Page 97 - Through a glass brightly

Apparently Miss Payne charged around most athletically but whenever Miss Penrose was in bat she just slugged the ball into the tennis courts and that was that!
The account of a relay race in Glenda’s post is that of the Upper Sixth when we were Lower Fifths. It probably did give us the idea three years later. The hilariously misnamed Nita Speck Taurus was not actually a dinosaur, but Nita Spektorov, one of two famously gifted artistic sisters whom no one else could match up to and everyone else was ignominiously consigned to the outer darkness of artistic achievement. Not by Miss Rotherham who sadly died young and possibly not by Mrs Zabel, but I was never taught by her.
That’s all for now folks - I’m happy to say I finally did make it to the bluebells on Dartmoor today and they did not disappoint...
Friday, May 22nd
From Ruth at 14.29
The swimming gala I have absolutely no recollection of at all! But It’s certainly been fun to hear all about it from you. Strange. Though I do recall the time it took to make my first headlong dive into the deep end at that swimming pool.
I remember biology lessons with Mrs Trainer. She was a kind sweet old lady then and I loved her lessons. Couldn’t understand a word of the ‘clever’ subjects: physics and chemistry, so Biology was the option for us science thickoes. I think I remember enjoying drawing a frog and making the leg of a frog move.
Does anyone remember playing with mercury in what must have been a chemistry lesson? I remember being interested in the way it behaved. Nowadays they’d have to evacuate the whole school if so much as a drop had escaped!
One of my favourite school memories is of a drama competition when some of us sixth formers had to produce a short scene. I chose to do the first scene outside the actors’ church at Covent Garden from ‘Pygmalion’ with Eliza Doolittle. I think Susan Shears might have played Eliza. She must have had a strong voice and could do cockney. In an effort to create a suitable set I went to the local carpet shop to beg some cardboard tubes (previously for wrapping carpets) to stand for the stone pillars outside the church where Eliza sold her violets and had her first encounter with Henry Higgins. “Buy my sweet violets!”
Can’t remember whether or not we won, or what the other plays were!
I also remember the freedom of those Wednesday afternoons which I used to go to pottery classes somewhere other than at school. The boys school? I’ve still got an owl that I made there and when we came to St Albans I joined an FE evening class and made another owl and a few dishes.
After ‘A’ levels we had some weeks of freedom to follow our own interests. I went up to Barnet Museum and discovered a great deal about local history – another lifelong interest. (I’ve since produced a few books on Wheathampstead and am Hon. Sec. of our History Society. I also edit Herts Past & Present for the Hertfordshire Association for Local History.)
I think our old school certainly gave us a rounded education. We even had politics, didn’t we? And acted out our own General Election – with girls taking sides and making speeches all round the school for all the different political parties and about the issues of the day.
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