School balls

Andrew's reminiscence about his school days triggered memories of my own. For better or worse my parents sent me to an all male, very expensive, private school perhaps in unsuspecting prescience of my eventual sexual predilection. All the students, more than a thousand of us, were male (obviously), all the teachers - bar one - were male and all the visible support staff were male. There were several female administrative staff who were kept safely away from all this testosterone and thus were rarely seen by the randy pupils. To passers by my school and it's grand facade would have exuded an almost overpowering respectability.

My school

If there was any hanky panky occurring then I was blissfully unaware of it. I was a mass of contradictions. Having reached puberty early I was already engaged in secret sexual activity but none of it involved anyone at or connected with the school. Yet in other respects I was innocent and naive. For all I know other boys were bonking each other silly or early targets for any hidden cougars in the administrative offices.

The one female teacher I alluded to above was in the science department. Mrs L was a biology teacher. Of course! I don't know why she was employed at the school when no other women teachers were but at a guess I imagine the fact that her husband was a teacher in the same department was a relevant factor. Mrs L was probably aged around 40 at the time but to our youthful eyes she seemed positively ancient.

Stepping momentarily away from the point of this posting and moving forward about forty years I visited the school with a group of old boys (Andrew, the appendage observer, please note) from my year and found women teachers in abundance. Times have changed.

But back to my school days, it fell to Mrs L to deliver the euphemistically titled facts of life session to class after class of male pupils. I think the session occurred in Year 7 when we were aged around twelve or thirteen. Already sexually 'experienced' there was still plenty - maybe everything - for me to learn about sex, especially of the heterosexual variety. So despite our giggling childish reception to the lesson it served a useful and important purpose.

It was the session's conclusion however that delivered the knock out punch. Mrs L concluded each of these sessions by informing the pubescent audience that by now our testicles should have dropped. In a dry and unemotional monotone Mrs L announced 'any boy whose testicles have not yet dropped should stay behind class and see me'. I have no idea what happened to any boy who did so but we couldn't get out of that classroom quickly enough once the bell rang.