Angela Woodford wrote:icomefromalanddownunder wrote:Returning to Judy's thread about staff members, specifically Mrs Betterton's public tears after the death of her son - I feel guilty, to this day, that I didn't have the confidence to go to the front of the class and comfort her.
Caroline, wasn't Mrs Bett the most wonderful sensitive empathetic woman? I feel sure that she would have realised that, for us, staff didn't express grief, and we simply wouldn't have been able to handle that situation. She'd been a girl at the School herself. She would have understood.
O tempora! O mores! Awful.
Love from Munch
Mrs Betterton had been in 5's and her name (maiden name obviously, Kathleen Baron) was on our Mons' Board for about 1929. She was indeed a very gentle, lovely woman. I remember her reading to us in English classes: once, when reading "My Family and Other Animals", she glossed over a line that would have required her to read out the word "bl**dy"*, and substituted "blooming" instead. Another time, she was reading a historical novel, I believe set in Roman times, where she said she had to abbreviate it in order to complete it all in a term, but the only bit she expunged was the bit between a couple meeting and having their first child. So sweet
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
I didn't know she'd lost a son though - was this during your time at CH, or much earlier but the memory still upset her?
When Mrs Bett was retiring, 5's put on some sort of house entertainment for her (poor woman!). The only piece I remember was that, for some reason best known to themselves, the organisers decided to include Simon & Garfunkel's "Cecilia". Except that they thought the line "making love in the afternoon" might offend Mrs B (they were probably right), so they bowdlerised it to "making cakes in the afternoon", which, if you know that the next line is "....with Cecilia up in my bedroom", makes no sense at all
She was replaced by an odd little woman called Miss Hann, who was brisk and no-nonsense, and had a thick mop of white hair like a carpet brush. She was sometimes kind and funny but other times biting and sarcastic. I only had her for one year in the 5th form as I didn't do English A Level. But she failed to check the A Level syllabus for the people in my year and missed the fact it had changed, so she prepared them for the wrong topics. It was a mark of the innate kindness of the pupils concerned that
they felt so sorry for
her that they bought her some chocolates - despite the fact that all of them received much lower grades in A Level English than they should have done. Actually, it probably made her feel more wretched than ever.
* gosh, even the forum software is offended by the word.... their asterisks, not mine!!