Miss Morrison

[icomefromalanddownunder]

I have a picture taken at a Hertford Reunion of Miss Morrison, Miss West and Miss Tucker - tempting to sub-title it Macbeth's Witches!

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Frances

I vaguely remember being taught by Miss Morrison, but not sure for how long and which subject, as I had lovely Mrs Betterton for English; anyway, no negative Miss Morrison memories for me, and I rather think of her as a tall ship under full sail - maybe not The Cutty Sark, a clipper, as Miss M was, perhaps, not quite lithe enough for that analogy.

Met Miss Tucker twice. Once when Mary Mc and I visited on the day of the 1972 Carol Service. I was wearing loons, multicoloured suede shoes, and a full length black cape. Not sure if that is why she unsuccessfully encouraged me not to attend the service. Miss out on a good sing? No chance.

The second time was the reunion at Hertford last year, when she surprised me with a goodbye kiss. I think she's lovely.

And DR? My sentiments towards her changed dramatically after reading 'Half To Remember' a couple of years ago. This woman, whose memory had brought back only feelings of frustration and anger (capped by her final comments to me, a pupil whom she must surely have been glad to see the back of: 'Of course, you know that you won't make anything of yourself now that you're going to do your 'A' Levels elsewhere', or words to that effect. 'Well, lalalelala to you too, silly woman').

Oh, sorry, had a bit of a hyperventilate there. Now, where was I?

Oh yes, this woman who ........................., yet couldn't cook, and didn't have the best grasp of punctuation. Who was, OMG, human, and just as fallible as I.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[fra828]

We used to call Miss Wilson, Jukes and Morrison the 3 witches from Macbeth, they often seemed to be walking together around the school grounds! Miss Tucker could be very kind. She gave me a hug when I failed my Biology Olevel for the 2nd time (passed it 3rd attempt). We were so starved of any demonstrative warmth from members of the school staff, that I was overwhelmed at her show of physical affection!

[GillyW]

We knew Miss Wilson, Miss Jukes and Miss Morrison as the Lion the witch and the wardrobe.
I found Miss M and inspirational teacher - as someone else has said, she was generous in her attitude to set books and let us have free range of the choices. The Good Companions, which we read with her, is still a top favourite of mine. I remember once, when in the sixth form, I missed the first half of double english after all out, because I was so engrossed in Gormenghast - when I explained to Miss M why I was late, she just said -'oh Gormenghast, that's perfectly understandable then' - what an unusual attitude for hertford!
I have read through a few threads this evening and see that 4's is pretty much unrepresented. Were we all less traumatised (due to the benign if smoke ridden presence of Miss Summers) so that we don't feel the need to get it all out of our system? I wonder?

[Fjgrogan]

How odd, Gormenghast has just been mentioned in a book that I am reading - now I shall just have to go off and read that as well!!

[MaryB]

Oh yes - she would have loved the God Companions. She didn't like the Lord of the Rings though, and reminded me of my devotion to it when we met at Horsham many years later. I wonder if one is either a Gormenghast or an LOTR person...
On the slightly negative side, Mrs Betterton discovered at Christmas in our U6th year that we hadn't even started one of the set books we supposed to have done with BJM, tutted very quietly, and managed to get through a very good Tennyson selection in record time (still one of my favourite poets).

[englishangel]

Gormenghast

LOTR

So you are probably right.

Fortunate I didn't have Miss M for English.

Actually I didn't read either until I was well into my 20's.

My - not so - secret vice (along with Stephen Fry) was Georgette Heyer.

[Jo]

Gormenghast

LOTR

So you are probably right.

Fortunate I didn't have Miss M for English.

Actually I didn't read either until I was well into my 20's.

My - not so - secret vice (along with Stephen Fry) was Georgette Heyer.

I'm ashamed to say I've never read either, but based on the TV adaptation of Gormenghast about 10 years ago, and the recent films of LOTR, I'd say Gormenghast every time. LOTR was about two films too long, and just loud and noisy. I think I don't really do fantasy unless it's heavily laced* with humour.

*I'm getting old and I can't spell any more.....arghh.....I could have sworn that meaning of laced was spelt differently (laiced? no, that doesn't look right either) but I can't find any confirmation of that, so laced it is. Time was when I never, ever, spelt anything incorrectly.

BTW Mary, I know of another very intelligent women who is a Georgette Heyer fan - I think she said she thought they were very well researched and not just flimsy historical fiction. She liked one book so much she called her son Kester after one of the characters.

[Jo]

Off topic slightly.....from Miss Morrison to Miss Hann (who replaced Mrs Betterton after the latter retired).

I wasn't all that keen on Miss Hann, though I only had her for a year in the Vth form - didn't do English A Level (fortunately - she taught the wrong syllabus and cost a number of people the A grades they deserved). But I do remember her introducing us to T S Eliot, who was on our O Level syllabus. I couldn't make head or tail of him, but I was fascinated by some of his phrases, particularly in the Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. Has anyone else watched any of the T S Eliot programmes over the past week? I saw the Robert Webb one on Prufrock, and then the longer Arena documentary on TS himself. I keep thinking I really should spend some time reading his poetry and trying to get to grips with it.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is stretched out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table.........

Wonderful stuff

[MKM]

I enjoyed both Gormenghast and LOTR. The world of Gormenghast (the book) reminded me of that of CH in many ways - self-contained, strange traditions, traumatic to leave, ...

