Housemistresses

[helen]

Re bunches and pony tails - bunches were clumps of hair tied back like pony tails but couldn't be tied above the nape of the neck.Couldn't have anything that smacked of youth or frivolity could we??!! Sometimes these bunches were only as long as toothbrush bristles because as soon as the hair got below the ear it had to be tied back. So, at that length, we had to have 2 but when the hair got a bit longer we could put it into one. Re fashion sense - I have had the same trouble all my life too. After 7 years of just trying to ignore what I was wearing the habit stuck. (Post Traumatic Dress Syndrome.- one more 'disorder to add to all those being invented nowadays to excuse reactions to just about anything unpleasant!)

[Katharine]

Re bunches and pony tails - bunches were clumps of hair tied back like pony tails but couldn't be tied above the nape of the neck.Couldn't have anything that smacked of youth or frivolity could we??!! Sometimes these bunches were only as long as toothbrush bristles because as soon as the hair got below the ear it had to be tied back. So, at that length, we had to have 2 but when the hair got a bit longer we could put it into one.

I think it was hair touching the collar in my day, rather than below the ear. The hairdresser came on Wednesdays and at breakfast every Wednesday half the girls would be sitting with their heads poked forward to make the distance to the collar as long as possible!

[soso]

8's from about '75 had Mrs Collins-an ex-warden from a New Zealand womans prison...clomped about in high heels and wore lots of lipstick she was ok, answered everything with 'Yeeees, that'll be alright' but was soon replaced by Mrs Ives ..a miserable old bat who knew little about life and made life hell.
We used to sneak into Mrs Collins and use the phone when she wasn't in her flat. My sister in 2's had Laurie- half deaf and blind and the place was a tip, we were so jealous..they were a HAPPY house!
As for 7's..ROCK and ROLL, anyone remember Sonia Cash?
Why did i get stuck in eights?? ...Got expelled finally.
And then there was Fatty M. We liked her actually!

[Alexandra Thrift]

Love your style.
Please tell us more.Howz about an expulsion story ?

I noticed that on one of the threads Susan Bonfanti ( Fives 1967-75 not quite sure about the dates) put in a one-off guest appearance telling of the expulsion of her twin sister Ann. Ann was expelled for some ridiculous petty infringement ( going to see The Rolling Stones in Hyde Park on Long Sat or something !!! Now THERE'S a story to dine-out on ! ) and she was the loveliest, most good person you could ever imagine which wasn't easy
considering her twin Sue really was one of those CH geniuses.

Although you were well after my time of course I knew Miss Morrison.I liked her too.

There was one quite nice housemistress in my day called " Bessie" in Fours. She seemed to actually like teenage girls so I'm surprised she got thejob:)

I was in sixes.

[Vonny]

My sister in 2's had Laurie- half deaf and blind and the place was a tip, we were so jealous..they were a HAPPY house!

Laurie was a great housemistress (in that she had no idea what was going on!) - we were all surprised to find out that when we moved to Horsham in 1985 she WASN'T retiring She went to another school to be a housemistress I've no idea how old she was back then but she seemed ancient to all of us.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

My sister in 2's had Laurie- half deaf and blind and the place was a tip, we were so jealous..they were a HAPPY house!

Laurie was a great housemistress (in that she had no idea what was going on!) - we were all surprised to find out that when we moved to Horsham in 1985 she WASN'T retiring She went to another school to be a housemistress I've no idea how old she was back then but she seemed ancient to all of us.

I was gob-smacked to read somewhere on the Forum that Pot was still at CH in the 80s. I left in 1970, and even if she wasn't already 105, I can't believe that her lungs were still able to puff and blow 10 years later.

Who remembers (Alex, I'm sure that you would have been involved) finding a large puffball down by the rabbit hutches, bringing it back to 6s, and puffing spores through Pot's slightly opened door?

Oh, and then there was the day we locked Julia Barton into the hutch with her rabbit.

