New Forum Section - Hertford Memories

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Mrs Drake was Swiss AFAIR replaced in summer by the auburn haired French Canadian wo was either Miss Smith and married to become Mrs Brown, or vice versa. but I still can't remember Miss Riddiford.

Miss Smith - thanks Mary, now I can go straight to bed when I crawl in from work tonight

The physics teacher was a small dark woman who was incredibly bright and had a husband who was similarly clever. She was doinf her Masters in Astrophysics while we were doing our A levels and if you were not a natural phyicist (step forward Mary Mc) her classes were ideal for a snooze. (she also broke her foot when it slipped off the accelerator about a month before A levels.)

Don't remember her. The only Physics Teacher I can remember was little, and a very, very nervous driver who would often leave her car in gear when parked - forgetting to rectify the situation before starting the engine. She must have been at St Martin's.

[Euterpe13]

I was only 2 years ahead, and have no memory whatsoever of a Miss Riddiford, although I do remember Mrs Drake ( slim, elegant, very parisian ) and Miss Smith - although Miss Rutherford was the most relevant to me as far as French goes - up until O level, I swanned through with very little attention to classes ( had been learning french since the kindergarten in Ismailia, and spoke french all summer every year) - but A level meant set books , meant study...

The physics teacher you mention took over from an aged, but brilliant, previous teacher ( whose name escapes me) whom I could never really understand - enter new, much younger teacher in my O level year, and suddenly everything made sense - I even got 98 % for my mocks !
B.

[J.R.]

I find it slightly odd that the majority of the female teachers were all MISS so-and-so, and I have to assume that they were all NOT of pre-marriage age !

Would this be allowed in this day and age ?

Strangely enough, Jan re-calls from her secondary school days that her Head and Deputy Head were both MISS and were a definite 'item' !

[Katharine]

The physics teacher you mention took over from an aged, but brilliant, previous teacher ( whose name escapes me) whom I could never really understand - enter new, much younger teacher in my O level year, and suddenly everything made sense - I even got 98 % for my mocks !

Do you mean Mrs Johnson? Also known as Widow Twanky, I don't know anything about her private life, whether there was a Mr Johnson still alive or not.

As far as I am concerned one of her main claims to fame was that she was ambidextrous and wrote on the blackboard first with her left hand and then continued on the same line with her right hand!

[Euterpe13]

Yes ! thanks Katharine, indeed Mrs. Johnson, lovely person, but her explanations went right over my head - then she was replaced and I suddenly got the hang of " coefficients of linear expansion" and the like.
I remember the blackboard feat - also that she let us play ( when juniors) with that enormous bowl of mercury. What were the toxic risks there, I wonder ?

[midget]

I find it slightly odd that the majority of the female teachers were all MISS so-and-so, and I have to assume that they were all NOT of pre-marriage age !

Would this be allowed in this day and age ?

Strangely enough, Jan re-calls from her secondary school days that her Head and Deputy Head were both MISS and were a definite 'item' !

Worse still, most of the House mistresses were single too. They were mostly of "genteel" background, with Fathers who were in the forces, and seemed to have absorbed the worst bits of service discipline.

[J.R.]

I find it slightly odd that the majority of the female teachers were all MISS so-and-so, and I have to assume that they were all NOT of pre-marriage age !

Would this be allowed in this day and age ?

Strangely enough, Jan re-calls from her secondary school days that her Head and Deputy Head were both MISS and were a definite 'item' !

Worse still, most of the House mistresses were single too. They were mostly of "genteel" background, with Fathers who were in the forces, and seemed to have absorbed the worst bits of service discipline.

Very politely put Maggie, but somehow the character played by Beryl Reid in the 1968 film 'The Killing of Sister George' keeps springing to mind.

(I've still got a big thing about Susannah York !)

[Vonny]

I find it slightly odd that the majority of the female teachers were all MISS so-and-so, and I have to assume that they were all NOT of pre-marriage age !

Most of them at Hertford were post retirement age!

[Foureyes]

May I offer just a small word of caution? There were many women who lost either fiancees or boy-friends in the war, particularly in the RAF, who could not bring themselves to take up with another man because of their memories and a feeling of loyalty. Thus, there were many "spinsters" in the late 1940s through to the 1970s and beyond who would not have remained unmarried had things worked out otherwise. I am not saying that there weren't some professional spinsters (I put that very circumspectly!), but only that some had other, sadder reasons for remaining unmarried.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

May I offer just a small word of caution? There were many women who lost either fiancees or boy-friends in the war, particularly in the RAF, who could not bring themselves to take up with another man because of their memories and a feeling of loyalty. Thus, there were many "spinsters" in the late 1940s through to the 1970s and beyond who would not have remained unmarried had things worked out otherwise. I am not saying that there weren't some professional spinsters (I put that very circumspectly!), but only that some had other, sadder reasons for remaining unmarried.

