What Joan Did Next - Part 5
It was a memorable occasion on March 14th 1998. At a grand reunion, between 40 and 50 old girls of CCHS (left), gathered together to celebrate the year 1948, fifty years earlier, when they had all been involved in taking School Certificate, the school leaving examination which released them from school at the age of 16, into their working life, unless they decided to stay on into the Sixth Form.
Most of those present at this event were still living and working in the Colchester area. Some
were now further away in the British Isles, and a few were abroad and sent messages. It was a day when memories for all sorts were shared. The sporty types told of hockey, netball, rounders and tennis matches played against other schools.
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All this was against the background of school life before, during and after World War 2 and within the surroundings of two historic buildings - Grey Friars and North Hill. There were stories of staff, idiosyncrasies – the trio of Miss Lynn (Art), Miss RL Phillips (English) and Miss Holmes (Gym), who always addressed us girls as “Ladies”, Miss King, the fearsome headmistress, Miss Herriott, the equally fierce Deputy Head and Miss Overy, who was a gentle foundation stone and appeared to have been there for decades but was probably only in her early 30s. None of the all female staff were married – perhaps a legacy from the days when women who married were required to leave the profession.
The musicians told of playing in the school orchestra, and the dramatists of the CRGS annual production at the Royal Grammar School, where the female parts were traditionally taken by the boys until, suddenly and dramatically, the sixth form girls of CCHS were invited to replace them – but almost too late for this 1948 envious group!
The background to school life was re-lived in all these memories, particularly during wartime – running for the air-raid shelters which were created in the beautiful garden at Grey Friars, the issue of a third of a pint of milk at morning breaktime, and the small dose of cod liver oil to keep us healthy – not to mention the visit of the “nit nurse” to inspect our hair for lice!
I added my own stories of that time to the miscellany – the boys and girls from all schools in Colchester who travelled on the notorious Beeston’s school bus which picked up those travelling in from Manningtree, East Bergholt, Ardleigh and Dedham, and the many innocent flirtations which took place on the move! But it was my deliberate avoidance of being selected for a school sports team which dominated my stories. I had my own pony, Bronch (right), and he was my greatest joy, even during the war when leisure activities were curtailed. I needed all my after-school time
and weekends to enjoy riding him, and keeping him trained for competing in shows, gymkhanas and Pony Club events. I did not want this time devoted to playing in a school team, so I was quite unfaithful to CCHS in this respect, and even today I sometimes feel a pang of guilt about it, although I did once act as a reserve in a tennis team!
Bronch, my pony, became a legend at winning events in gymkhanas, and was envied by other competitors. But he did have a mind of his own, and did not like jumping, often pitching me over the fence ahead of him as he stopped short at the take-off point. But similar school sports day events and team races such as potato races, bending and musical sacks became twice as skilful when performed on horseback! My hockey stick ‘swing’ became rather lethal after playing polo-crosse on horseback (a hybrid of polo and lacrosse) with the stick (left) the length of that in polo, and the head the size of a squash racket with droopy net to catch the ball.
I confessed to my friends on that anniversary day that my same avoidance strategy applied to learning to play the piano and violin in my school days. Private music lessons were available from Miss Harman in a small room on the top floor of Grey Friars which overlooked the castle. But it was the required practice time which I often sacrificed in order to ride my pony and that took a toll on my musical skills. I did play the violin for a short time in the school orchestra, but progressed no further, although my appreciation of classical music is still strong.
A major focus of our reminiscences at this reunion was the School Certificate examination itself. Memories of the examination hall converted from the gymnasium at the North Hill (right) site were etched on our minds – silent, foreboding with regimented spacing of desks giving each candidate an uneasy feeling of isolation as we at there for the 2 or 3 hours of each examination. Most of those present agreed that School Certificate was much more difficult than the ‘O’ levels and GCSEs
which eventually replaced it. At least 6 subjects had to be passed at one attempt to gain the certificate – there was no re-taking failed subjects, and modules and continuous assessment did not exist. Maths and English Language had to be included in the total number of subjects passed. All the questions in each subject required either calculations (maths) or essays testing recall of facts (English Literature, geography) or translations (French and Latin). Multiple choice questions had not been invented! There may have been a distinction, but I did not get any!
