My overriding recollection of the late 1970s and early 1980s as a pupil at the Tunbridge Wells Technical High School for Boys (later to become the Grammar School for Boys) was just how cruel schoolboys can be. Most of the teachers were referred to only by long-established disrespectful nicknames. One of the most memorable was that of my first-year form teacher, the French teacher Mr Farthing, known universally by the epithet Rhubarb, or Ruby for short. The origin of the nickname had been lost in the school folklore. Perhaps, it was because of his perceived mumbling 'rhubarb, rhubarb, ...' Or maybe, as I once noticed when it was my turn to return the class register to the office after morning registration, that his signature, a greatly contracted version of his name Roger Farthing, appeared to read 'Ruby'.
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