Missing Holly Burning was the punishment for sneaking out on the night of Holly Burning the year before to have a Midnight picnic in School Block and some 'concerned neighbour' calling the Police. TBH, I thought it was a reasonable punishment, and Mrs Lawerence did let us have our own mini (and subdued!) Holly Burning up in Dorm. (Besides, it was all the 'fun' group who had sneaked out, and therefore I think we still had a better time upstairs than they did down!)Angela Woodford wrote: Missing Holly Burning? What sort of stupid punishment is that?
And what is this "standing up if you've ever had a school punishment" thing?
I'm all in favour of speaking out if a Housemistress is unreasonable, Caron.
I wish that I'd been able to speak out about seven years of DR. Kerren once spoke of a friend who had been given a dismal mark from DR after her Scripture essay, but "took it on the chin" and wasn't distressed. I might just bet that that friend hadn't been written off as hopeless by DR for seven years? "Took it on the chin"? I did, for seven years.
Hertford Housemistresses were a strange variety of women, but it's also the punishments inflicted by the Senior Girls and the perceived "superiorities" of the 'A' and 'B' streams (another DR terrible mistake) that stick most in my mind; that were also important when it came to Hertford unhappiness.
Nowadays, let's have transparency. No unkindness, no bullying.
The standing up thing is a jokey thing. Different 'factions' are given different verses of the 12 days of Christmas to sing - anyone who was in the 1st XV rugby, anyone who was in the choir etc ... The final one is 'anyone who had a school punishment'.
I'm sorry you had such a miserable time. There were still elements of that in my time, and I have never been able to understand WHY senior girls were permitted to punish the younger ones without any form of checks and balances.