Slang-Term | Translation | Current |
All in | The call to meals given by a School house monitor by shouting “all in” with a single lung full while walking from the entrance next to the main porch along the corridors to the dining room | 1910s - 60s |
Assy | Asphalt – Big assy - North of the Chapel before the Great Hall was built | 1910s - 30s |
Small/little assy - see below, Jack’s assy | 1910s - 30s | |
Chapel assy - between Great Hall & Chapel | 1930s - 60s | |
Main assy - behind Science block, now encorporated in new buildings | 1950s | |
Gym assy - by the old gym, now squash courts | ||
Jack’s assy - between quad & Chapel (next to Jack Kershaw’s classroom | ||
Assy football | Soccer played with a tennis ball on the assy between the bogs and the science lab. | 1930s - 60s |
Bags | To claim or reserve a right to something - the top of a boiled egg, for example | 1910s - 40s |
Bath lot | Organised swimming group under the supervision of a qualified lifesaver | 1940s - 50s |
B bags | Swimming trunks | 1910s - 20s |
Beats | Corporal punishment administered with a cane (2-6 strokes) to the rear of a boy bending over and holding his knees for stability. | 1950s |
Mon beat - administered by a monitor | ||
House beat “ “ House Master | ||
Sid beat “ “ Head Master after Sidney Adams | ||
Beauty Parade | Inspection by Nurse of all boarder new boys for their first three weeks or longer if they were not properly washed | 1930s - 50s |
Berlin wall | The barrier of lockers placed across the walkway in the locker room to divide ‘juniors’ from ‘seniors,’ thus reducing or preventing bullying | 1960s - 70s |
Binning | Putting a member of a ‘foreign house’, who had strayed into the wrong locker room, into a dustbin, tying him in and depositing him in the quad – see also muckering | 1970s – 80s |
Black hole | Space under the stairs up to Houston’s room (the lecture theatre, now full of computers) into which small boys were stuffed | 1940s |
Blags | Blackguards. Boys from Woodford who attempted to invade Big assy which resulted in Blag fights. | 1910s - 20s |
Blig | A local boy (not a Bancroftian) | 1930s - 40s |
Bliggo | Ditto | 1920s - 30s |
Blood | A comic strip magazine | 1930s - 50s |
Boarder bug | A boarder | 1930s - 40s |
Bodger’s Buns | A delicacy sometimes fed to boarders on a Thursday at tea | 1940s – 50s |
Body | Breakfast sausage | 1930s - 40s |
Boothole | Basement room off the main porch, an ante room to the armoury, where boys shoes were cleaned – in the 1950s also the depository for boxes | 1930s - 60s |
Bog | Lavatory, or use of same | 1930s - 60s |
Box | A cabin trunk | 1930s |
(also) | A tuck box (kept in the boothole | 1950s |
Bradshaw sidestep | A rugby manoeuvre whereby a player ran straight through an opponent – the term arose from an incident in a School v. Old Boys match in which an old boy (and current Art Teacher), Bradshaw, was running with the ball towards a School player when a boy shouted from the touch line “side step him Brad.” at which point ‘Brad.’, who was not a small man, flattened’ his opponent; probably died when the last of the witnesses left school | 1950s |
Branding | Holding a boy’s hand firmly to a very hot radiator | 1940s - 50s |
Bring down Luke | When those in the bunkers got bored they sought relief by creating a noise under the room of R.S.Lucas, usually by lifting and dropping one of the heavy tables - so ‘ bring down Luke.’ | 1910s - 20s |
Bumfreezer | Eton jacket – still extant though rare by 1925 | Up to 1920s |
Bunkers | Cubicles in the first floor dorm 20 senior boys of School House (usually 6th formers) slept (one to a cubicle) | 1910s – 60s |
Burning off | A fiendish trick whereby a mass of burning paper was floated along the central channel of the outside lavatories causing occupants of the stalls to leap for their lives | 1920s |
Buster | A slice of bread and butter or margarine; in 1887 a buster was simply a crust of bread | 1910s – 40s |
Buster Sludge | Bread and butter pudding | 1930s – 50s |
