Page 56 - Through a glass brightly

So I trawled through my diaries looking for the story of the secret society so called that met in the stable loft. And by accident the first thing I found was an account of us acting out scenes from Twelfth Night with Miss Barber (later Mrs Rimmer, Riddle would have been better) in December 1958 when we were in the Upper Fourths. So we must have been doing something else during the Queen’s visit - maybe acting out something else. And there of course was proof that Miss Barber had been at the school when we were lower down, as I had not thought.
So, apologies to those of you who weren’t involved - just skip this if you want! We become UIVR in September 1958, in the Needlework Room, with Miss Muriel Rhodes, later Mrs Shaw, who really didn’t know what she was in for. We have French with Miss Hillier, Latin with Miss Knowles, English with Miss Barber, Scripture with Miss Green (I don’t think she had an enjoyable time with us either, from various comments I make - ‘boring’ ‘we annoyed her and she gave us a composition to make up for it.’ ‘We weren’t listening and Miss Green gave us a composition’ - that was the following week, you think we would have learned... ) I think we had Miss Mayer for History as we were working on Elizabethan England - a sort of book we wrote. Poor Miss Rhodes took us for Science and I seem to remember that after our appalling exam results in the summer she never taught science again. Undoubtedly that would not have been her fault, but I wonder if it is true. I don’t even record our maths teacher. Miss Grimsey still? Or was that when we got Mrs Barber?
Early in October some of us start staying behind after school. ‘Messed about after school and played he and judges in the form room. The clothes line fell down on top of us.’ On 9th things start to hot up: ‘Played dares after school with Cary (then called Lyn, at least by me), Seona and Pat. (Ross I think?) We climbed into the prefects’ garden and up Tudor House.’ Obviously dares are the new excitement as the following day I record that ’some of us (anyone reading this remember?) had to go on to Miss Balaam’s roof garden.’ (Good grief, what a risk!) On the Monday we are still at it and it’s getting sillier: ‘Cary and I threw a lump of coal over the balcony into the hall.’ We did the same dare on Tuesday but had coopted Viv (presumably Walton) and Carry Watling to act the fool with us. On 30th (half term has intervened, during which I have gone on a hike with Pat Ross to Hatfield Park, failed to get our fire to light and eaten raw sausages....) I note that we were sent down to the cellars with silver paper and milk bottle tops which were stored down there, presumably as a fund-raising effort. This probably gave us ideas... But the stable loft came first. On November 10th Cary and I go down to the stables in lunch hour and climb up to explore the loft. That day Miss Rhodes kept us all in at break - I don’t say why - and the same thing happens the following day. She’s obviously struggling with us, poor thing. That week we all processed down to the Odeon to see Henry V with Laurence Olivier - I expect some of you remember that. At the end of that week I record ‘Our form’s been reported to Miss Balaam so often and Miss Rhodes is so worried that we decided to reform. We were ever so good in prayers and in science. Played fugs and tecs though.’ It couldn’t last, could it... On the 17th we play murder in the dark after school. Now things escalate. On 20th I record ‘Pat (Ross?) and Cary went up to a loft over the hall after school.’ (I wonder if Cary remembers that first foray up there. And where was I when there was mischief to be made?) The following day I record that ‘Pat (Ross), Cary, Pat (Jervis), Sue (Baker), Hazel and I went up to the loft above the stables.’ And that became the group who who formed the so-called society which met up there, grandly named the Animal Friendship Association. And Pat and Cary and I were apparently going up to the loft above the hall again the same day, but there was a music teacher in her room so we didn’t. On 24th we apparently went up to the stable loft and got permission from a gardener to use it. Was this Mr Filkins? That’s the name I remember. Later that day "Margaret (Youngs?) Janet (Windeatt I assume) and Ruth followed us after school and caught us going up.” On 25th it all kicks off: ‘Pat J, Pat R, Cary, Sue, Hazel and I have got a club about animals and held a meeting in the stable loft in dinner hour. Maggy Westley and Youngs, Ruth and Janet came and spied and listened to us.
55