School Needlework

Share your memories and stories from the Hertford Christ's Hospital School, which closed in 1985, when the two schools integrated to the Horsham site....

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Fjgrogan
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Re: School Needlework

Post by Fjgrogan »

Festival of Britain, I mean!
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Re: School Needlework

Post by midget »

Oh the excitement of the Festival of Britain, actually being allowed to wander about among crowds of people, eating our sandwiches with crowds milling about. It certainly made a change from school.
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Re: School Needlework

Post by Angela Woodford »

What do you especially remember amongst the exhibits, Maggie?
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Re: School Needlework

Post by Vonny »

Jo wrote:Her successor was Mrs Newbold .......... I gather she could be a tartar at times - my friend Nina (Jones) did needlework O level and I'm sure was reduced to tears more than once, plus I vaguely remember Yvonne or one of the later Hertford OGs complaining about her - but I always got on fine with her. I didn't have much to do with her,
She was ok from what I remember,although she did look fierce at times. She used to huff & puff a bit if you didn't get what she was saying straight away but I would say I was far more afraid of Miss Jukes and Miss Wilson than I was of Mrs Newbold!
I got away with handing in a shop made skirt and then a blouse I had made a couple of years before in class. She obviously didn't realise & I got a "commended" :lol:
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Pixie
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Re: School Needlework

Post by Pixie »

I'm sure her predecessor would have noticed!
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Re: School Needlework

Post by Angela Woodford »

I agree with Pixie!

A shop-made skirt! Incroyable. I'm deeply shocked.

However... a blouse made to SWSNBN standards, resurrected and resubmitted? That's possible. In fact, nice one! :lol:

Pondering on the SWSNBN retirement question, I was out in Tiverton, er, pondering. As if materialised by this very pondering, Carolynn, needlework genius beloved by SWSNBN appeared before me in Tesco! The very Head Girl who stayed on another year until 1972.

Carolynn has an idea that Miss Jukes took over Needlework in a brief interregnum between SWSNBN and Mrs Newbold. In which case, SWSNBN may have retired at the end of summer 1971. Perhaps, realising that her leaving might have been received with relief and celebration ( :oops: ) she chose to do so very quietly.

Just a theory.
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Re: School Needlework

Post by englishangel »

I cannot believe that Pixie is the only one to voice that.

Carolynn may be correct, I cannot for the life of me remember. However SWMNBN was also in charge of the school uniform and I do have a vague memory of someone else sorting out the length of our skirts for St Matts Day with DR. who it was escapes me though.
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Re: School Needlework

Post by Jo »

I think Carolynn is correct. BJ certainly wrote the needlework section of two or three of the reports I fished out the other day. I assumed it was maybe just our form who had her for some reason but I think she may well have held the fort for a year or two. I think also Mrs Owen, one of the Scripture teachers took a few forms for needlework around the same time.
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Re: School Needlework

Post by icomefromalanddownunder »

anniexf wrote:
Angela Woodford wrote::lol: Ann!

Just imagine calling him to heel in the street!

I know! It makes me cringe with shame just to think of it! But that particular aunt, still going strong (91 this year), always did have more brass neck than a church lectern, so even if she'd known it was wrong she'd not have given it a second thought. :(
But it wasn't wrong back then :) . We had a cat called by the same name - the term wasn't used as an insult (well, I hope that our African neighbour didn't think that it was).

My b-i-l is Mauritian, and my (to me) polynesian-looking niece was mortified when, on a school visit to Germany, she thought that she was being insulted by being called by that name, whereas the, admittedly almost certainly non-empathic locals, were merely commenting on her appearance, and not intending to insult her.
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Re: School Needlework

Post by Kim2s70-77 »

Fjgrogan wrote:I was also pipped at the post. I had a post all typed up ready to send when the phone rang, which for some mysterious reason tends to cut my computer off (so much for broadband!) and by the time I had recycled yet again the same conversation that I have daily with my elderly father, there were two more posts saying basically what I had just typed and my post had vanished!! Yes, and the dog's name was used as a codeword for one (or possibly all?) of the dams bursting, so couldn't really be changed - in later showings of the film they quietly bleeped the name out!

To get back to the needlework - when Maria went to CH I made her a sewing basket - not usually my sort of thing so it must have been a labour of love! - it was lined with some leftover fabric from one of her dresses, and had a drawstring top. She has recently decided to refurbish it for her daughter Hanna - my bit is OK but the basket is disintegrating. Among the contents were school nametapes and a large flat needle with a curved end. Does anyone have a clue what that miight be for?

Is it for quilting? (Or leatherwork, or crewel stitching?)
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Re: School Needlework

Post by Angela Woodford »

It could be the needle used for rug-making. I remember a florid make-a-rug kit at home supplied by a firm called "Readicut". It had a canvas base through which tufts of wool were inserted using a flat needle with a curved end!
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Re: School Needlework

Post by Fjgrogan »

Rug making was my first suggestion, but I was not at all sure. It turned out that the mother of Maria's best friend (an American) is a serious rugmaker and I was referred to her website where I discovered that she belongs to (or possibly runs) something called the Come Hither Hookers - I said I couldn't possibly compete with that!! It's as well that JR is currently on holiday maybe!
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Re: School Needlework

Post by Angela Woodford »

Jo wrote: I think also Mrs Owen, one of the Scripture teachers took a few forms for needlework around the same time.
That's the name! Mrs Owen!

When Deirdre and I were doing Home Economics together in the UV1, Mrs Owen was appointed as a junior Miss Jukes. We had several lessons with her every week, where we did design and fabric choice - though not in any great detail. I remember her telling us that well-designed items could be mixed together in a room regardless of the period in which they'd been made, as the good design was all! Very good advice. Mrs Owen was a really nice young woman - a friendly smile, short brown hair, glasses; and probably not that much older than we were.

It was when we were having a Mrs Owen theory session - in the Cookery School for some unknown reason - that BJ burst in to complain that crumbs had been left on the surfaces of the work benches after Mrs Owen had taken a Cookery Practical. We had never heard a member of staff give such a tremendous bollocking to another member of staff before. Obviously, BJ wanted to humiliate poor Mrs Owen as much as possible - in front of us would have been extra shaming. Crumbs on the work benches! We sat feeling desperately sorry for the young Mistress, as BJ raged on and then stamped out.

We sat speechless. Mrs Owen had made no reply whatsoever. Were there a couple of tears in her eyes behind the glasses? She straightened her back,and went on with the lesson as if nothing had happened. Deirdre and I felt so, so sorry for her. We put extra effort into being bright and responsive in case this might boost her morale. As we clattered away downstairs afterwards, of course, we hissed our horror to each other.

Perhaps BJ felt threatened at having such a nice, capable and pleasant girl on her territory; in her Cookery School.

I thought it was vile of Miss Jukes.
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Re: School Needlework

Post by midget »

Re the curved needle, it sounds like a Mattress needle, used in heavy non-bendable work. A smaller version is used to assemble an embroidered box, without which noone should call herself an embroiderer.
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Re: School Needlework

Post by jhopgood »

midget wrote:Oh the excitement of the Festival of Britain, actually being allowed to wander about among crowds of people, eating our sandwiches with crowds milling about. It certainly made a change from school.
Ever heard Gerard Hoffnung's talk about when he was a guide for the Festival of Britain?
He would advise all visitors to shake everyone's hand on entering a railway carriage etc.
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