Page 2 - Through a glass brightly

‘YOU CAN’T LOCK US DOWN!’ (Well, actually, they did!)
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair..." (With thanks to Charles Dickens – suggested by Maggie R.)
So why were we all in 'Lockdown', in body if not in spirit, in 2020? In the dying days of the last decade a vicious virus took off in China, overflew Asia with a relatively light touch and then landed with a portentous thud in Europe. By 23rd March Coronavirus (aka Covid-19) was deemed to be sufficiently threatening for a strict 'Stay At Home' policy to be implemented in the UK. So what did we, a group firmly planted in the 'vulnerable' 70+ cohort, do during the days, weeks and months while the pandemic raged tragically, and our lives changed, perhaps for ever? Here is our story.....
This collection draws together a set of email conversations between 15 of us who had been pupils in the same form at Queen Elizabeth's Girls' Grammar School in Barnet (QEGGS) in the fifties and sixties.
Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ Grammar School (QEGGS), (now Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School, a comprehensive secondary school for girls) stands on Barnet High Street, at the junction with the Meadway, near the exit from High Barnet Tube station. In 1956 when we entered the secondary school part of our education, our year consisted of around 100 girls. Interestingly, we were the year before the post war ‘bulge’ when they took four forms at 11. It’s possible that the reason there were such a large number (6) of under-age girls in our form was that the powers that be knew a huge number of girls would be eligible the following year and they thought they would take a few in advance.
The school as a whole had around 600 pupils aged 11 to 18. QEGGS drew its intake from the Barnet area, including neighbouring places such as Totteridge and Boreham Wood. The area was largely middle class although there were also extensive areas of what we might now call aspiring middle class – families who had moved out of London and who had great hopes for their children.
During our time at the school, Barnet still formed part of Hertfordshire and so its educational policies fell under Hertfordshire County Council. When we joined the school, it was led by a head mistress well-known in educational circles, Miss Freda Balaam, whose unfortunate death in post in 1960 was a great loss to the school.
Notwithstanding the, often, light-hearted memories of incidents recorded in these email exchanges, QEGGS had an academic ethos and generally the standard of behaviour was high and pupils worked hard. Much of the teaching was good, and some of it was inspiring. The staff – at that time all were female - were prepared to offer opportunities for extra-curricular activities, including games, art, music and drama.
The school had one or two quirks. Its timetable included an extended Wednesday morning curriculum (five periods rather than the usual four), and the afternoon allowed for team sports or other extra-curricular activities such as art. However, many pupils were not involved in these, and so just went home to do their homework or just enjoyed the free time. (It may be that this pattern of shortened Wednesdays was copied from the long-established and perhaps
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