Hertford hygeine, hierarchies and heartache (from CH Forum)

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Did we get it all the year round?

Winter terms only and then not every day. It waas supposedly for health benefits.

I knew it - child abuse - now I have proof

I'm allergic to bl&&dy cod liver oil, and I remember the day I finally convinced my Mum that the huge purple plukes that developed on the inside of my knees were a result of her forcing me to ingest pukey, pukey tasting cod liver oil. Logically, I have no idea why the oil would cause such a reaction (maybe I manifested them to get my point across), but they appeared when I was fed it, and disappeared when I no longer had to. So, no more cod liver oil at home, but five years of it at CH

[icomefromalanddownunder]

I don't think we used the flower beds in 6s, but we certainly didn't swallow them - what did we do? We had them the first three Saturdays of each term, as far as I remember.

This was something else that used to offend my sense of, um, what? Dignity? Self worth? Social justice?

The fact that I returned from home, having been fed healthy, wholesome food, based around fresh vegetables grown on Grandad's allotment (not to mention the odd herbal remedy which effectively dealt with the symptoms of hay fever, but tasted somewhat like double distilled dog droppings) to a place where food hygiene was suspect and fresh fruit and veges were mainly replaced by grease and stodge, yet my system 'needed' to be cleansed to ensure healthy bowel function throughout the term.

I always felt as though it were the regime's way of cleansing me of any trace of normality to ensure that I fitted into the, to me, unnatural life behind the gates. I resented the perceived intent far more than the medication.

[Angela Woodford]

I think I could slice bread accurately even now - that method was the only way to do it. I always think of it when I see a large crusty bloomer in a bakers' shop.

An early letter home records "We have been given pills that give you diarrea (sic)!" Somehow that revelation had slipped past the Millie censor.

My mother was horrified. She advised that I should only pretend to take the senokot, and flush it down the loo. I had never heard mention of any sort of laxative - that sort of thing was taboo at home! I'd been taught that one should not only be totally inaudible in a loo, but preferably to be ultra discreet in going there. So some aspects of communal living were a bit of a shock. Remember that hard loo paper?

Other letters home for the rest of my school life contain requests for nice food prior to Long Sat, when my father would whisk me back to South London for the day. Sometimes there would be cold roast chicken from a wonderful grocer/deli in Streatham High Road. I've never forgotten the taste! Like Caroline's grandparents, my parents grew tomatoes and gooseberries and other soft fruit (some of it got bottled!) in the London garden. Delicious and healthy.

How did they add the cod-liver-oil to the marge, Katharine? I've got a vision of a horrible huge pearly pale yellow churning vat!

Munch

[icomefromalanddownunder]

I think I could slice bread accurately even now - that method was the only way to do it. I always think of it when I see a large crusty bloomer in a bakers' shop.


I still tend to tear bread into lumps, rather than delicately slice it. You'd think that, after all these years, I could give up on the rebellion. We have a chain of bakeries known as 'Baker's Delight' which come up with some pretty yummy loaves and rolls (but their chocolate croissants 'Er, they are really pain au chocolat, you know' leave a considerable amount to be desired). They are sold unsliced, but the shop assistants always offer to slice for purchasers. No way, thanks very much - I do not want your delicate, uniform slices, I want asymmetrical bits to chew on.

An early letter home records "We have been given pills that give you diarrea (sic)!" Somehow that revelation had slipped past the Millie censor.

My mother was horrified. She advised that I should only pretend to take the senokot, and flush it down the loo. I had never heard mention of any sort of laxative - that sort of thing was taboo at home! I'd been taught that one should not only be totally inaudible in a loo, but preferably to be ultra discreet in going there. So some aspects of communal living were a bit of a shock. Remember that hard loo paper?


I used to have great difficulty in doing anything noisy or odorous in a shared bathroom, and once went 10 days (I exagerrate not) without a bowel movement while on a sailing trip. Then everyone else went ashore, I remained on anchor watch, the heavens opened, and I blocked the heads

My grandparents' house in Battersea had an outside loo which Grandad had converted to an inside one by bulding a shed onto the end of the house and building a door into what had been the end wall - tres posh. However, Nan wasn't quite up with the play, and the toilet paper provided was brown, shiny on one side, slightly more absorbent on the other, and came in squares with a hole punched in one corner so that they could be hung from a hook on the wall.



