It was a nightmare trying to find the right book in your bag.
Irish peoples' strongest positive ‘back-to-school memory’ is covering their text books with brown paper or old wallpaper before the start of the new school year.
While it seems like just a couple of weeks since summer holidays began, schools - and the associated morning traffic - have now returned.
According to a new national survey released today by Lottoland, the most vivid memory people have of their return to school is covering textbooks with brown paper or old wallpaper, although those aged 55+ are more likely to claim this as their strongest memory versus those aged 18-34, who were less likely to recall it so clearly.
As someone who did this at one point, I can confirm it was an absolute nightmare trying to find the right book in your bag when they were all covered in the same paper.
“They say your school days are your best days and while the whole Covid-19 experience has made the experience tougher for the current generation of school goers, as the nation heads into the ‘back-to-school’ period, we wanted to see what memories of this key time of the year really stood out strongest for the nation’s adults," Graham Ross, Country Manager for Lottoland Ireland said.
"Needless to say, we didn’t expect that well-remembered ritual of covering your new textbooks with brown or wall paper to be the biggest standout memory of all."
Other standout memories included feeling sad at the end of the summer (this is by no means isolated to just returning to school, to be fair), shopping for new uniforms as well as the trusty 'Back to School' haircut.
Over 1,000 people were surveyed and asked what were their strongest back to school memories, the most popular answers are listed below...
- Covering your text books in brown paper or old wallpaper before the start of the new school year - 54%
- The excitement of seeing your friends on the first day - 42%
- Feeling sad about the end of summer - 41%
- The nerves of starting secondary school - 34%
- Shopping for new school uniforms - 32%
- The Indian summer weather around ‘back to school’ time - 32%
- The darker evenings for the return of homework - 30%
- The traditional ‘Back to School’ Haircut - 17%
- Forgetting your homework - 16%
- Smoking behind the bike shed - 16%
- Cursing the fact you had to study the likes of Peig and Shakespeare - 15%
- Faking an injury to get out of PE - 14%
- Getting kicked out of class to stand in the corridor - 14%
- Discovering what your mother had packed into your lunchbox of the first day back - 13%
- Fancying the new boy/girl in class - 9%
