At school in the 40s and 50s we were taught to memorise Yorkshire rivers by this bit of nonsense....

Sam's Uncle Never Wants Auntie Clara Down Our Dark Hole.

The 1st letter of each word was the 1st letter of each river,so they are.....

Swale, Ure, Nidd, Wharfe, Aire, Calder, Don, Ouse, Derwent, Humber.

I used to feel sorry for Auntie Clara, though,and wondered why she wasn't wanted down our dark hole! :hihi:

Do you recall any ditties or rhymes from your schooldays?

Richard of York gave battle in vain - the first letter of each word is the colours of the rainbow - red orange yellow green blue indigo violet!
face and every good boy deserves football if you take the lines that make up music scores from bottom to top the letters correspond to the musical notes! amazing what daft things you can remember!!

I didn't know the 1st one...something to teach the Grandkids! :hihi:

I knew the 2nd one,but we used to say... Every Good Boy Deserves Favours !!!

Rhymes I remember

French verbs using etre instead of avoir
here goes because it's been a long time, these are probably mis-spelt.

tomber rester aller venir
entre montre sorter partier
desendre arriver mortier and naitre.

and a Poem about Ameoba----- apparently all you need to know about amoeba

amoeba proteus first we see
a protoplasmic blob is he
a marvel of simplicity
he changes oft and travels far
exuding pseudopodia
and should you see him at his best
watch him a rotifer digest
the case thereof it's made of grit
he cast he has no use of it.
his neucleus and bless my soul
his quaint contractile vacuole
unto his kind to give addition he multiplies by simple fision
and who for further knowledge looks
wlll find the same in printed books

hazel

I didn't know the 1st one...something to teach the Grandkids! :hihi:

I knew the 2nd one,but we used to say... Every Good Boy Deserves Favours !!!

So did we and also Alice Can Eat Grapes for the bass clef!

My Very Easy Method Just So Ucan Name Planets :D

HOMES for the Great Lakes - Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior.
I tell my grandchildren that I would tell them the Great Secret of the Universe that I learned at school but that then I would probably have kill them. That was " guzzinters ". One guzzinter two twice, two guzzinter four twice, etc.

My Vera Eats My Jumper She Uses No Plate

(Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus (heehee), Neptune & Pluto!

Although I guess that wouldn't work now as Pluto isn't a planet now.. lol

My own invention for remembering Sheffield's 5 main rivers - north to south: Dirty Little Rivers Prefer Slopes (Don Loxley Rivelin Porter Sheaf)

Before I retired, I worked for Royal Mail. This is how we were taught to remember the counties of Northern Ireland. The word to remember was FATLAD, which meant:

Fermanagh
Antrim
Tyrone
Londonderry
Armagh
Down.

Remember a few from geography.
Yorkshire rivers? From north to south:
S wale
U re
N id
W harfe
A ire
D on
gives you SUNWAD

Rivers of the Mississippi basin?
From south west anti clockwise:

R ed
A rkasas
P late
M issouri
M ississippi
O hio
T ennesee
gives you RAPMMOT


and the Great Lakes

Superior, Michigan, Huron, Errie, Ontario.
We were taught " She made him eat onions"

This was back in the 60s so some of it must have worked !!

My Very Excited Mother Just Smashed Up New Plates -
The planets :) Makes no sense without Pluto though :(

Silly Old Hens Can't Always Have Their Own Acorns

Sine = Opposite over Hypotenuse
Cosine = Adjacent over Hypotenuse
Tangent = Opposite over adjacent

Something to do with trigonometry.:confused:

I didn't know the 1st one...something to teach the Grandkids! :hihi:

I knew the 2nd one,but we used to say... Every Good Boy Deserves Favours !!!

i knew the first one,learnt it at my first piano lesson.......and electricity is cheaper in the evenings..

Mentioned this to a friend who was born in Ipswich. He said he was taught how to spell Ipswich by his Father, who said:

'I Put Some Water In Charlie's Hat'.

Found this quiteappropriate when i was young Run off you girls, boys in view. But did we heed the advice

Found this quite appropriate when i was young Run off you girls, boys in view. But did we heed the advice.........................

Dash in a rush, run hard or else accident :)

I think it was Shirecliffe school , my first school at a very young age, I was taught to count in French, then taught to say the mass in Latin, never was taught much English :D

I went to Meynell Road School and remember a teacher there by the name of Mrs Beaumont and to "help" us remember the correct spelling of her name she taught us this little rhyme - Boiled Eggs Are Useful Mostly On Nice Toast.

To remember vowel sounds when writing Pitmans shorthand:-
Pa may we all go too
That pen is not much good