Julia, if you are reading this - I am truly sorry for being such a thoroughly revolting human being at that time of my life. I can blame some of my actions on my unhappiness at being at CH, but locking you into the hutch was the kind of thing I would have done to my sister in my pre-CH days. It is also what my kids have done to me in the past: although it was my daughter's aviary, not a rabbit hutch. So, I sincerely and unreservedly apologise, and you can be assured that I have met my match and my just desserts in my children

[Vonny]

I was gob-smacked to read somewhere on the Forum that Pot was still at CH in the 80s. I left in 1970, and even if she wasn't already 105, I can't believe that her lungs were still able to puff and blow 10 years later.

Yes, she was there the first half of the 80's but died when we were still at Hertford. I think she was attached to 6's.

[Angela Woodford]

Sounds like she was knock knee-ed and bow legged ...possibly due to nutritional deficiency as a child?

She wasn't bow-legged, Alex. The shin bones at the knee end were together then they curved away from each other down to ankle. Possibly nutrition don't know.

The Hag was housemistress when I moved from 1's to 6's. I always supposed her legs to be some congenital disorder. I have, however, never seen this condition again! Poor thing.

The Hag seemed never to have spoken personally to any of her new junior house intake. Perhaps as she was planning to retire? All discipline was administered by The Study. And how! My mother kept all my letters from CH, and there is one from my 12 yr old self with a mini portrait of each Study member, begging for parental intervention. (My parents thought it would make things worse for me). I expect I was very boisterous at that age. I remember hanging on to the Bluebelled Study door handle making my mind disassociate by reciting the S London roads around my home as these older girls told me how appallingly I behaved. My usual punishments were cleaning all the baths and basins in the House, (hello Gumption), shoe cleaning, writing out of penitential lines. but it was all the "report to Study" verbal sessions that got to me. I began to do very badly at my school work.

I don't suppose the Hag took any notice.

After the Hag, Mrs Blunt, totally unmemorable, but a kindly woman with a judo-practising daughter on site called Felicity.

Then - Jackdaw! The nervous immaculately-clad in pastel twin-sets with pearls sister of 5's housemistress The Goat. I believe we drove her to a very nervous state indeed with a Jackdaw-like call which indicated her approach. She left .

Miss Scott-Haughton (Pot) genuinely believed (eee-eee) that she was called Pot for her smoking habits, but, as Alex has pointed out, this was not the case. 60 Craven 'A'/day! Oh dear, once I begin to think in her voice, it sticks! she had looked after small prep-school boys previously (m'chuldren) and greatly resented the intervention of DR in 6's management - especially the Mice In Lockers Crisis. She regarded me as a great ally, and lent me a beautiful embroidered tablecloth on which to display my 'A' level cookery efforts. She went to huge efforts too to find co-ordinating flowers for an arrangement! It was kind. The phase she went through of withholding our post as a manipulative device, she abandoned! It didn't work for long. I don't think she had any family.

Housemistresses must have led a lonely life. Social life outside the school must have been virtually impossble - one day off/week, in every night. No wonder some of them seemed rather strange and lonely.

Munch

[Vonny]

Housemistresses must have led a lonely life. Social life outside the school must have been virtually impossble - one day off/week, in every night. No wonder some of them seemed rather strange and lonely.

Completely agree - was a different story at Horsham though. Mind you, they were about 30 odd years younger than those at Hertford!

[Katharine]

Munch- I've just been reading your memories of The Hag - I hope I wasn't one of those in The Study at the time you joined us - but I may have been. As I have said before the Hag did not like me - to put it bluntly! I had annoyed her too much when I was a junior! I had just 2 terms of Mrs Blunt and have very few memories of her - I was sleeping in the Flat at the time and as a DR's Mon I was working outside the house so she didn't really know what to make of me!

[Angela Woodford]

Munch- I've just been reading your memories of The Hag - I hope I wasn't one of those in The Study at the time you joined us - but I may have been. As I have said before the Hag did not like me - to put it bluntly! I had annoyed her too much when I was a junior! I had just 2 terms of Mrs Blunt and have very few memories of her - I was sleeping in the Flat at the time and as a DR's Mon I was working outside the house so she didn't really know what to make of me!

