was doing when she wore that jumper?

Clodagh, if you're reading this - leave a comment and let us know.

By the way, why did it make you feel cool when you knew a teacher's first name... and so silly when you accidentally called her 'Mammy'?