Caley bonkers | Favoured sweet sold in the Tuckshop. One source states this not to be so, and that these sweets were only obtainable at one of the schools (?Parmenter’s) against which Bancroft’s played football. Hence the demand on members of XIs to bring back supplies. | 1910s - 20s |
Camel dung and floorboards | Apricot tart, a term coined in the early fifties but in use for only a few years | 1950s |
Cave | Look out! | 1880s – 50s |
Cheese cut | Beating with a downward stroke instead of the conventional stroke across the backside – so cheese cutting, - perfected in the fifties, for ad hoc corporal punishment in the junior dayroom and dorm, with the use of a tie straightener in one notorious case and more commonly with a table tennis back | 1930s – 50s |
Chiggers | Chigwell School | 1910s - 20s |
Colts | Under 15s (years old) sports teams | 1950s |
CR | Boarder monitors room - short for Committee Room. It was located immediately above the main entrance | Up to 1970s |
Cross country definitions | Round the Owl. A run which started at Rigg’s, went through the forest almost to the Owl PH, then back to Rigg’s. | 1930s - 50s |
Great Triangle - via Ranger’s Road | 1950s | |
Large Triangle - via Brook Road | 1950s | |
Small Triangle - via Whitehall Lane | 1950s | |
Competition Hill - Rigg’s to the Royal Forest Hotel | 1950s | |
Dabday | A pernicious custom which permitted boarders of 4 or more terms to inflict physical chastisement on fags of 3 or fewer terms on the last day of term. | 1910s - 20s |
Dabs | A delicacy obtained by dipping sardines into a tin of condensed milk. In 1887 “dab” meant “good.” | 1910s |
Daybug | A dayboy. According to N.C.Suckling, 1915-22, the term daybug was a retort to dayboys dubbing boarders as bugs. | 1910s - 60s |
Dob Cricket | A favourite game for the younger members of the Boarders (the junior dayroom); each letter of the alphabet represented a score or a dismissal, teams of famous players were chosen and their scores arrived at by conning an extract from a newspaper or by ‘dobbing the letters in a book | 1920s – 50s |
Dorm | Dormitory – e.g senior dorm | 1930s – 60s |
Dorm beats | Corporal punishment meted out in the dormitory using a cane, or a lam stick (1-6 strokes) | 1950s |
Draper’s half | Half day holiday granted at the request of Governors on Visitation Day. When Vis Day was at the end of term requests would be made by the Head Monitor on the Francis Bancroft anniversary, and on Empire Day ( May 24th.). Not always granted! | 1930s – 40s |
By the 1950’s this had become a whole day and was requested by the visiting ‘celebrity’ speaker | 1950s | |
Driers | Room off the main porch (up a short flight of steps) filled with frames of hot water pipes, where sports kit was left to dry | 1950s – 60s |
Duty | Fagging for the CR | 1930s - 60s |
Fag | See “kid” | 1930s - 60s |
Feast | Organised (i.e. a group) illicit meal consumed after lights out | 1950s |
Fingernail pie | Apple pie (the fibrous pieces of apple core were considered to resemble fingernails) | 1960s |
Flick leave | Occasional official permission for boarders to visit a cinema | 1950s |
Gating | Punishment for boarder – confinement to school premises | 1930s - 60s |
Ghost night | Halloween – when traditionally ghosts appeared in the junior dorm. Actually older boys, dressed for the part | 1930s - 50s |
Goldfish bowl | Boarders prep. room near the Great Hall | 1970s – 80s |
Grove, The | West Grove playing fields | 1950s - 60s |
Heaven | A sweet consisting of blancmange surmounted by pineapple slices in jelly. Served only to those players in the one day matches between the 1st XI and Essex Club and Ground, Brentwood, and the Old Bancroftians. The special lunch was cold steak and kidney pie (delicious) with new potatoes and salad, followed by Heaven. | 1930s |
Hockey dice | A team game played similar to ice hockey in the junior dayroom (usually in the break between two periods of prep.); benches were turned on their side to form a rink and short, homemade wooden bats were use to propel a wooden puck at high speed | 1950s |
