Page 127 - Through a glass brightly

who lived a bit higher up whose surname I can’t now remember, but who now lives in Scotland, Jenny Rees, of course (was more organised than me and earlier!) then a bit later on Ann Eggington. Miss Rhodes lived near St Marks church where Ann’s dad was Father Egg.
Miss Balaam once drove me home in the middle of the school day when I was unwell. My mum was quite over-awed by this unexpected encounter with the headmistress! I also remember once seeing Miss Bryan looking disapprovingly at me from her car when she saw me walking home in uniform while eating an ice cream – eating in the street then being mightily disapproved of. The impact of that look from one in authority remains with me still after what -- sixty years or so! Amazing how strong those early impressions still are. One’s youth is the strongest part of one’s life, don’t you think?
Jenny Rees will remember Jane’s surname. .. Does anyone remember Pauline Attiwell who lived in Welwyn Garden City and came to school by bus? Better leave it at that before I go on too long.
From Val at 15.43
Oh dear, I was planning on doing a lot of other things this afternoon, one of which was admittedly lying in the sun finishing my book - a rare thing for me to do and I’ll probably never make it. But Ruth’s emails conjures up so many memories I can’t resist replying. I did also mean to reply to Jenny’s mail, to say that I was so glad she had ‘bubbled up’ even if it has its downside in housework and cooking. (I only do housework of any note, shallow cleaning perhaps not deep certainly, when either my ex husband or my daughter’s parents in law are coming to stay. Neither of them have been for 6 months....) It must just be nice to have someone in person to talk to - that’s what I really missed before I was seeing people. And I loved the stamp collection bit...
I always cut it really fine going to school - I never was an early riser, still am not - and a memory that immediately springs to mind is that if I arrived at the top of the Meadway and met Ruth rushing up with a slice of toast and marmalade, I knew I was in trouble! The other really bad sign was to arrive at the bus stop - Dinsdale Gardens, between Lyonsdown Road and Station Road - to find Stephanie Beecham waiting there. Goodness only knows what time she usually arrived at school. And although I passed Molly Watts’s house on the way - I never once met her in the morning in all those years, so she must have made a very early start. I reckoned that if I left home at 8.35 I should make it for 8.50. That was optimistic and depended on the buses not being held up, which they often were. And many a time an anxious little group would peer up Pricklers Hill towards Lyonsdown as a red double decker hoved into view, hoping against hope it was not a petrol bus - an 84 or 134 - as we were not allowed to get on those - they were for long distance travellers. Honestly... So we had to wait for a trolley bus. Sometimes teachers would pass by in their cars and once Miss Mayer and Miss Ritson picked me up, Miss Ritson telling me that she was terrified of Miss Mayer’s driving! (I was in the 6th form then. ) It really would not have been that far to walk, but it is a sign of how things have changed that the thundering lorries struggling up the hill could choke you with their petrol/ oil fumes and the roar was terrible. Was this before the Barnet Bypass was built? - I don’t know when that was. I did usually walk to school for Lent and then I’d walk past Daphne’s house and pick her up.. Did you always walk, Daphne? Cycling was also not an option because of the hill, until I discovered Potters Lane, never made up because it was going to form part of the road that would have passed through the school grounds, where Ruth lived or further down at Meadway Close? Didn’t our great benefactor Alderman Fern put a stop to the road? Potters Lane ran out into a field with a cycleable footpath that led to the Meadway and in the summer it gave me uncontrollable hay fever - so then it was back to the bus...
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