Margaret wrote: We wore own clothes once a year, for the Founders Day dance in the school hall. A girls only event (it was said that we were invited to an annual dance at Haileybury, the boys school down the road, but DR always said no, the dance is in Lent and the girls do not dance in Lent. Or any other time). The October occasion was surreally awful, not least because you had to dance with staff, particularly if you were taking their subject for o-level, i still cringe at the memory of circling the floor pressed to the mauve-satin-draped thigh (it was a tango) of art supremo Hildegarde Keppel-Barrett. DR didn't take part, i think, but sat in state on the stage flanked by 2 girls, a new pair per dance. I remember being sent back to ward to do my hair properly as i'd done a ponytail, outrageously wild !
I'm still catching up on some of the threads from before my time.
I distinctly remember the Founder's Day dance from my junior days. We definitely wore our own cotton dresses for it, can't remember whether we were allowed any jewellery or not. As Margaret says, you had to sign up to dance with members of staff. We each made our own dance programmes as you would pair up with friends for each dance. The end of the first half was always the dance Sir Roger de Coverly. There were competitions out in the foyer of the school hall arranged by the Lower VI (?) such as photos of them when younger, recognising advertisements etc.
I am pretty sure it died while I was there - was it because of the 4 term year? If I remember rightly Founder's Day was October 23rd, and I distinctly remember being on holiday for my sister's birthday, 19th October, when we had the 4 term year.
In the morning DR told the story of the school, each year trying to take a different slant, so that although you kept on hearing it it wasn't identical. Did we have any lessons at all that day? What else did we do? I wish there was a contemporary of mine here.