Hole | A cellar entered through a door in below the stairs to the dormitories where a secretive club, also known as The Hole, conducted its clandestine activities | 1950s |
Hot piping | A ‘punishment’ handed out to younger boys in the 1960s built locker room where bare heating pipes ran at low level along one wall. One was forced to sit upon the pipe for as long as humanly possible, to the amusement of one’s seniors | 1960s - 70s |
Hollybushing | The practice of abducting a small boy (usually a kid) by a group of ‘not so small’ boys to Reed’s Forest where he would be thrown, debagged or not, into a holly bush; frequently carried out on a cold day when the mortifying effect on the flesh was greater | 1960s |
Impot | An imposition- a punishment involving writing a line of text repeatedly; given out as two sides, or four sides or more depending on the heinousness of the crime committed; in the fifties pre-printed impositions were introduced which required the copying of a line in ‘copperplate’ script. The texts were about such weighty matters as the origin of resin or the properties of attar of roses. | 1910s - 60s |
Jibber | Gravy | 1920s - 30s |
Johnson | Meat served, from ‘Johnson,’ the horse used to pull the mowers on rollers before the advent of motor mowers | 1930s |
Kid | A new boy with less than one year at the School; a monitor in School House would also select a kid to act as his personal servant, unpaid but subject to sporadic tipping, hence ‘so and so’s kid’ | 1880s - 1960s |
Kid duties | Duties to be carried out by all School House kids, on a rota basis, for their monitors – four kids to clear up the monitors room before breakfast (by getting up early), two at lunchtime, two after afternoon periods or rollcall and two after tea. | 1930 - 50’s |
Kid hunt | ‘Open season’ (during the season of darkness) on kids during the half hour between the end of ‘Quiet Hour’ and cocoa on Sundays; a type of ‘hide and seek’ in which the penalty for being found ran from debagging to boot-blacking the genitals | 1950s |
Lam stick | Piece of a broken wooden chair used by Boarder Monitors for ad hoc corporal punishment, particularly in the dorm | 1930s - 40s |
Lamming | A beating. In 1887 a “lambing” (sic) was a “good thrashing.” | 1910s - 30s |
Leper’s arm | Suet roll encrusted with dates; the term was sometimes applied to the dish more usually known as ‘Rubber from Malaya.’ Also ‘Dead man’s leg,’ ‘Cannonball’ or ‘Dog.’ | 1960s |
Lockers | Locker room | 1930s - 60s |
Ma P | Mrs.Pepper - School Matron | 1930s - 50s |
Man’s room | First room on the left off the quad, used by the four boarder monitors | 1910s - 20s |
Mon hole | Dayboy monitors room | 1930s - 60s |
More | A second helping at meals | 1930s - 50s |
More more | A third helping at meals | 1930s - 50s |
Mucker | A dustbin or wastepaper basket | 1930s - 60s |
Muckering | See ‘binning’ – also placing an item in a mucker (e.g. a small boy would be given rubbish and told to mucker it | 1960s |
Newbug | A new boy who was not also a kid | 1930s - 50s |
Pa Brown’s | A small general stores at Woodford Wells, where ‘Pa Brown’ sold rather disgusting cakes, among other things | 1930s - 40s |
Palace | New lavatories which replaced the outside facilities | 1930s |
Pav pitch | The pitch nearest to the pavilion which was used for House matches | 1930s - 40s |
People | Parents | 1930s - 40s |
Period | A lesson | 1920s - 90s |
Pink Death | Pink blancmange | 1930s - 50s |
(also) | pink sauce on fishcakes | 1940s - 50s |
Po pud | Boiled suet pudding (jam or beef) served in an enamel basin which bore a similarity to a bedroom utensil | 1930s - 40s |
Prep | Work set by teachers to be prepared outside normal school hours – also the sessions when boarders were supervised to do the work; junior boarders did one and a quarter hours prep. per day, senior boarders did two hours (except Sunday -one hour). Before 1927 fifty minutes prep. was done before breakfast) | 1900s - 60s |
Prompters | Lower 4ths responsible for supervision and discipline of the Removes and 3rd formers - ie mini mons | 1950s |
