Tales from Campbell Collegiate in the mid 80s:
We got sent home early as the school was evacuated because of a bomb scare. Turns out the guy who everyone thought was a bit of a nut job, was. He did have some sort of pipe bomb like device in his locker, or so went the story. The best part besides a day off school, was a few of us walked to a friends house and his mom went and got us Western Pizza.
One of the chemistry teachers, Mr. Helliwell, was a bit of nut. We all liked him because he was English, and could quote Monty Python as well as we could. If you yawned in his class he’d stop and say “you need more oxygen, go run the halls and if you don’t go fast enough you’ll need to do it again.” Helliwell did like to play with the chemicals at his disposal and for April Fools one year, decided to prank the math teacher beside him. This teacher, who we all thought had an attitude, would walk up to his room door, and forcefully ram him key into the lock to open it. This April Fools, Helliwell decided to mix up a little batch of contact explosive and put a dab some into the lock, and around the door for good measure. Well, he may have miscalculated on the quantity as there was a bit of a boom and the door needed to be replaced. Somehow Helliwell kept his job.
The last one put an end to frosh week. The principal’s daughter was in grade 9, which meant she was a “freshie”. At the clandestine party that happened every year where the ‘bad” seniors would take their Freshie’s to this and get them drunk. The principal’s daughter got so loaded, there was a trip to the hospital.
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