Point taken, but there were two female members of staff who were quite open about their friendship. Have no idea whether they were actually lovers, but someone posted about seeing them wandering across the playground arm in arm, and I just assumed that they were.

What surprises me is that I can in no way imagine DR having permitted an unmarried heterosexual pair of teachers be so open about their friendship.

[Katharine]

May I offer just a small word of caution? There were many women who lost either fiancees or boy-friends in the war, particularly in the RAF, who could not bring themselves to take up with another man because of their memories and a feeling of loyalty. Thus, there were many "spinsters" in the late 1940s through to the 1970s and beyond who would not have remained unmarried had things worked out otherwise. I am not saying that there weren't some professional spinsters (I put that very circumspectly!), but only that some had other, sadder reasons for remaining unmarried.

I know that my generation were aware of this. I am now trying to remember just which ladies we believed had lost the loves of their lives this way. I think we thought that DR had too? We veered from being callous little b*tches about it to thinking they were tragic heroines! (Nasty little girls!!!)

[englishangel]

I wonder if they were just ahead of their time. If you look at teenage girls (and older friends) today they all seem to wander around arm in arm, something I would never have done with my friends at the same age, though I do now.

[Angela Woodford]

What surprises me is that I can in no way imagine DR having permitted an unmarried heterosexual pair of teachers be so open about their friendship.

Didn't they look gloomily contented together, first thing in the morning, arm in arm? Those two substantial ladies; making a remark to one another, or wishing us good morning? I think of DR having much the same attitude as Queen Victoria!

There's another opinion I always held - a few of those mistresses were highly erudite, devoted to academia - can you imagine the young Miss Morrison co-operating with a husband? Especially when the role of a married woman was very different - and her home life extremely labour intensive. Miss Blench - Miss Holmes - Miss Rutherford - (could go on and on) - I feel sure that the single life as a professional woman was their definite choice!

(If Nellie Norman had taken a fancy to some poor bloke, he'd have had absolutely no choice in the matter! And his duties would have been written up for him in effficient and immaculate lists! The 'peep' of her whistle to correct his performance!)

The difficult thing about Hertford was that we were so separated from the real world as to create eccentrics out of some of those Mistresses. I don't remember many of them having cars to enable them to get away from that closed environment for an evening.

And there's another thought - how Mistresses had a home of their own for the holidays? Did they stay with their family? Or go on an actual holiday themselves? I do remember Miss Jukes and Miss Wilson going.

Munch

[J.R.]

May I offer just a small word of caution? There were many women who lost either fiancees or boy-friends in the war, particularly in the RAF, who could not bring themselves to take up with another man because of their memories and a feeling of loyalty. Thus, there were many "spinsters" in the late 1940s through to the 1970s and beyond who would not have remained unmarried had things worked out otherwise. I am not saying that there weren't some professional spinsters (I put that very circumspectly!), but only that some had other, sadder reasons for remaining unmarried.

I fully take that on board, Foureyes. I had a maiden aunt in exactly that position. Sad, really.

[sejintenej]

May I offer just a small word of caution? There were many women who lost either fiancees or boy-friends in the war, particularly in the RAF, who could not bring themselves to take up with another man because of their memories and a feeling of loyalty. Thus, there were many "spinsters" in the late 1940s through to the 1970s and beyond who would not have remained unmarried had things worked out otherwise. I am not saying that there weren't some professional spinsters (I put that very circumspectly!), but only that some had other, sadder reasons for remaining unmarried.

I came across quite a lot of elderly unmarried famales at various times.
Primary school teacher of very advanced years - I have no idea how she would have supported herself otherwise.

"Gladys" - "companion" to her cousin whose sister - one of the most racy ladies of the thirties - often stayed in the house. She had to leave when he died and "survived" in a tiny cottage. Despite immense family wealth she was destitute.

ex-WRNS, in love with whomever is head of the Conservative party (and alternate bosses as well) - "he" turned out to be already married, or so I understand.

Canteen cook - wartime romance with someone who turned out to be already married.