Front! :-)
I was taught to swing Tigers (and everything else that needed swinging...) from the front. This enabled you to pull your arm down and walk across the aircraft nose and out of the propeller arc.
Even if you miss your footing in a lumpy grass paddock and the engine catches on the first swing, you will still fall out of harm's way.
There was some other aircraft that we used as a glider tug that had to be swing from behind (or left-handed...) which I always tried to avoid. If your hand slips, you end up with your neck in the chopping arc and the wing preventing a hasty retreat. That would be the time the engine catches first go, right?
Yes, I was taught that you had to swing backwards first to ensure no cylinders had a hydraulic lock as a result of oil moving past the rings into the upside-down cylinders, which would bend the crankshaft if it fired in that condition.
You only had to prime for a cold start (i.e. if the cylinders were not warm to the touch, you needed to prime). But this was Christchurch, New Zealand (Wigram...) where the ambient air temperature was fairly low...
It was "rumoured" that a pilot could self-start a Tiger without being in the cockpit during starting. It was also rumoured that the CFI would be clearly audible above the running engine, and potentially also at the other end of the runway, if he saw anyone attempting this. So we didn't...
Memories...