I enjoyed the LOTR films too, but have only seen them on video. It took several sessions to get through the last one - I don't think I could have sat through it at a cinema, it was too long. To be fair, it was the extra-long DVD version that I saw.

I never did The Good Companions at school, but read it afterwards. There was a TV version in the 1980's.

[Fjgrogan]

I, in my ignorance and my nearly-mid sixties, have not read Gormenghast or LOTR or The Good Companions, so off to the local library for me. I haven't seen any of them on television either. I blame it on the fact that I studied an assortment of modern languages and it took me all my time to keep up with the set books for them - I am naturally a slow reader, even in English. Twenty-odd years later I decided to take A level English Lit at the local FE college in order to remedy part of that deficiency, but decided that it didn't really help because having to 'study' works of literature, rather than just reading them for enjoyment, spoiled them for me - the prime example was Golding's The Spire. Then I developed a taste for crime fiction - my current obsession is a writer called Phil Rickman, whose main character is Merrily Watkins, a woman priest and Diocesan Deliverance Adviser (aka Exorcist!) Now that is spooky - whilst typing that I suddenly found my mousemat smeared with blood - I had earlier cut my little finger on a corned beef tin while washing up (no space for a dishwasher!) and it had decided to burst open.

Incidentally elsewhere on this forum there is a thread on current reading matter - perhaps we should all migrate to that?

[Angela Woodford]

I enjoyed both Gormenghast and LOTR. The world of Gormenghast (the book) reminded me of that of CH in many ways - self-contained, strange traditions, traumatic to leave, ...

I adore the first two books of the Gormenghast trilogy, and have gone back to re-read them many many times. How I agree with you, Mary - I identified totally with living in an enclosed world of heirarchies and ritual. Traumatic to leave indeed... when Titus rides away from his earldom! I remember both the fear and the exhilaration of leaving for the real world where often I didn't know how to react or behave.

I have had a strange Miss Morrison dream. I was back in the old Hertford world - at a sort of bizarre party, and in my customary CH state of anxiety. Suddenly - we were in the LV1 Formroom - Miss Morrison erupted from the waste paper basket by the window next to the mistress's dais!

"I have been checking the w p b!" she said, in the manner of a Form Time pronouncement.

Remember how she would always call it that? I was so pleased to see her!

I loved Gilly's account of BJM understanding completely that one doesn't just read Gormenghast, but get lost in it -

[MaryB]

Georgette Heyer... oh yes. Well researched, and utterly satisfying. Still my favourite comfort reading - I'm gradually siphoning them out of my old home, where my husband still lives, to my own house. I have to know that if I need a dose of These Old Shades in the middle of the night it will be there for me....
But I must have come to them after school because I remember a brief phase of being read to in needlework lessons and it was The Nonesuch and I hated it, which put me off GH for years. Also, if I'm honest, I was probably a bit of an intellectual snob and thought she wasn't Literature.....

Thinking about being read to, does anyone remember Sixth Form Reading: Monday nights, instead of prep, DR reading to us in the dayroom of the Head Girl's House (5s briefly then 1s for us) while we did our needlework or Sale Work. I've come to love Trollope since then - but I've never managed to finish the Vicar of Bullhampton, which DR pronounced Bullumpton.
And I also remember the stress on the rest of the house when SFR was happening - we had 3s head girls for a couple of years when I was lower down the school (Julie Forsyth and Mina Temple) and Lil would be almost beside herself with the need to make sure everything was tidy and Lower Dorm completely silent.

[Katharine]

I well remember the Monday night readings. I went straight into 6s in LIV and my first two years the Head Girls were both from 6s so it came as quite a surprise in my third year in the school to learn that it wasn't ALWAYS in 6s. I don't think anyone had explained it was because of our HGs!

[GillyW]

I am SO glad that my mention of Gormenghast started a books thread!!
I absolutely agree that one can't like both LOTR and Gormenghast (can it be shortened - Gor perhaps?). I Loathe LOTR, which seems to me to be all about what they had to eat on the way.
I must also pick up on GH, who is my constant comfort read. I have the full works, many of them in first editions (!) but am slightly ashamed of them, so keep them hidden behind 'The history of Western Philosophy - a large set of weighty volumes by someone called Copplestone. These are the most moved books on any of my bookshelves, as my daughters are also now firm GH devotees - I don't think Mr Copplestone has ever been opened!
Strangely enough, I finished The Nonesuch last night (highly satisfying) and I also remember Miss Richards reading it to us - not that she ever got very far. Kester is named after one of the twins in False Colours.
Now that I've blown my cover, I would just mention that I do read other books and so do my daughters, one of whom has just finished an english degree at Cambridge - so we're not total lighweights. G Heyer is also Margaret Drabble's favourite author, so we're in good company!
Gilly

[chaosriddenyears]

I'm afraid I do ike both Gormenghast And LOTR although I wasn't impressed by the films particularly. I prefer the Hobbit to LOTR I must admit.
I'm really glad that others like GH - it really is comfort reading and I find her books also very funny and witty.

I liked Miss Hann and she made us think about what we were reading - I read voraciously at CH, particularly 19th century literature.

The only thing I couldn't forgive her was "Return of the Native" although I think it was on the syllabus. I really never managed to stomach Thomas Hardy, he is so determined to be as miserable as possible. I can manage to put up with poems in Elvish much more easily!