Who were the weirdest people to give a talk in your school?

Children at school in the 1970s, when the restrictions on who could visit seem to have been a lot looser. Photograph: Alamy

I have a very clear childhood memory. I am sitting on the carpet in my primary school’s library, listening to a man tell vivid stories about an amazing faraway place, with pictures projected on the wall. I’m about six or seven. The faraway place is Swaziland. And the man is, as far as I recall, the Prince of Swaziland.

As an adult, I’m genuinely curious about how a member of Swaziland’s royal family came to be giving a talk in Walthamstow in the 1970s. This curiosity caused me to idly ask what I thought was a fairly bland question on Twitter: “Who were the weirdest people ever to visit you in school to give a talk?” The volume of replies caught me by surprise. Someone described it as “a priceless thread of 1970s/80s British dysfunction”.

Several themes have emerged from the stories shared. David Prowse appears to have visited every school in the country except mine, but always in the guise of the Green Cross Code Man and not Darth Vader, the character the kids were inevitably clamouring for. There were boybands and pop stars on promotional tours, and politicians keen to impress the next generation of voters. Rather unexpectedly, several people claimed they had school visits from an ex-Status Quo drummer, although nobody was able to name him.

David Prowse as the Green Cross Code Man. Photograph: Calyx/REX

Sometimes, well meaning attempts at education backfired – for example, the talk about the dangers of getting high on substance fumes that only alerted children to the possibility of getting high on substance fumes. Then there were the addicts who unintentionally made a life on drink or drugs sound glamorous. Or the demonstrations on the perils of playing with fire that inadvertently taught a whole school how to make small explosive devices.

Another theme was the religious talks designed to promote abstinence. What a soul-crushingly futile task it must be to stand up in front of a hall full of hormone-addled adolescents and tell them that birth control is bad, abortion is bad and, by the way, masturbation is bad, too. One responder to my tweet recalled being told that “heavy petting with your girlfriend” was as bad as “dogs copulating in the street”. I can’t imagine it was the most convincing of arguments.

There were thinly veiled commercial opportunities as well. A few people recalled exciting demonstrations of the tricks you could pull off with a yo-yo, followed by exciting opportunities to spend your lunch money on a yo-yo. The same for hacky sacks.

And then there were the animals. Parents today are no stranger to unexpected letters asking them to cough up £12 for a photo of their perplexed offspring sitting next to an owl, but rather more exotic animals used to visit British schools. You don’t have to think that political correctness and health and safety have gone mad to raise an eyebrow at the idea that someone might bring in a chimpanzee from a travelling circus. Or a baby leopard on a lead.

Many people witnessed the kind of drama group so accurately parodied by The League of Gentlemen’s Legz Akimbo. A special award must go to the actors who tried to prove that war is bad by apparently separating a school into two different groups and then goading them into conflict. And then there was this piece of performance art, which went above and beyond the call of duty in trying to freak out little children:

No celeb visit but one day we were taken to another school and put in a dome tent then people in silver suits came in to say we were going to space. The floor bubbled up, probs air and everyone started screaming and crying!!! Never forget that day.

— wheatas (@wheatas) May 8, 2018

As a grown-up, you can’t help but wonder what the other adults in the room thought when a vicar dropped and broke a priceless artefact, a child asked an astronaut how you poo in space, or someone accidentally implied that Jesus was “really fit” in bed. Or when a man burst into assembly and dumped bin bags of rubbish he said pupils had thrown into his garden. Or when two policemen told an inappropriate and extended gory story.

People, me included, often complain that social media can be a miserable place full of political bickering and abuse, but all week the replies to this tweet have given me a joyous nostalgic smile. So, Guardian readers, who were the weirdest people to give a talk in your school?

• Who do you remember visiting your school? Let us know in the comments.