REMINISCENCES

Joan Murray (Godfrey 1928-1931) has submitted this fascinating account of her days in school.

After my father died at the end of 1927 my mother decided that she would like me at home. So I left boarding school at Easter 1928 and went to the Nottingham Girls High School for the summer term. Miss Philipps the Headmistress decided that I should spend the summer term in the Upper IV before embarking on the 2 year course towards School Certificate and hopefully matriculation exemption (The qualification for this being five credits – English language, maths, two foreign languages and one science or one language, 2 sciences).

Miss Philipps was a woman of small stature and enormous presence. I doubt if she weighed six stone, but her slow and stately carriage invoked respectful dead silence. She knew the name of every girl (then about 430). During my first term she was away for the first half due to ill health, but when she returned and saw me in the hall she immediately said “Well Joan, have you settled in happily?” That, after the one short interval three or four months earlier.

Miss Barwood who taught (I think) junior maths, spent much of her spare time “mothering” Miss Philipps, and was often seen taking cups of milk to the Head’s study in the certain belief that without her care Miss Philipps would fade away.

I was surprised to find that all my form loved history which to me had always seemed a dull uninteresting subject. When I saw the two glamorous young history mistresses I changed my view. Miss Morton, auburn haired and enthusiastic brought the past to life, and Miss Willoughby, blonde and sophisticated, enhanced it. It became a favourite subject.

English was taught by Miss Stainer – noted for coming into the form room saying “stuffy – stuffy anyone in gym shoes?” and demanding open windows. She loved her subject and taught us to appreciate the Lakeland 19^th Century poets – Keats particularly. Sadly, for School Certificate we had to dissect a Shakespeare play line by line, and it was some years after I left school before I began to appreciate the magnificence and beauty of Hamlet and Macbeth ‘tomorrow and tomorrow …’

French was taught by Miss Tucker – either loved or hated. She had a very sharp wit and was quick to learn which of us could enjoy her teasing. She had a very sallow complexion and probably suffered much ill health. Her lessons were usually very lively, but occasionally she would come into the form room saying “notebooks and pencils please” in a high, tired voice. The class would then endeavour to jolly her out of her depression and by the end of the period we had usually succeeded.

I was a grave disappointment to the gym and games mistress Miss Sloane, as I followed an older and extremely athletic sister. Although I managed not to disgrace myself in the gym, and scraped into the hockey team I was not the high flyer my sister Winifred had been. I used to dread the annual gym competition in case I let the form down. It was a pretty nerve racking occasion.

Our two glamorous history mistresses both left at the end of my Upper V year and they were replaced by a very young Miss Pretty. When my two daughters went to the school, Miss Pretty, having weathered several changes of Headmistress was the Senior Mistress, highly respected and viewed with affection by many of the Sixth form whom she entertained to tea at the weekend.

My two daughters were very different and the older one involved herself in everything – school play, inter form matches, everything else the school offered. The younger one opted out and dreamt only of horses. The older one Gillian (now Gehring) is a Professor of Theoretical Physics and will appear in the June Honours list with an OBE (Services to Women in Science) while the younger one lives in a cottage in Devon with a smallholding and devotes herself to dog agility with her two border collies. They are both married, the older to a physicist, the younger a farmer and they both have daughters.

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