Going Steady at Wombwell Hall

Going Steady was a state most of us hankered after in Form 1SC at Wombwell Hall even though those known for being sensible couldn’t help noting that there was Plenty of Time which is what their mother or even their grandmother had recently said. Having a Proper Boyfriend was a status symbol in those days when you were round about your fifteenth birthday and couldn’t help feeling that time was running out no matter what anyone told you.

Of course I’m not talking about all of us because there were those in Form 1SC for whom all thoughts of the opposite sex were largely absent. These were the girls whom certain members of the staff looked upon favourably, girls who continually got B+ and even an occasional A for their analysis of the tributaries of The Nile and wrote essays detailing how long the Dark Ages had been and how dark they eventually were. Girls like Valerie Goldsack and Priscilla Horsfall who never ever got a C+ for Effort and were not prone to measuring each other’s vital statistics and comparing bra sizes. These were the girls who were eventually to be told that they were undoubtedly University Material and were quite unlike the rest of us sadly destined merely for routine office work. There was a distinct possibility that these two might be heading for Law or Science – even the hallowed halls of Medicine perhaps!

A few of those being so energetically trained by Miss Hart and Miss Wood towards the shorthand and typing speeds required to keep the wheels of business in North Kent turning had already given up on the complexities of Sir Isaac Pitman’s System of Shorthand Writing. Those girls had announced that their aspirations reached no further than a common or garden Typing Pool. Mary Brent and Kathleen Connelly for instance aimed no further than Exercise 98 in The New Course (Gentlemen: your attention is called to the fact that students must register for the summer session before 4th July …… etc) and following their lead Sally Warnett courageously announced that she could see no future at all in Shorthand, her aunt having told her that something called Dictaphone Typing would soon overtake it in all forward thinking businesses.

Shorthand writing was undoubtedly difficult and for some it proved to be impossible to master. The small clutch of Pitman Failures were thus allowed to drop the subject from their weekly timetable and for them extra sessions in Basic Accounting were added. The rest of us organized ourselves into loose groups of those who still found Pitman’s incredibly difficult but were willing to stick at it for the sake of a higher weekly wage in the years to come and those who did not actually find it too nerve wracking.

There was a distinct feeling of ease and even contentment in being part of a group that generally found the life’s work of Sir Isaac did not eat away at the psyche in the early hours of the morning. Shirley, Norma, Pamela, Pauline, Julia, Pat and I merged together in an untidy friendship cluster, mostly achieving similar levels of achievement in the subjects that were destined to dominate our early teenage years and beyond. And because there was an academic unity between us we now spilled out of the classrooms together on morning and lunch breaks sharing all manner of confidences.

Shorthand did not completely govern our lives because as I have said, because we were also extremely interested in boys although as we spent most of our time within the confines of a 1950s Girls School we did not get huge opportunities to meet many. Shirley was the only one of us who seemed to have any success whatsoever in this area, easily attracting a succession of what were loosely termed The Sea School Boys. Pat said that this was only because Shirley worked harder at it than the rest of us and in any case her own father had expressly forbidden her under any circumstances from doing what he called Fraternising with Seamen. Given what was to transpire within a year or two concerning Pat’s association with the opposite sex which would see her confined to a Reform School for a period of time you could only agree that her father had her best interests at heart. But of course we didn’t realise that at the time when we were busy comparing the relative merits of our parents and what they would or would not allow us to do.

The Gravesend Sea Training School had been founded in 1918 following the First World War to train boys aged 15 to 17 who wished to join the Merchant Navy and help replace those men who had been lost in the war. Over time approximately 70,000 boys were trained there and it became known as the best sea training establishment in the world. Eventually a purpose built college was to be opened at Gravesend, designed to replace both the old Sea School and TS Vindicatrix at Sharpness and to be called the National Sea Training College. In 1955 and 1956 the boys were a handsome bunch with their clean, scrubbed look, their neat hair cuts and their natty uniforms. They easily became a magnet for local girls who had moved into their teens and a fair number of those already working in jobs at places like Woolworths, Marks & Spencers and Featherstones, not to mention the local factories.