How did they add the cod-liver-oil to the marge, Katharine? I've got a vision of a horrible huge pearly pale yellow churning vat!

I have visions of the kitchen staff churning with their bare hands and dirty finger nails. The very thought is making me nauseous.

I had a flashback to school dinners one day last week. I'm not sure whether the stimulus came from the tea room or one of the labs, but I immediately remembered school potatoes. Yuk.


Munch

[Katharine]

How much money did the school waste on the brown pills? What proportion of them were actually swallowed?

My parents did not have much money, stereotypically a poor clergy family. We did however have a HUGE garden with an acre of walled kitchen garden. My mother slaved there and I don't think we bought any vegetables. My father did help too, but he worked such odd hours he couldn't say when he could garden. My mother, a farmer's daughter, also kept hens, ducks and geese. They were in another part of the demesne. We were self sufficient in eggs as well. I certainly was in no need of brown pills when I went back to school.

[englishangel]

My father and grandfather had a nursery and being on a southfacing slope in the south of England I reckon I sampled the delights of such exotica as sweetcorn, peppers and courgettes before many of my generation. We also had a half acre of garden behind our house (and a similar amount in front) which meant that things like runner beans were on the table within 10 minutes of being picked. I never did get the taste for rhubarb until many years later though, and still don't like broad beans.

[englishangel]

Sorry, just realised that this was about senokot. I also used the hamster technique. If I had taken them I would have been in a terrible state.

[sejintenej]

How much money did the school waste on the brown pills? What proportion of them were actually swallowed?

My parents did not have much money, stereotypically a poor clergy family. We did however have a HUGE garden with an acre of walled kitchen garden. My mother slaved there and I don't think we bought any vegetables. My father did help too, but he worked such odd hours he couldn't say when he could garden. My mother, a farmer's daughter, also kept hens, ducks and geese. They were in another part of the demesne. We were self sufficient in eggs as well. I certainly was in no need of brown pills when I went back to school.

My mother's employers had a kitchen garden (plus chickens, wheat field) from which the house and a local greengrocer were supplied so we didn't lack fresh fruit and veg.
Indeed from the age of 7 I had to help pick soft fruit (strawberries, rasberries, black and red currants mainly) feed, kill and pluck the chickens and collect the eggs, in return for which I was awarded my own bit of garden (at a guess 8 feet by 20 feet), strawberry plants and a young apple tree from a pip!) I also got paid well over the odds - I think a penny for 2 large punnets of strawberries.. I will eat strawberries - if pressed .......
Those were my duties - otherwise I was catching flounder, mackerel etc with a 300 foot long line which I made up - but that never went to the dining room!

[Alexandra Thrift]

I'd been taught that one should not only be totally inaudible in a loo, but preferably to be ultra discreet in going there. So some aspects of communal living were a bit of a shock. Remember that hard loo paper?

What about our periods....and the loo....and the whole awful trauma. Sanitary Towels put on the slats (I was a laundry girl and involved in that)....wasn't there some weird system of reporting to the housemistress if our period was late ??? I could honestly weep when I think of the distress I went through and somehow couldn't talk to anyone about.......It was the prudery and totally inadequate pastoral care of the school.However It's not fair to totally blame CH.....it was those times ( the 1960s ).......teenage angst and the physical changes associated with this age group were still not openly addressed.

Although I was the skinniest 12 year old imaginable....my periods started at that age and then monthly I simply POURED with blood.I had absolutely NO IDEA that anything could be done to help me or that maybe I should talk to sister or the doctor. I sometimes spent hours in the loo trying to deal with the situation and clean up without leaving any trace of the horror I was going through. I never,ever dared to speak to anyone about it and it continued throughout my schooldays.

