Quick questions and (maybe) answers Hertford Memories thread

[MaryB]

[quote="Fjgrogan"] we were never allowed to set foot outside outside the school gates (or of course in chapel - St Paul strikes again!) without donning these incredibly unattractive garments - /quote]
But then there came a day quite late in my time when a message came round that henceforward we weren't to wear hats (caps or velours or panamas) to chapel... only no one believed it, so we arrived in chapel in caps that day to find the staff bareheaded and to be harangued by DR for being improperly dressed. I don't remember any explanation being given: she spake, and it was so.

I do remember when I stayed with Eileen Downing in Camberwell (very close to where I now live but then exotic and exciting.... if I'd only known it, my elder son would be born in sight of the flats where they lived....) we went to Great Tower Street with our chapel caps to prove we were children of the city and get our free passes to the Tower of London. I don't think they'd have minded if we hadn't had the caps, but it seemed necessary to us to provide proof. Typically, I remember GTS, but I nothing about the Tower!

[Fjgrogan]

I guess DR must have gone off St Paul, whom she had previously idolised!

[Katharine]

I guess DR must have gone off St Paul, whom she had previously idolised!

I well remember the Scripture lesson on the Parable of the Sower and the seeds bringing forth in different quantities. DR drew lines on the blackboard for us to suggest names of those who had brought forth 100 fold etc. Several of us suggested St Paul for 60 - she was NOT happy!!! We did expect that result!

DR writes this in Half to Remember: One of the smaller results of the four term year was the abolition of caps. When we returned to school in August and no-one in town was wearing a hat, I did not see why the girls should have to look old-fashioned wearing them. From every point of view, particularly as regards health, it was a very successful experiment.

All I can say is that she took her time, I was there for two Augusts and still wore a Chapel Cap every day!

[Angela Woodford]

It was very very rare that staff came to Morning Chapel, or Sunday Chapel, come to that. It must have been a disappointment to DR.

Does anyone remember staff voluntarily attending? They did come to the Carol Service, I remember. How we critically scrutinised Mrs Trotman (Art Mistress) in her miniskirt!

[englishangel]

Katharine, it took her about 5 years.

Men, this is a chapel cap. I think I posted this somewhere else (it was taken at our Hertford reunion 2 years ago).

[Katharine]

In my time quite a lot of staff came to morning chapel, Angela. Don't you remember A staff and B staff? A staff could sit in the back row of the choir stalls - same row as DR, and B staff in the stalls in front; except a member of A staff would sit just in front of DR. It was rare that anyone got promoted, don't know whether it was long service or good behaviour!

[midget]

The navy wool coats came from Daniel Neal, a wellknown school outfitter, and must have been expensive. The older ones became the everyday (or as miss Norris sometimes called them Garden coats. When I first went to Hertford these were really ancient, some of them a sort of 1920 style.

[kerrensimmonds]

I remember staff in the row(s) behind the Choir Stalls, to the left as you faced the altar, with DRW in the first seat inside the door (out of which we filed, when we left? - or maybe that was just the front part of the Square, including 2's? Did the other half of the Square file out through the back door?). King and Park and Jukes and Wilson were always in Chapel, also Miss Cleobury and others.
I was not in the Choir but I suspect that that side of the Choir Stalls were the altos, and the opposite side (to the right as you faced the altar, underneath the organ pipes) were the sopranos. Were there any 'spare' rows behind the choir on that side? If so, who sat in them?
I guess that even then (1950's and 1960's) Chapel attendance was not compulsory for staff, whether academic or Ward/House. Was there any difference in staff attendance between weekly morning Chapel and Matins/Evensong on Sundays? In fact I am not sure I ever remember any Ward/House staff going to Chapel apart from the big occasions like Carol Services, Speech Day, Confirmation, etc.!
Where is the Minnie K Mitchenor Window (St. Francis of Assisi), I ask? All but one small part of it appears to have gone AWOL when it was dismantled and moved to Horsham, 25 years ago. Several successive searches at the Horsham Museum have still failed to find it. The assumption is that it was inadvertently thrown away.................

[Alexandra Thrift]

"particularly as regards health" How did the abolition of Chapel caps affect our HEALTH ?

DR did seem to have a habit of objectifying us in "Half To Remember" mmm...we were to be "experimented"with .

Nice pic of a Chapel Cap, Mary.

Shame about that lovely "Arts and Crafty" window, Kerren ! It would be quite valuable. I wonder if it was "stored" somewhere but everyone has forgotten where ?

Munch, I am amazed by your memory regarding the minutiae of the cloakroom and by contrast surprised that you don't remember staff coming to Chapel ! Before you were in the choir maybe you just couldn't see far enough ( memories of Munch peering myopically ). There was usually a member of staff on Chapel Duty for a week and they would persuade a friend to accompany them and sit in the choir stalls , mostly on DRs side. Sometimes , on a more important Sunday, there would be quite a few lined up. Miss Mercer always in black sometimes wearing a strange little hat.

A hello to Niall...this must all come as quite a shock !
Indeed a warm,friendly hello to everybody xx

[Katharine]

"particularly as regards health" How did the abolition of Chapel caps affect our HEALTH ?

Glad somebody else picked that up - I did wonder myself how it affected your health! I meant to add a comment but forgot!

[englishangel]

I seem to remember Miss Morrison sitting in the seat in front of DR.

Both DR and Chemi T would genuflect too. Kerren, would you know if DR was high church? I presume Mary Thompson was Roman Catholic. Certainly the Rev. Walkers home church, St john the Baptist at Great amwell was very "belly and smelly".

[MaryB]

I seem to remember Miss Morrison sitting in the seat in front of DR.
Kerren, would you know if DR was high church? I presume Mary Thompson was Roman Catholic. Certainly the Rev. Walkers home church, St john the Baptist at Great amwell was very "belly and smelly".

I think the senior mistress for the week (Miss Morrison, Miss Blench, who else...?) sat in front of DR.
I have always assumed that DR was low church and locked in a perpetual battle with the Rev Walker of our day - who might well have been "Father" in his parish. I know he wore a biretta (now there's a really silly hat...) and had been trained in one of the theological colleges where the faster you said Mass (sic,I imagine) the better a priest you would be..... the speed with which he got through the early service on a Sunday was quite remarkable.

I recently met a priest who had taken over from him at Great Amwell - apparently he became very confused in his last few years and would come into church forgetting he was no longer the vicar. Very sad.

[MaryB]

"particularly as regards health" How did the abolition of Chapel caps affect our HEALTH ?

Glad somebody else picked that up - I did wonder myself how it affected your health! I meant to add a comment but forgot!

Well, the abolition of hats did improve my psychological health somewhat, since it slightly reduced the rate at which my hair became greasy. As I must have posted before,the lasting impact of CH on me has been the compulsion to wash my hair every day because of the horror of those years of lank greasy locks... I hate to think what the inside of my chapel cap must have been like (too much information - that's enough of that).

[Jo]

I seem to remember Miss Morrison sitting in the seat in front of DR.

Both DR and Chemi T would genuflect too. Kerren, would you know if DR was high church? I presume Mary Thompson was Roman Catholic. Certainly the Rev. Walkers home church, St john the Baptist at Great amwell was very "belly and smelly".

I seem to remember DR as very low church. I was always given to understand that the reason she insisted on taking some of our confirmation classes herself was because she was the opposite end of the churchmanship scale from Mr Walker, who was very high church.

[englishangel]

I know she insisted the chapel and services were low so as not to offend anyone.