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Most of my grades were credits, but three were only passes. These were Latin which I found difficult, but very useful later in life, English Literature, where Shakespeare was a set text which I disliked intensely, and Art. I was very upset about the latter because Art was my best and favourite subject. As I tried to analyse my disappointment, I thought about the subject given for the imaginative composition which was laid down in advance. This was “Harvest” as far as I can remember, and I chose to paint a traditional harvest scene with horse and wagon piled high with sheaves of corn, the top ones formed into a ‘human guy’ to signify the last load – and there were men with pitchforks accompanying it. It was a farming scene conjured up from my parents’ farming background – but it was very static, with the represented movement going across the picture plane. Perhaps I should have slapped on the paint in Impressionist style, or introduced something more modern, daring and innovative. Picasso’s work was just becoming fashionable and dislocated semi-abstract angular forms seemed to be the current trend. But I had wanted to paint something that I like – the Picasso I did not like!
Three years later in 1949, I had the last laugh when my father and I listened to Sir Alfred Munnings’ Presidential Address, recorded on the radio, at the Royal Academy. Picasso’s creations were severely criticised and mocked and I felt vindicated and ready to defend my views on ‘cubism’ which I still hold today.
The Reunion of 1998 had brought back so many memories of that School Certificate year 50 years previously. My father had admitted that he had wanted to take me to the Olympic Games which was held in London that year. He did not mention it to me at the time because of the importance of my School Certificate. The Olympic Games were obviously very special to him because he had been an important, and successful, half-miler in his youth and he wanted his interest in sport to continue in me. He asked me to remember to go to the Olympic Games if they ever came to Great Britain again, which, of course, I did in 2012.
And so the memories, promises, legacies and renewed friendships of the 1990 Reunion were solidified, and time moved on. Just over a year later, on May 4th 1999 I was part of an unusual and very exciting encounter which has remained with me every May since then and conjures up similar experiences from all the Mays of my childhood.
My first bedroom at my parents’ Dedham farm house was under the eaves with a dormer window which looked out directly on to a narrow deserted country lane overshadowed by woodland beyond. Every year, in early May when migrant birds began to arrive from remote faraway parts of Europe, a nightingale (left) took up residence in the trees opposite my bedroom window and at dusk for several hours into the night, it captivated me with its song as it endeavoured to attract a mate with its penetrating trills,
piping, bubbling and flute-like notes, and the slow plaintive ‘sobbing’ note from which I could always identify it. I never objected to being sent to bed early for this short period of the year because I would lean out of my bedroom window – sometimes for hours – enchanted by the magic of it song. I am not sure whether my young CCHS friends were as entertained by my description of my activities the night before, as I had been by the bird’s performance, but our nature study lessons on birdsong and bird recognition never matched the real thing!
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In 1999 it had been more than 40 years since I had heard a nightingale and on that May morning of the 4th, I was making my way to an appointment at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and had arrived on Platform 3 at Colchester North Station 15 minutes early to catch the 12.03pm train to Liverpool Street. The platform was empty, but I was stopped in my tracks by a powerful birdsong, so penetrating it could probably have been heard halfway up North Hill where the site of the original Senior Department of CCHS had originally stood. It was unbelievable and unmistakable – a nightingale singing from a small adjoining thicket alongside the platform in a very public place in the middle of the day. As the platform filled with people, this shy insignificant little bird, hidden in the branches, continued to sing, but nobody – ladies, gentlemen, teenagers, children, - through naivety or ignorance, took any notice of the epic event unfolding around them. I, however, had 15 minutes of ecstasy and then boarded the train as the song continued.
When I got home that evening, I sat down immediately and wrote up the event. It happened to be the year of a Nightingale Survey carried out by the British Trust for Ornithology to whom I sent my account. It was one of the most delightful pieces of writing that I have every composed, and excerpts from it appeared in various magazines throughout the year. It may be a complete myth that “A Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square” but it is an absolute certainty that a nightingale sang at Colchester North Station on May 4th in the final year of the Millennium. It had made my day.
At the end of every year, as a tradition, I have always pruned my grapevine on Boxing Day and 1999 was no exception. Growing in a very long narrow greenhouse (right) against the weatherboard wall of an outhouse, its gnarled twisted stems entwined the supporting beams of the glass roof and the wooden wall, of the shed, now devoid of its rich summer foliage and prolific bunches of black grapes which it had produced every year of its 70 year life. Grape vines are surrounded by myths beginning from their pruning which should be done on the remains of a dead donkey!