When I was 16 I contracted a UTI.......knowing nothing about such things I had no idea why I was in agony when peeing and yet again....I didn't DARE tell anyone. The ghastly scenario went on for about two weeks by which time I could barely stand up straight and yet I had told no one.
In the end I had no choice but (terrified) to go and see sister at The Infirmary. I was rushed in and put to bed with a raging temperature.......my kidneys had become infected and I was very ill.I have to say that everyone was very caring towards me once it had reached this serious point. The Doctor regularly checked me and DR visited twice a day ( she always visited us in the Infirmary...didn't she? ).

How was it I was so afraid to ask for any kind of help on intimate,personal health issues ?

IMO far more attention should have been paid to health education ...in small friendly groups (NOT a classroom situation) and in confidence with somebody non judgemental whom we could trust.

I kind of understand why we were given Senokots....in psychobabble....There was such an "anally retentive" environment at CH.

[englishangel]

As you say Alex, in fairness it wasn't just CH. One of my friends would help my Mum out with my little sister and once they were out en famille and my friend started her period and didn't dare tell my Mum (who was a District Nurse at the time). I was fortunate enough to start at home during the summer hols and certainly knew what was going on and never had any problems anyway.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

As you say Alex, in fairness it wasn't just CH. One of my friends would help my Mum out with my little sister and once they were out en famille and my friend started her period and didn't dare tell my Mum (who was a District Nurse at the time). I was fortunate enough to start at home during the summer hols and certainly knew what was going on and never had any problems anyway.

The memories are coming flooding back today, one of which is of one of a girl a couple of years younger than me wandering up and down the dorm with a large blood stain on her flanaletter nightie, clearly in ignorance of what was happening to her.

To my shame, I confess that I did not go to her aid, and don't know what the outcome was, but if she is reading this (I can't even remember her name ) I hope that she will accept my very belated apology.

[Katharine]

The memories are coming flooding back today, one of which is of one of a girl a couple of years younger than me wandering up and down the dorm with a large blood stain on her flanaletter nightie, clearly in ignorance of what was happening to her.

I was teaching in London in the 80s when I had to help a girl in similar circumstances. I was shocked at that time that she was still ignorant but tried to be as kind and helpful as I could.

[Angela Woodford]

Alex, you're right, of course we should have had access to some informal friendly accurate informed advice. Try telling your problem to huge cross scathing Sister Summers in the listening queue in the Infirmary after breakfast!

I was worried that I didn't start until I was 14, nearly 15, and really thought there might be something wrong with me!

An embarassing recollection - remember when it was House Swimming, we had to go round the tables after prayers saying if we were "on" or "off" swimming? It was recorded in a notebook by the Study. I really, really hated that loss of privacy.

I also remember Iris Stanley. (Her mother owned a garage and Iris loved cars and motorbikes and knew all about engines. Unfortunately, her peers in 6s were the funky Maureen Flynn and the beautiful and fashionable Denise Brownlow, with whom she didn't have much in common). Iris seemed so lonely. It was rumoured that she suffered from terrible dysmennorhoea - and I can see her now in my mind's eye sitting at top table on her own, face a greener shade of white, in too much pain to do anything. There was no support for Iris - it was Jackdaw at the time, who wouldn't have noticed anyone in pain -

Iris died a couple of years after leaving post UV. I saw the announcement in a CHOGA mag. I can't help thinking that the pain she suffered might have been caused by illness more sinister than she, or anyone else, realised.

Munch

[englishangel]

Another thought on how things have changed, I don't know what happens with your offspring but my daughter and her friends do not say "the Curse" they just say "my period".

[Alexandra Thrift]

Hi Munch

How lovely of you to remember Iris.I remember how she suffered and If I remember rightly (I read the same announcement in the CHOGA mag) she took her own life. Iris was nice but as you say ,rather isolated in her year in Sixes.I was really shocked and saddened when I read about her.I think Sally Tyrell and beautiful Jo McNamara were also in her year weren't they?.....there were two Megans.....funky Margaret and unfunky but salt of the earth Nottingham very Northern Margaret Flynn.What was the other Margaret's surname? xx

btw Denise Brownlow came back on Old Girls Day (1968 ish) looking a lot like Pattie Boyd (Smith's Crisps Ad and George Harrison's first wife)....stunning!!...and sat and chatted to us about working as a bunny girl in a playboy type club (if my memory serves me correctly).We were in admiring AWE !