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wherein we are joined even by that august body, the Worshipful Company of Grocers, who too have dipped their spoons into this elixir of Oundle life, or so I am told.
Perhaps trips...energy, enthusiasm and a vibrantly ‘can do’ approach defined Hattie, nowhere more clearly than in the realm of trips, trips and more trips. She enriched the department and her teaching groups with numerous expeditions to theatres and film showings of key texts. Literary London days with Tim Hipperson and a cohort of Pre-U students were notable events, as were her two recent pilgrimages to Canterbury in the footsteps of Chaucer. The sun shone, the shoures soote held off and those brief sojourns in straunge strondes lent the text a fresh immediacy for novice readers. She combined with Religious Studies to take a Dublin trip, religion and literature happily coalescing in exhibitions of manuscripts and a viewing of the Book of Kells. She has supported Gold D of E expeditions too over recent years. Travelling further afield, she managed, despite being in her own words “deeply unsporty”, to cling to the tracksuits of those who were and get herself on to the Australia/New Zealand hockey tour as photographer, emotional pit-prop, lost-luggage impresario and, as she put it, “general comic relief”. She accompanied one of Andrew Martens’ charity ventures to Mozambique and was due to join another this time to South Africa. As an honorary geographer, she toured the rock formations and landscape features of Bulgaria. As an honorary art historian, she contemplated the ‘landscapes’ of artistic expression in New York. This trip was memorable not only, she tells me, for the extraordinary exhibitions, but also for the city’s High Line – the reclaimed aerial train track over which she jogged, before the pupils’ and day’s itinerary, as the sun rose over Manhattan; a moment of contemplation when that city too did “like a garment wear, the beauty of the morning”. Never dull of soul, these are a fragment of the many trips Hattie was pleased to share with
her charges, igniting in the process their interests and enthusiasms, and bringing the curriculum alive and her charges safely home, despite the best endeavours of churlish border guards or inconsiderately-erupting volcanoes.
Perhaps the department... here Hattie was a mainstay. Creative and rigorous in equal measure, Hattie’s classroom bespoke its inhabitant. Walls, windows, boards were alike coerced into educational tools; this was the place to be! By dint of her own drive and enthusiasm, and her infectious delight in literature, she encouraged, inspired, cajoled and shoehorned her charges into achievements of which she, they and the department were deservedly proud. Committed Second in Department and Acting Head on occasion, Hattie oversaw competitions, invited speakers, took minutes, set papers, sustained World Book Day, reigned queen of the display boards and was generally integral to making Old Dryden a special and vibrant place. She mentored and coached the potential university entrants, laboured over personal statements, encouraged the faint-hearted and had no truck with the laggards. In Mrs Hopper’s class deadlines are deadlines and what a fine lesson will her graduates take to the world outside. Above all, Hattie shares books, develops interests and makes her students believe in themselves and the power to express their own ideas, not just hers, with confidence in the written and spoken word. She teaches with imagination and empathy – rare gifts – informed always by that twinkle of mischief and of not seeming to take it all too seriously.
Perhaps drama...where Hattie was no less active. She brought her own unique twist to enliven the tradition of Shakespeare Day, breaking ranks to script A Day in the Life of a Bard and Shakespeare on Trial, both lightly irreverent takes on the great man and his art, and then putting on Hamlet Backwards – possibly an improvement on forwards, but certainly no more and possibly less baffling. She trod the boards herself in the memorable staff performance
of Ayckbourn’s Confusions, acting across John Arkell, whose ad-lib and ad-hoc variations presented plenty of entertaining confusion in themselves. Most often, however, she was found directing and polishing the board- treading of others. Joining with Tim Hipperson and Naomi Jones for a selection of Tennessee Williams’ Shorts with a senior cast, she directed Portrait of a Madonna. She also directed three other major School productions with the First and Second Forms: Robin Hood, The Wind in the Willows – Toad’s armour currently graces her sitting room in the manner of a manorial hall – and now Bugsy Malone, although I think the keynote brooms with which I saw her rushing about will not be similarly given post- performance house room. This latter was by far the most ambitious production yet to be attempted with junior years at the Stahl and for this Hattie must take significant credit. Co-directing with Jo Henderson, with whom she also worked on The Wind in the Willows, she produced and choreographed a full-scale musical, complete with band and cast of 43, many of whom were experiencing their debut in the world of theatre. Her unending good humour and support of these young actors brought out the best in them. Hattie’s wit, energy and directorial prowess will be surely and sorely missed by all at the Stahl.
Caring Tutor, critical thinker, passionate director, forthright speaker, loyal colleague, generous friend – all these and more are Hattie. We will miss the breath of fresh air, the twirl of that vintage full-skirted coat, music in the office, chocolate, pink tea, amazing high heels...and fun. The chapter ends and our book goes back upon the shelf in the great library of life. But Hattie is on to another. There are quilts to make, a new house to benefit from her inimitable creative sense of style, dancing to resume and the endless expanses of the Norfolk Broads for Bailey to explore – and when time affords, some more pupils with whom to share her love of literature.
Helen Wells, English teacher
STAFF FAREWELLS
THE OLD OUNDELIAN 2017 –2018
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