WILD misspellings continued.

Bob Byiers recalls when pupils wrote essays about their summer holidays. Says Bob: "One boy wrote that he had been to Rossie, and was severely reprimanded for not being able to spell Rothesay properly. Eventually he managed to persuade the teacher that he had in fact spent his summer at Rossie which was what we called in those days an approved school, near Montrose."

Just a belter

WE asked for school punishments that didn't involve the belt, and Andrea Christie in West Dunbartonshire says: "Jordanhill teacher training did not include lessons on effective use of the belt and we were left to devise our own methods. I was a home economics teacher who could never master the technique and quickly devised a punishment for pupils bigger than me - they were instructed to chop onions."

Whole lotta celebrity

MORE on meeting celebrities who can in fact be a tad modest. James Miller in Orkney was sitting in a Glasgow restaurant when he thought he spotted Robert Plant from one of the world's biggest selling bands Led Zeppelin. He asked the waiter who told him: "Aye, it's him, right enough. He asked me if the restaurant was anywhere near to what used to be Green's Playhouse as 'I used to play some music there'."

Sole searching

OUR jury stories remind Adrian Waddell of kenspeckle Glasgow lawyer Len Murray's autobiography, The Pleader, in which he tells of a Dundee jury that found a chap guilty when many thought he would get off. Wrote Len: "The sheriff clerk asked one of the jurors what had led them to their verdict and was told by the juror that she had noticed the shoes of the solicitor for the accused were dirty. She had learnt never to trust a man with dirty shoes."

Poster guy

ILLEGAL postering, and musician Roy Gullane recounts: "Back in the 1970s, a couple of friends were fly posting for a concert we were giving in the City Halls. They were apprehended by one of Glasgow's finest who, of course, wanted their names, which he was given. 'Occupation?' he further enquired. 'Unemployed bill posters' the reply."

Waiting in the wings

SCOTLAND'S national bird continued. "How about the dodo if a no vote is returned," says Ian Craig of Strathaven.

What a picture

A HYNDLAND reader tells us he was trying to round up the family for a trip to the cinema and was concerned about being late when his teenage daughter headed to the loo to put on make-up. As they were going to be sitting in a dark cinema he felt it was not unreasonable to shout at her: "It's a cinema. Even your mum's not bothering with make-up."

"She doesn't have to," shouted back his daughter. He thought she was being complimentary until she added: "No-one's going to be looking at her."

Tongue twisting

DAFT gag of the week. Says a reader: "'Have you got a Barbie doll?' I asked the shop assistant. 'You've got an interesting accent,' she said. 'It's a mixture of Australian and Scottish, isn't it?'"