Additionally, pruning should not take place after the end of the year for fear that the cut ends may cause the vine to ‘bleed to death’ as the spring sap rises in an early warm unexpected weather break. The only solution to this dilemma is to push a potato onto each cut end to seal the wound. An unscrubbed potato from the garden is best. I often wonder whether the magnificent conservatory (left) which was once in the Grey Friars garden had a grape vine growing inside at some point. The girls of the
Preparatory Department played in its ruins in the 1930s when I was there, but there were no explorations of its previous life. Whilst pruning my grape vine, I always looked into the apple store to check that the field mice were not tasting the content and that the quince, an ancient fruit, were not transferring their scent to the apples and affecting their taste. At the same time I collected a few to make a jelly to eat with cheese.
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And so the new millennium 2000 began. My first granddaughter arrived and so it was a special year. How had so many eventful years passed so quickly since I had become a mother myself? My working life at the Adult Community College in Grey Friars continued although I was not on duty for so many evenings. I missed my journeys home in the car at dusk and later at night. It was often quite magical. As I entered the narrow back lane of Ardleigh and Great Bromley a fox, dazzled by the lights, sometimes crossed the road in front of me, but more often I was accompanied by the silent and ghostly flight of a barn owl as it searched the grass verges for prey. Earlier in the year, and often in daylight, a hare would lollop along the middle of the road ahead of me, taking its time and seemingly knowing that I also would take my time, even if it were at walking pace!
The year 2001 marked exactly 50 years since I was preparing to leave the CCHS sixth form for university and eventually teacher training. It was then I received the advice from CCHS staff that if I was thinking of making teaching my career I should study science not art as “there was no future in art”! I have never regretted my decision, but still hankered after a great knowledge of art. So in 2001 I decided to study for a part-time Master’s Degree, but it did not fit with some of my evening swimming teaching which I did not want to give up at that point. Eventually I decided to try my hand at an ‘A’ level in History of Art. Once again I found myself in a ‘role reversal’ situation – as a member of the management team at the Adult Community College, and then, one evening a week a student with a regular evening class tutor. What an interesting experience it was! I was able to take another backward glance and compare an ‘A’ level with what was, until 1950, Higher School Certificate taken from the sixth form as an entry qualification to university. This required three subjects to be taken at an advanced level and passed on the same occasion in order to gain the Certificate. There were no re-takes in single subjects. By 2001 the system had changed and ‘A’ levels could be taken in modules on different occasions, or even retaken if failed, in separate years.
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The main examination for my ‘A’ level art was in two parts over two years, the second part included a mini-dissertation completed by research and done entirely independently. This was of great interest to me. What should I choose to research? I eventually decided to base my study on the early paintings of Sir Alfred Munnings which I had always admired because of their depiction of rural life.
Sir Alfred had lived in Dedham at the same time as my parents had farmed there, and I often used to meet him on his horse whilst I was out in the country lanes riding my pony. As a child I had a favourite print of his called ‘Charlotte’s Pony 1905” and during my research for the project I visited his birthplace, Mendham in Norfolk, and discovered that this painting formed the basis for the village sign (right). It had to be the frontispiece for my project!
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I took three years to complete my ‘A’ level in several acceptable stages.
It was an enjoyable procedure, quite different from the harrowing experience of Higher School Certificate in 1950. It expanded my knowledge of art, reinforced my belief that learning is for life, and introduced me to many artists I had not encountered before. Bridget Riley was one of these whose optical illusions of dazzle and flicker found their way into fabrics of the 1960s which I adored (left). It was, as a result of this course that I continued to visit Paris every year at Easter to repeat a past enjoyment.
By 2003 I had been working in adult education for nearly 30 years and I received my ‘A’ level in History of Art in 2004. Grey Friars meanwhile had become a “brand name” for adult education. In 1986 it had faced reorganisation by Essex County Council and was threatened with closure and sale, and now, once again, as we entered 2005 its future was in jeopardy. Grey Friars was listed for disposal, the curriculum was reduced with a withdrawal of the Principal and educational and management teams. The ‘For Sale’ notices went up on Grey Friars in 2007, and it was inevitable then that the future of the building would change for ever.