Putty and varnish | Treacle pudding served invariably on Fridays | 1920s - 30s |
Quad | The main quadrangle around which the School was originally built | 1900s 80s |
Quad walk | A punishment requiring a boy to walk around the quad at a brisk pace for a specified time | 1930s - 60s |
Quis | A cry indicating either “whose is this?” or “who wants this?” to which the correct response was “ego” – indicating mine or me | 1920s - 60s |
Report | Exeat for boarders on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, i.e. excused attendance at 16.00 roll call. Usually only granted when accompanied by parents | 1930s - 50s |
(also) | A form of monitoring whereby a boy carried a form to be completed by each teacher to indicate that he was performing adequately in class: a failure to improve resulted in a beating | 1930s - 50s |
Rigg’s | A very rough rugby pitch down Whitehall Lane | 1930s - 40s |
Rubber from Malaya | Suet roll encrusted with sultanas | 1960s |
Sea scouts | Parts of the original Troop room were known as the “Bridge,” Ward Room” and “Stores.” | 1940s - 60s |
Schooly | Basic jam served to boarders at tea | 1940s - 60s |
Scrape | Supposedly butter - spread on bread before applying Schooly (q.v.) | 1940s - 60s |
Shifter | A mixture of three dried fruits stewed together – apricots, figs, and prunes | 1940s |
Sickers | Sanatorium (sick rooms) | 1910s - 60s |
Sides | More usual expression for Impot (q.v.) | 1930s - 70s |
Six | Six junior boys at table who formed a group to share jam and other goodies from home; a strict rule being that egg tops had to be auctioned with the cry of “quis” and awarded to the first response of “ego”. | 1920s - 30s |
Six feast | Held at the end of term | 1920s - 30s |
Skilly | Porridge | 1930s - 50s |
Skiv/skivvy | Maid who served in the dining room | 1920s - 40s |
Slosh | Tea. In 1887 it was a mixture of coffee and bread. | 1920s - 30s |
Slosh pot | A mug | 1920s - 30s |
Smally boy | A younger boy befriended by an older boy | 1940s - 50s |
Sneak | A teller of tales | 1880s - 1960s |
Soup | The word shouted by the players of assy football when the tennis ball was skied over the lavatory wall and landed in the open channel bog | 1920s |
Stiff Dick | Jam turnover | 1930s |
Swappers | Changing rooms for gym or sports | 1930s - 60s |
Swag | Sausage | 1930s - 40s |
Swag roll | Sausage roll | 1930s - 50s |
Thames mud | Chocolate semolina | 1940s - 50s |
Toe jam | The muck that collected on the floor of the swimming pool towards the end of the summer term | 1920s |
Trick | Very (i.e. terrifically) as in “trick good” | 1930s - 50s |
Trick gangs deadly super lusty | Yes, all five words combined – something really excellent | 1930s - 40s |
Trinder | A haircut – named after Mr. Trinder, the barber from the Ville who came to cut the boys hair between 7 and 8a.m, i.e. before the first roll call. | 1930s - 40s |
Tuck | Food from home (mainly confectionery) or bought from the tuck shop, of course | 1950s |
Ville | Area around the Castle Public House | 1930s - 50s |
Washers | Wash room, e.g. bunkers wash rooms | 1930s - 60s |
Wog | To steal, e.g. who’s wogged my ruler | 1970s - 80s |
Yearer | One who had survived the rigours of a whole year as a ‘kid’ and then had smaller fry to persecute; likewise ‘two yearer’ | 1930s - 60s |
Old boy slang
Saturday 10 November 2012
Old Boy slang
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A
glossary of schoolboy slang from Bancroft's, a private school on the
eastern edge of London. Canings in the 1950s were called "beats",
consisting of up to six strokes "administered to the rear of a boy
bending over and holding his knees for stability". They could be meted
out by a monitor ("Mon beats"), a housemaster ("House beats") or the
Headmaster ("Sid beats", named after Mr Sidney Adams, a former HM).
"Dorm beats" were given in the dormitory (pictured right). At an earlier
period, a good thrashing was called a "lamming".
Compiled by Geoff Crome (1939-47)
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