Way Back When...

kerrensimmonds · Post by **kerrensimmonds** » Sun Aug 20, 2006 9:43 am

Not sure about sweets on Sunday, Katharine....the old memory is not what it used to be!
But if we couldn't play cards on Sunday I'm not sure we'd have been allowed anything as indulgent as confectionery!
..............

(By the way, we always assumed it was a DRW rule about not playing cards on Sundays. Now that I see her often I see that in fact she does so - so once I challenged her on it. No it wasn't her rule.. she came from a house where the ONLY recreation allowed on Sundays was to play cards - and all her family are card fiends. It was one of the rules imposed by the Governors....she couldn't understand it but she had to impose it)

midget · Post by **midget** » Sun Aug 20, 2006 7:59 pm

We had sweets (rations allowing!) on Wed nesday,Saturday and Sunday, also home jam. Cake was on Saturday and Sunday and in 1's (then junoirs only) 3 or 4 people were allowed to share out their cakes. The cry would go up "who has a sponge" because they wouldn't keep, so had to be eaten first. The trick was to cut up your cake quickly so that you didn't have to give any to someone you didn't like.

englishangel · Post by **englishangel** » Sun Aug 20, 2006 8:58 pm

Yes we had sweets on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday too, but no cake or jam well not from home anyway. We did have school cake for tea on sunday. My favourite (and still is) was the fruity one.

For my 18th birthday my mother made a cake and posted it to me with admonitions all over 'THIS WAY UP'.

She had put them on the wrong way up.

That's my Ma, daft as a brush. she still is, and she passed it on to me.

The cake tasted good though even if the icing was a bit crushed.

kerrensimmonds · Post by **kerrensimmonds** » Sun Aug 20, 2006 11:06 pm

I still don't remember having sweets on Sundays but I bow to others' more precise memories!
Like Mary, I do remember that we were allowed cakes from home for our birthday parties.. five guests (?of whom one could be from another house with the House Mistress' permission?). The birthday tea was taken in the Music Room/Study or whatever we called it, at the end of the Day Room (adjacent ot the Tuck Room) but presumably after the piano had been bashed and/or people had warbled on the recorder, for the hymn which I seem to think we sang before Tea. Or was it after Tea? I do remember (not being a musician) learning the descant (on the recorder) for something like 'Oh God Our Help In Ages Past' and being scared out of my wits as the time came to Actually Play it in public! Even if the public was only my own House!
Oh dear. Scarred for life.....

Katharine · Post by **Katharine** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:43 am

Kerren - could it be that Mrs Winstone was stricter than Miss Jenkins? I have few memories of birthday parties, my own birthday is is August so only had the last 2 at school when we had changed to the 4 term year.

We had prayers after tea before going over to prep, as far as I recall it.

englishangel · Post by **englishangel** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 9:49 am

I was in 2's with Kerren, my last year being her first. We could have 5 sweets on Wednesday and Sunday and 10 on Saturday, or something like that.

Perhaps you just weren't a sweet eater Kerren!

I think it was Upper IVth as it would have been then who counted the sweets out.

kerrensimmonds · Post by **kerrensimmonds** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 9:58 am

Bless you Mary but I think we were the other way round... my last being your first....So I was probably beavering away in the Study over my A levels (or...ha ha ha!) on a Sunday while you juniors were noshing at the tuck!
I don't know Katharine whether or not Flossie Winstone could have been said to have been stricter than Miss Jenkins. They (the Housemistresses) were in the main such oddballs and it would be difficult with hindsight to draw many comparisons. I am just glad... again with hindsight though I was glad at the time, too, that I wasn't in Ones.

englishangel · Post by **englishangel** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:04 am

oops, yes of course, your last was my first.

You, Stephanie and Joanna, the Green (aproned) Goddesses.

kerrensimmonds · Post by **kerrensimmonds** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:06 am

Yes you are right though not sure about the goddesses.
I met Steph and Joanna on 1 July this year, for the first time in 40 years (our year group was celebrating 40 years of freedom). It was amazing. We all recognised each other straight away!

englishangel · Post by **englishangel** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:14 am

I think I have said somewhere else that I would recognise you, in fact I have seen you at an old Blues Day in the 90's.

kerrensimmonds · Post by **kerrensimmonds** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:19 am

Facially, yes.. not much changes. But of the three of us I was the only one with still my own natural hair colour - and then from the neck down I think we were all QUITE different from our 18 year old selves. Me probably more different than either of the others.....People who know me now find it hard to believe that once I was 'sporty'.

Katharine · Post by **Katharine** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:24 am

kerrensimmonds wrote:I don't know Katharine whether or not Flossie Winstone could have been said to have been stricter than Miss Jenkins. They (the Housemistresses) were in the main such oddballs and it would be difficult with hindsight to draw many comparisons. I am just glad... again with hindsight though I was glad at the time, too, that I wasn't in Ones.

Well I must admit that we called Miss Jenkins 'The Hag', which certainly shows we did not love her! She had some very strange ways. It must have been an odd life for these women, can't imagine why any of them took it on. Can't imagine they were very well paid by the Foundation, got no privacy and very little free time during term.

I think the boys always had Housemasters who taught as well as matrons, ours presumably were to combine the two roles.

kerrensimmonds · Post by **kerrensimmonds** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:50 am

Hi Katharine
I think they in the main took on such an odd life because they were odd to start with - some of them were pretty strange people for one reason or another on top of which they had ultimate power over the girls in their charge. I heard (in later life) of one case where some academic staff petitioned DRW about the way one housemistress was treating a particular girl, and she ignored them saying she would not interfere in House business. I believe with hindsight that in the main (though not for all of them, all of the time) life in the Wards/Houses at Hertford had some pretty unpleasant moments - particularly viewed now through the spectacles of the Children's Act. Most of us survived unscathed, though - I hope!

englishangel · Post by **englishangel** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:03 am

Really they were on duty 24/7 except the occasional weekend.

When I was in Upper Sixth our housemistress (a widow with a daughter in 3's) had a rare weekend away and my fellow Mon was also going away, to a family 'do'. The Mistress had gone on Thursday evening and on Friday morning I woke up with some illness or other. If I went up t'Inf my fellow Mon would not be able to go away that evening.

Fortunately I didn't have many classes so I struggled through the day. The moment I knew Jane was safely on the train I went up t'Inf and passed out cold in the hallway.

I was sick for a week. I have no idea what happened in the house in my absence though there wqere several sensible Lower Sixths.

sejintenej · Post by **sejintenej** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:49 pm

englishangel wrote:Really they were on duty 24/7 except the occasional weekend.

When I was in Upper Sixth our housemistress (a widow with a daughter in 3's) had a rare weekend away and my fellow Mon was also going away, to a family 'do'. The Mistress had gone on Thursday evening and on Friday morning I woke up with some illness or other. If I went up t'Inf my fellow Mon would not be able to go away that evening.

Fortunately I didn't have many classes so I struggled through the day. The moment I knew Jane was safely on the train I went up t'Inf and passed out cold in the hallway.

At least they taught you a sense of responsibility which no doubt has benefitted you since.
We, the boys, were lucky in that there were six or eight (I can't remember which) monitors plus a Trades Monitor in each house, any one of whom was quite capable of controlling the remaining 45 plus boys in the house. Housemasters were supernumary to house organisation, useful only because they were allowed to administer the "ultimate deterrents" though those available to monitors were themselves quite effective.