BS: A level results!

Subject: BS: A level results!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 01:34 PM

I heard an interesting story from a Greek-Cypriot friend who has just retired - he took his A levels in France in 1974, then returned to Cyprus. The Turks invaded the northern part where he lived very soon after, and is still waiting for his A level results! He suspects that the letter is still sitting in a post office somewhere in Famagusta!!

Subject: RE: BS: A level results!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 04:47 PM

I've been to Famagusta. It's the grimmest, most dismal sight on the planet. If his letter is stuck in there somewhere, I'd forget it if I we're him!

Never mind that. I want someone to explain to me why newspapers, national and regional, always report the 'A' Level results alongside photos of jubilant, beautiful young ladies delightedly hugging each other. My question is this: do very plain, bosomless young ladies with misshapen bums, perhaps with NHS specs and buck teeth, never pass their 'A' Levels?

Subject: RE: BS: A level results!
From: Jos
Date: 18 Aug 18 - 04:14 AM

The breakfast television shows always seem to have a group of young people lined up to open their results in front of the camera (do they rehearse it first and practise the reactions the presenters want to show?) - Why?
When I got my A level results they came by post and I opened them at home by myself.

Subject: RE: BS: A level results!
From: Senoufou
Date: 18 Aug 18 - 08:29 AM

I just cycled up to the grammar school and the teachers handed the results to us from a long table. (no envelope, just a printed bit of paper) I was not yet seventeen (did 'em early) There was no screeching, crying loud rejoicing or fuss. We all just looked, read, stuck them in our pockets and went away again.

One or two of the teachers smiled or looked appropriately sympathetic, but nothing was actually said.

We were 'frightfully restrained' in those days!

I do remember my father had tears in his eyes though, as it meant I'd gained my place at Uni.

Subject: RE: BS: A level results!
From: Jos
Date: 18 Aug 18 - 08:34 AM

And we didn't go to 'Uni' when I was that age, we went to University or college.
I think 'Uni' may have arrived with 'Neighbours' on the telly.

Subject: RE: BS: A level results!
From: Senoufou
Date: 18 Aug 18 - 08:41 AM

We didn't call it 'Uni' either Jos. This was in the early sixties.
But I'm lazy and typing Uni is quicker!

Subject: RE: BS: A level results!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Aug 18 - 09:14 AM

I can't bear "uni." How bloody twee can you get.

Subject: RE: BS: A level results!
From: Senoufou
Date: 18 Aug 18 - 09:25 AM

Oh, now I'm 'twee' eh? :)

Subject: RE: BS: A level results!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 18 Aug 18 - 11:34 AM

Absolutely - "we" if we went there went to University, and wore a tie and jacket at all times!!!

Subject: RE: BS: A level results!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 18 Aug 18 - 11:39 AM

Interesting that my old school - Queen Elizabeth's Boys' Grammar School Barnet, sent 27 boys to Cambridge University in 2017, more than any other institution in the world! Back in my day we used to get an extra day's holiday for every boy that went to Oxford or Cambridge - not many of those to the pound!

Subject: RE: BS: A level results!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Aug 18 - 01:05 PM

we never got time off for good behaviour - you did every sodding day of your sentence.

Subject: RE: BS: A level results!
From: Newport Boy
Date: 20 Aug 18 - 12:26 PM

All this modern fuss! In 1954 A-level results were published in the local evening paper and you had to buy a copy to find out how you (and everyone else) had done. There were no grades either - just Pass or Fail.

Results came out in the holidays and the school was firmly locked. Teachers had the summer off in those days.

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: A level results!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Aug 18 - 12:50 PM

I don't know where my 'A' level or, for that matter, 'O' level results came from. In both cases it was just a letter that dropped on the mat without any ceremony whatsoever, which my dad opened and went to a phone-box to ring me at my holiday job, working as a labourer in a cheese-dairy, with my grades.

And only clever people went to University in those days, back in the '50s - not every Tom, Dick and Harriet with ambitious parents like they do today.