For some of us the very idea of going to mosque and spending two hours with a guy who wanted to kick the f*** out of us was the most depressing part of the day.

We was scared man - real scared.

Thankfully things have changed a lot and all credit to the new generation of teachers. Well, most of them anyway.

But back then when the dreaded 5pm crept upon us, we had to spend time in the company of a human being who liked to torture children. Sorry man, you might want to dress it up but there was no other way of putting it.

Hey, I ain’t blaming him he was just doing what he did back in his native land.

You sniggered, you talked, you made a mistake and you got your a*** kicked big time.

The types of punishments though were unique. From the m***** ****** murgha (chicken) position to the knuckle duster – if it didn’t work one day the teacher would soon come up with another.

There were some genuine pieces of art though. You would be holding your ears and doing the murgha and the teacher would walk past and push you over with his leg.

The surprise smack to the back of the head always got me no matter how hard I tried to look out for it.

My ‘favourite’ was the use of the stick on the soles of the feet. This was mean and it hurt too.

The stick featured heavily and it soon became a symbol of authority. Of course we were all different.

We had the kid who took his hand away at the last moment.

We had the kid who pretended it never hurt. We had the kid who cried even before the stick hit his hand. We had the guy who tried to talk himself out of a beating. And we had the guy who took the beatings for everyone else because, let’s face it, he just didn’t care.

As you got older the teacher soon figured out new ways to humiliate you.

But there was nothing more repulsive than the kameenay who colluded with the teachers to enact more punishment on their fellow classmates.

They would become the teacher’s henchmen or spies. I hated these guys with a vengeance.

If you are reading this… “I know who you are. If you are looking for praise I can tell you I don’t have any to give you, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills.

“Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you.”