You were a member, Katharine, but you tended to speed in and out, your mind on higher things. The "abuse" (and I've got to call it that, was mostly from one very angry girl, and every third day or so from the very cool blonde. Another Study member would sit on the radiator, hands clasped under her GA and just observe me.

I began to shrug it all off, began to cultivate a comedy persona, doing badly in schoolwork and putting on a lot of weight. It was the only way I could cope. I became more badly behaved.

But every time I emerged from the Study, I promised myself that I would never inflict the same stuff on the young girls. And I hope, I really hope, I tried to be a kind friend to them when I was in the UV1.

Munch

[su523]

Munch - I remember you as a kind person!
Alex - expelling my sister Ann was ridiculous. don't know how they thought it was going to help. what they ought to have seen was that she was very unhappy. on the other hand, I think Ann got what she wanted in the end - to go and live with my mum. she had left when we were young, and we were brought up basically by my dad. didn't do much for Ann's formal education though. she went to a lousy school in North London and ended up with hardly any qualifications.
sigh. thinking about school is like being in a dreamscape where inexplicable things happen, no-one tells you anything and then it all ends, casting you out into the real world.

Su

[Angela Woodford]

Munch - I remember you as a kind person!
Alex - expelling my sister Ann was ridiculous. don't know how they thought it was going to help. what they ought to have seen was that she was very unhappy. on the other hand, I think Ann got what she wanted in the end - to go and live with my mum. she had left when we were young, and we were brought up basically by my dad. didn't do much for Ann's formal education though. she went to a lousy school in North London and ended up with hardly any qualifications.
sigh. thinking about school is like being in a dreamscape where inexplicable things happen, no-one tells you anything and then it all ends, casting you out into the real world.

Su

Su - I remember you as Ann's mathemetician sister - is that right? Ann was (possibly still is!) expert at the skill most important at Hertford, needlework. I can remember boggling at something she'd sewn really beautifully.

Somewhere else on this Forum is recorded advice by a Headmaster to a leaving boy, that the best thing in life is never to grow up. I'm all for retaining one's curiosity, sense of wonder, blah, blah, but when I left I was all too aware that I hadn't grown up sufficiently - cast out into the real world as you say - with no experience at all of how to proceed in life.
We'd lived in a sort of Gormenghastian world of ritual.

It's not so long ago that my then boss snapped at me "You're just so eccentric!"

Please give my love to Ann when you speak to her next!

Munch

[Liz Jay]

when I left I was all too aware that I hadn't grown up sufficiently - cast out into the real world as you say - with no experience at all of how to proceed in life.
We'd lived in a sort of Gormenghastian world of ritual.

Hi Munch

Your comments are spot on and resonate with my memories so much, I'm finding it quite uncanny to read them (also like the humour!).

I experienced MASSIVE culture shock when I left CH to go to a large (2,500 pupils) co-ed school in Germany. While not precisely The Real World (what school is?) it was both a harder and a softer place to be. The teachers were so kind I couldn't believe it, by way of compensation the pupils were a cross-section of society, future criminals and hard nuts included!!!!

Because it was a Forces school, the population was always a floating one, and friendships of necessity were made speedily and often broken abruptly by a family posting. One thing I did miss about CH was the close girlie friendships, the intimacy born of shared hardships and enforced team activities.

A bit like the Big Brother House experience I guess!!

[midget]

I'm glad to see that having a Hag at Hertford was not just limited to 3's. Ours was a Miss Norris, and I think the real trouble was that she neither liked nor understood teenage girls. I think her own youth was probably a bit odd, father a Naval officer, frightening away the young officers who might well have changed our Hag's life. I don't know if she had ever had a "real" job. 6's seemed to have the most comfortable one to live with, in Miss Lomas, who appeared to be much more laid back.