As a group the only thing we girls from 1SC had in common was our relatively rapid Pitmans’ prowess and we certainly did not agree about everything. What we were totally in accord with, however, was that of the seven of us Shirley was definitely having the most success with the opposite sex which Pat had early on persuaded us was totally on account of her forward thinking parents. Pauline and Pamela, however, who lived quite close to Shirley, maintained that as a family they were not quite as permissive as we would believe and their daughter’s triumph was more likely due to her uncommonly good looks. It was true that she was a startlingly attractive child with dark curly hair, wide brown eyes and a pleasant demeanour. The staff certainly thought so, Miss Eatch commenting one morning that in the staff room she was known as `that extraordinarily pretty little girl in 1SC’, a remark that seemed to mortify the person it was intended to compliment. At morning break Shirley, still slightly embarrassed told us as we huddled over the bottles of warm milk we were forced to drink that as far as she was concerned she didn’t care what her face looked like – pretty or ugly, it was all the same to her. She was only concerned, she added, that her Bust, Waist & Hips measured up to what was considered desirable. Vital Statistics were just that – vital! Nothing else mattered.

We as one then aimed towards the 36-23-34 that Shirley now assured us was what would ensure we caught the eye of the lads destined for the Merchant Navy, and should we fail she added that a padded bra might do the trick for a while. Pamela who did not yet own a bra of any description looked horrified. As I unfortunately already sported breast development that was to eventually become embarrassing and attract far too much attention from plasterers and carpenters on building sites, I assumed a look of disapproval. Pauline, not totally understanding disapproval told me in a far too loud voice that I would have been fashionable at the turn of the century when women wore bustles and had hour glass figures.

Shirley was the first to enlighten us that once you were Going Steady your boyfriend would be expected to buy you gifts like perfume and jewelry. Mariners, she said, were good at that because being a sophisticated group they knew what a girl’s expectations might be. Quite apart from that when they did trips to foreign shores, as was part of the Sea School Training, they would return with more exotic items than could be found locally. Her current Steady had given her Evening in Paris fragrance and bath crystals for her fifteenth birthday but when he came back from New Zealand it would most likely be jewelry. We were definitely impressed.

It was to be weeks before he returned of course but to make sure we did not forget his obligations even if he should lapse and do so himself, Shirley read excerpts of his frequent letters to us and made certain that we admired the envelopes, each adorned with S W A L K which in itself seemed to irritate Miss S Smith when she confiscated one that was being passed around her English class. This was not surprising when we were supposed to be immersed in analyzing the difference between a Noun Phrase and an Adjective Phrase. Norma who was still giggling when the envelope left her hands and had been passed on to a girl called Yvonne was curtly told she might collect it at the end of the period and so she immediately felt forced to clarify that it belonged to Shirley and she, Norma, did not have a boyfriend who would write such childish things on envelopes. Miss S Smith asked her if she realized that the childish thing was called an Acronym and Norma said she did not and probably neither did Shirley whereupon Miss S Smith told her not to be impertinent and the rest of us looked superior and tried hard not to giggle.

We had reached the very end of the term before Shirley’s current Love returned to compliment her with the promised jewelry which she said she hoped would not turn out to be pearls because they were a bit middle aged but she would certainly not say No to a small diamond. She brought the small, carefully wrapped package to school with her and even read segments of the letter than accompanied it to us. We watched in fascination as she began to discard the pale blue tissue paper and sellotape. There was a small box inside and leaning forward, we all began to get more excited. Shirley was smiling and trying to look nonchalant as she said she hoped it wasn’t a ring because that would be a bit presumptious. Her mother had said she was far too young to get Serious and she agreed.

There was silence when the little wooden earrings were revealed. Pat said politely that she thought they might be Kiwis, a flightless bird important to New Zealanders. Norma said they were very nicely made. Shirley shrugged and said she might not ever wear them because they were clip-ons and had we not noticed that her ears were pierced. Anyway, she added, she’d gone off him as a Steady. He was a bit boring.