Obituaries
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Betty Clydesdale, 1929-2019
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News of Betty's death arrived too late, for anything to be included in the Autumn, 2019 Newsletter.
Betty Clydesdale, head of history, and subsequently, a deputy head, at CCHS, died in August, 2019, one day after her ninetieth birthday.
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History lessons with Mrs Clydesdale were always fun - as long as you were comfortable with the fact they would invariably be unpredictable, as Betty was never one to keep to a script, and seemed to regard such strictures as having a beginning, a middle, and an end, or of telling people what you were going to tell them, telling them, and then telling them what you had told them, dreadfully tedious. She conveyed the information, and in a way which was extremely memorable – but usually as a stream of consciousness, interspersed with her regular guffaws of laughter. “But I digress!” she would proclaim, at various points, throughout the lesson, before temporarily returning to the subject.
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There were just 6 of us, who opted to do the World Affairs A Level: a combination of social and economic history, in the UK, from 1815, onwards, and current affairs, in the USA and USSR, from 1939. With such a small audience, Betty seemed even more relaxed, than usual. I can distinctly recall her ambling into one of the small rooms, on the top floor, carrying her large, heavy, brown leather briefcase, which she would dump onto the desk, with a great crash, and then slump behind, for some moments. She would then eventually peek round it, and announce she had been having a very tedious day, and usually then recount the trials and tribulations of teaching the upper fourth, before starting off, at break-neck speed, on the American Constitution, the Vietnam War, or Soviet agricultural policy. There would invariably be a kaleidoscopic peppering of anecdotes. How the subject of her tripping, and badly grazing her knee, while on holiday in the Alps – and her mortification when her husband, to sterilise the wound, until they got back to their hotel, poured her (very expensive) perfume over it came up, for example, I cannot recall: although it seemed to make perfect sense, at the time!
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But I digress…
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Betty was widowed, in 1991, but, in her retirement, threw herself into life in Brightlingsea, being the president of the local WI 4 times, as well as holding other offices, within the group. She spent her final days in the Stronvar Care Home, in the town.
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Being taught by Betty was an experience – and one which I feel very lucky to have enjoyed. Her love of her subject was palpable, and her sense of humour, and love of life, wonderful to behold.
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Tina Powell (1968-75)
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