I was a war baby born in 1940 at the Benslow Nursing Home in Hitchin on 6th May 1940 (and incidentally delivered by the first lady doctor in the town – Winifred Symonds!)
Soon after my fifth birthday I was in for a big shock for my mother drove me from our home in Gosmore in our little Austin 10 with the apt registration number VE 9513 – we had just celebrated VE Day – to school! The school was St Luke’s in Walsworth Road, a large double-fronted Victorian/Edwardian house on the left-hand side before the Woodside Theatre. The school took girls and boys up to 11 years and the Headmistress was a rather fierce lady named, I think, Miss Noble.
Prior to that eventful first day I had led a happy somewhat isolated life as I was an only child, living with my mum and dad and our dog, cat, Jersey cow, “called” Winky”, chickens, a horse and pigs. We were pretty self-sufficient and Grandad, dad’s father, lived next door and grew all the vegetables and fruit we needed. He kept bees and also a goat as I, apparently, drank goat’s milk as dad was worried about TB. Probably why I dislike milk so much today!
However, back to St Luke’s and that first day. All the children – I’d never seen so many – filed into a large room with long tables. One by one each child (except me) put a small package into an empty biscuit tin and walked on. What was all this about? I soon found out because at break time each child collected their little package which contained a biscuit or some other form of snack. I soon realised that I would need to bring a snack and mum packed mine from then onwards into an empty tobacco tin of dad’s. There were no raised eyebrows over this, but can you imagine what would be said today!
I remember going upstairs to the Kindergarten classroom presided over by a tall, grey-haired and kind lady called Miss Fitch. She looked formidable but looks can be deceptive, I remember being taught the French words for different coloured pieces of material hung on a string across a large table, but the other lessons seemed to go straight over my head – especially ‘sums’! Mrs Webb was our pretty, kind nature study teacher and her lively and energetic son, Peter, was in our class and we became friends. Another friend was Malcoln Paul who lived in Charlton. He was very sweet and walked with a limp. I was once invited to his party and proudly wore a new pair of bronze sandals. We must have been six by then. A pretty blonde curly-haired girl in our class was called Penelope Jane Grimes, and I was very envious of her beautiful voile blue-spotted party dress.
Lunch time on my first day was a new experience! Squashed together on benches on either side of a long table it was difficult to use a knife and fork without digging your elbows into children on either side! I can only remember corned beef and beetroot being on the menu. Not appealing to a child.
But, of course, there would be rationing for years to come, I actually love both now.
One day a child in great excitement brought in a banana for their snack. What a letdown! I’d heard people talking about bananas which, of course, were unobtainable during the war years. The brown, wizened object we were shown was not appetising in any way, shape or form!
One unhappy experience each week was the dancing class in the head’s drawing room each Friday afternoon. For this we wore little shoes made of chamois leather. I was shamed by the teacher because I couldn’t skip!
When we were sent outdoors at playtime the overpowering sickly-sweet smell from the Tanyard at the back of the garden over a wall topped with broken glass made us eager to escape indoors.
When mum collected me at the end of that first memorable day, I was never allowed to forget that all I said was “I’m not going there again”!
Needless to say, I did – in fact I stayed till I was seven, never moving from Miss Fitch and the Kindergarten. My next school was Oaklands School at Lytton Lodge, Codicote and was a Christian Science School. There I was happy and was fortunate to have some wonderful teachers and learned to love English, history and the natural world but not ‘sums’! That being said, I’m lucky to have lived perfectly happily to 82 without too much trouble!
Jane More (Linfield)
My mum, Joyce was a regular worshiper at St Ippolyts and a member of The Friends of St Ippolyts. When I was a baby, she took me along to WI Committee meetings at the home of a lady called Mrs Huckle.
We are involved with the small Church of St Thomas à Becket at Capel. Although owned by The Churches Conservation Trust there is a very active Friends Group and I must confess that we have “borrowed” the idea of Crib and Wedding Festivals from St Ippolyts but, as they say “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”!
