Tale 40 - Gungeaphobia!

 The Sassy Princess and the Prince of Tales don’t watch the Television much.Thesecdays they watch their favourite programmes on their IPads, via apps such as Netflix and Disney Plus! The choice is endless!

In my day there were three TV channels!

BBC1, BBC2 and ITV - that was your lot!

Some things have not changed though. Children today, the same as back then, like nothing more than slime and gunge! 

You can even buy pots of slime and gunge these days! 

 

I heard them laughing loudly the other day. When  I looked at their iPad screens, someone was in a gunge tank getting covered in snot coloured green slime!

The Sassy Princess controlled her giggling, then asked me;

“Did you like gunge and slime when you were little?” 

“I used to, but not now. My love of gunge and slime vanished the day I actually went in a gunge tank!” I replied.

And the next tale began.

In the 1990s, ‘Noel’s House Party’,  was a popular TV programme that aired every Saturday night. Mr Blobby was its famous star, and his popularity at the time was so great he even had a top ten chart hit!

‘Noel’s House Party’ was not only famous for Mr Blobby though. It also had the ‘Gunge tank.’ Celebrities had to sit in the tank and answer random questions. If they got the questions wrong, the gunge, to the delight of the audience, dropped on the poor celebrities head! 

Mr Sykes was a teacher at Holy Trinity Senior School where I worked in the 1990s. Like myself, he liked to organise events the children would love. He particularly liked to organise events that raised money for charity. 

(From now we will call Mr Sykes the ‘Frog King’, mainly due to his amazing flexibility. Even though he is a pensioner, he can sit and balance like a frog, with his knees fully bent and his backside nearly touching the ground! He can do the lotus position and other yoga moves that I can only dream of!)

Anyway, the Frog King had somehow got the gunge tank to come to Holy Trinity School. I think it was for Children in Need Day, and the plan was the Holy Trinity students would pay to see their chosen staff get gunged! 

Other events were going ahead, but this was without doubt the star attraction! 

Children were told in an assembly to vote for two teachers (the unpopular two) they wanted to be gunged. The Frog King was a shoe in. He was like marmite to the children. They either loved him or hated him, so that meant half the school who hated him would vote for his gunging! 

I thought I was pretty safe. I was a PE teacher who ran school discos. No one would vote for me surely? I was so confident I would not be in the ‘unpopular two,’ I agreed to be ‘sponged’ in a separate activity. Sponging was basically children paying to throw a cold wet sponge at you in the playground. As I had taught most of them to throw,  I was pretty sure I would not get hit much! 

Unfortunately, and unknown to me, the Frog King was persuading, bribing and also threatening children with double homework etc to vote for me to be in the gunge tank!  

Thus, to my shock, the Frog King and I were voted to be gunged. 

The gunge company told us to wear clothes we were not bothered about as the gunge may stain. I wore an old Everton shirt to wind up one of the children who was a fanatic of the Merseyside club.

To be honest, I was partly looking forward to it. I’d seen the celebrities be gunged, and always wondered what it felt like! 

I had no idea what I was letting myself in for!

On the day, we walked from the changing rooms to the tanks. We were greeted with cheers and jeers like murderers from the Middle Ages walking to the gallows!  

It was a freezing winter day!  As I got there, the Frog King informed me a student had also been voted to go in, (Ross Hallam), so he got the joy of joining me.

We lined ourselves up underneath the gunge. The crowd counted down. Three , two one, Go………

About a pint of gunge dropped on us. 

“Is that it!” I laughed.

My laughing was short lived. I did not get chance to shut my gob before the full power of the tank was set upon us! 

The gunge was heavier than i thought, and it felt like whiplash when it hit my neck! It had the feel of very very thick treacle hitting you from above. It was orange and colour, and it only needed a few added chopped carrots to make it look like vomit! Not pleasant.

We both were absolutely covered in it! 

We left the tank to loud applause and hysterical laughter, and I went straight to my next gig at the sponging area.

As I walked across, I tried to remove the gunge I was covered in. 

It was like platting fog. Everytime I tried to move it I seemed to rub it in more.

I sat down in the sponging area, oozing  with gunge. Half of my footballers (and I ran 6 teams) were stood waiting with their freezing sponges! 

The first sponge  from the Captain of the Year 9 football team missed by a mile!

I laughed. 

Should not have done that. Don’t antagonise the enemy.

The next sponge hit me full in the face. The water was freezing! 

Then the next sponge hit, then the next.

I can’t explain how cold I was! But this was not the worst of it! The water was that cold, it was freezing the gunge to my body. The frozen gunge was being sealed to my skin by the freezing water, turning me into a ‘Gunge statue.’ 

The sponges kept coming, many of them hitting the main target which was my face. I solidified more and more as the icy water dripped down my body. 

I was being encased into a frozen tomb!

After what seemed like an eternity, my sponge session ended and I walked to the boys changing room. My walking style was very similar to the ‘Tin Man’ from the ‘Wizard of Oz.’ 

I was as stiff as a board. I can’t explain how cold I was!

There was no PE on lesson 4, so I locked the changing room doors and put the hot shower on! 

Even though I was freezing, I could not feel the heat of the hot shower due to my gunge casing. 

Eventually, the heat started to  penetrate through, and I’ll be honest, I was in agony! At one stage I thought I was having a heart attack, and don’t mind admitting I wanted to cry.

Never mind ‘Children in Need’ I was ‘Teacher in Need!’

It took me about 18 baths and most of the weekend to get all the gunge off. My mum went mad as I was leaving an orange ring constantly around her freshly cleaned bath (and don’t even mention the colour and state of the towels!)

If I ever see a gunge tank now, it gives me shivers and flashbacks. 

Some people fear flying, some small spaces.

Not me, but that day made me forever Gungeaphobic! 

The Prince of Tales had sympathy in his eyes. He touched my hand.

“Dad, I never want to go in a gunge tank!”

We had a hug. The lovely moment was interrupted by the Sassy Princess.

“Get a grip you wimp. You got cold. That was it!! The slime came out eventually. Boo hoo! I’d love to have a go! Bring it on!”

Fair to say the Sassy Princess and the Prince of Tales are very, very different! 

Anyone else been in a gunge tank? Or done something they now have a phobia of because of the experience? Let me know!