It’ll be great” I said. “Just like being a student again...“I was a failed teacher myself so I had no qualms about recommending the profession to my partner. She’d graduated 10 years before and never settled into a “proper job”. Like many people, she was about to “fall into teaching”.

Bev (not her real name) got a place at South Bank University, in Elephant and Castle, London. She would do a year’s PGCE.

Bev was excited.In those days you got a grant, a bank account and a loan. She was a student again. She could get drunk at the student union on beer at 24p a pint. She could watch telly in the afternoon. Maybe she would go to a rave at the Ministry of Sound.

While all this and a whole lot more was going on during freshers’ week, Bev and all the other aspiring teachers were on placements in local schools. Bev went to a Catholic school and saw pupils pelleted with board dusters, shouted at and dismembered with chainsaws.

She was doing Early Years, three to eight. That was a good idea, I thought - it was bound to be a bit of a doss. I mean, how hard can it be to teach a bunch of little kids how to write their names and play with water?

But there was an academic side to it. This involved writing essays. But Bev hadn’t written an essay for over 10 years and when she found herself facing a blank sheet of paper, she realised that she’d forgotten how to.

This came to a painful head with the first big assignment. It had to be completed after the end of half term. Ever wise, I pronounced: “Get it done now and enjoy half-term.”

She put it off.

“Have you done your essay yet, Bev? I What is it? I ‘Compare and contrast the playabilty of Play-Doh and flour and water?’” She didn’t smile.

Half-term was no fun. She was like a moody teenager and I was her nagging dad. “If you don’t do your essay, you’ll ruin your life and end up a tramp.”

Eventually, with two days left, she started. I provided tea, coffee, chocolate, cheese sandwiches, Pro Plus I until I could stand it no longer. After two hours, I left her to it and went to the cinema.

It got done. She got a good mark. She’d started smoking again. I stopped joking about messing about in sand pits. I now knew that was “knowledge and understanding”. Playing with water wasn’t exactly hydrodynamics, but it was “science”. She was stressed already and now faced the next step.

Bev’s main placement was in a primary school in Bermondsey, a poor area next to the Thames - Millwall country, as I call it.

Some of Bev’s friends ended up in Dulwich Village, or “Thatcher country”, in my pre-New Labour parlance. Bev was definitely in at the deep end.

In the first national school league tables, Bev’s new school came last. That’s bottom. If it was in Wacky Races, it would be Dick Dastardly and Muttley.

Her class had 28 pupils: 21 boys and seven girls. The children came from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Bulgaria, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Ivory Coast, Spain and Italy. There were also some Bermondsey kids, some Irish Travellers and a Jehovah’s Witness.

Now Bev never complained about her class, but it was such hard work - especially for the poor Jehovah’s Witness, who was forbidden to take part in anything remotely fun, like assembly, singing happy birthday to classmates, or smiling.

The key to successful teaching is planning - everyone knows that. I never thought you could plan too much; now I know otherwise. Bev’s plans were like Stalin’s proposals to the Central Committee of the Soviet Ministry of Big Planning. Or like Francis Ford Coppola’s unedited screenplay of Apocalypse Now. They covered every waking moment of the school day from “walk into classroom and greet pupils in basic Bulgarian” to “weep in toilet at 11 o’clock”.

She was working really hard and becoming a great teacher. Eventually, her planning eased off a bit. But the school was struggling.

A dynamic new head was brought in - and heralded by The Guardian - to save the failing school. He had disappeared by the summer term and was last seen in a dayglow orange vest and matching helmet, cycle couriering on the Euston road.

Much drinking took place. The smoking stopped. Then it started again. There was lots of laughing. Then it stopped. Bev’s carefree student days were over.

She’d finished. She’d written lots of essays, done huge amounts of sticking and glueing and actually taught kids in school.

Of course, she passed and there was great elation. Now she’d be able to get a “proper job”. Ho hum - only another 25 years to go.

Simon Bligh regularly performs at the London and Manchester Comedy Stores