School proms were still in their infancy.

Our head of Year 11 was a mortar-board-and-blackboard kind of chap.

Teenagers weren't at school to have a good time. He held no truck with alien concepts like Prom.

Americanised orgies of self congratulations and excess, he said. And we all agreed. That's why we wanted one.

He wasn't for budging, though.

There was a leaver's assembly and that was it.

Some teachers made speeches, some pupils made music, and then – with signed shirts and year books – we left our schooldays behind.

Those who looked old enough went to the pub. Those of us who didn't went to the park. We ruminated on what kind of an upside-down world we were being thrown into where a boy could be man enough to get a full-time job but not a pint of ale.

Two years passed. Sixth form came, then came to a close.

The same teacher, perhaps mellowed by thoughts of retirement, relented and organised a prom.

Forty rowdy 18-year-olds thanked him at the end of the night by questioning – in chant form – both his parentage and his diet. All in good humour, of course.

Ace night, that was.

A little different to today's balls.

Much the same as now we dressed in suits while the girls were decked out in dresses but that's where the similarities ended.

We arrived, not by chopper or party car, but on a coach, and we absolutely weren't papped by the local press as we entered the venue.

Perhaps it was a good job there were no photographers there.

The first casualty ruined his suit before we even arrived. Travel sickness, he said, as he rinsed his mouth from his hip flask.

And that was a teacher. I jest. They were all on their best behaviour that year.

It was a couple of proms later, when partners were invited for the first – and presumably the last – time, that things apparently got "complicated".

A teacher's wife slapped a female student just because the girl was making an emotional farewell to her husband.

An over-reaction maybe but, to be fair, he should have known better than to allow the farewell to involve tongues.

Happy days. For us. Probably not for him. Not for a few sofa-bound nights, anyway.

Makes me jealous now, though, when I see all the photos from all these balls in all the local papers all through the summer.

I'm not sure if school proms are that newsworthy but I guess teenage girls in dresses that don't cover their shoulders sell papers.

And yet, jealous and bored, I sit writing captions to go with the pictures.

Teenagers, I've decided, shouldn't be at school to have a good time.