Of Canaries & Coalmines

Writing about Wombwell Hall invariably stirs up more memories in others than almost any other topic I examine. We past pupils may be quite different as far as our lives have developed but we are in total accord when it comes to the astonishing level of affection we still hold for the school. It’s a fondness that does not merely relate to the grand old building, sadly now very much in the past, but extends to members of staff including some of the most unlikely candidates. In my own case there were probably more teachers I disliked or I was at least wary of than those I liked and I don’t imagine that any of them would recall me with any degree of fondness. However, my love affair with the place itself has ensured that I have kept every single one of the eight school reports that document my academic progress between Christmas Term, 1953 and Spring Term, 1956. It’s clear that the Hall had a similar effect upon its staff because not only did the majority of those noting my lack of scholarly headway remain in the job throughout the years I attended, many of them were still there ten years later.

Miss D Fuller was headmistress during my time and it’s possible she was a Dorothy or a Deborah with friends who were not intimidated by her and called her Dot or Deb when they met up in the village pub for Sunday morning drinks. She seemed to me to be a tall, angular woman, slightly hunched with a wardrobe full of tweed suits which she wore with striped blouses and occasionally men’s ties and I kept as far away from her as possible. I was only sent to Report Myself to her on a handful of occasions usually as a result of conflict with other girls but once simply because I was wearing peep-toe shoes. I was confused as to why the shoes were expressly forbidden and as I did not own a substitute suitable for school wear, was worried as to how to break the bad news to my mother.

During my first term Form G1 appears to have had two supervising Teachers, Miss S Smith who I now know to have been a Stella and who I remember well, and Miss M Cox who I have no memory of at all. I see now that my English teacher for the first three terms was someone with the initials MMH who never gave me a mark higher than B but said that at times my work showed thought and originality and that I should continue to apply myself. She may well have been the person that Miss S Smith got quite excited about, telling us we were indeed fortunate girls to be taught English by someone with a Master’s Degree. She then gazed around the room waiting for us to gasp in astonishment but with the exception of Valerie Goldsack who was prone to gasping at almost anything, we looked at each other in bewilderment and confusion. What on earth was a Master’s Degree?

Furthermore MMH might in fact have been the very person who, lacking a considerable amount of insight and empathy suddenly and completely out of the blue stopped short in the middle of an explanation of the finer details of the plot of `Prester John’ to stridently ask me if anything was worrying me. Not having the vaguest understanding of what she might be referring to I simply shook my head and so she said in that case perhaps I would like to stop staring out of the window and come to sit in the front row of the class. Additionally, once seated I might also like to explain to the class how Buchan had linked the Zulu uprising of 1910 to the medieval legend. As I did not want to do either of those things I said nothing at all but wondered why it was I was being seen as inattentive in the first place. Decades later it occurred to me that some of the ongoing distraction problems I had throughout my school years might have been due to the fact that I suffered from undiagnosed Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. On the other hand I might simply be giving myself an excuse as I was still most definitely more of an Enid Blyton aficionado than anything else. `Prester John’ may simply have been too difficult a work to engage me at that time no matter how brilliantly it was being taught by this woman who possibly had a Master’s Degree, whatever that eventually turned out to be.

During my first year a Miss SMH presided over Arithmetic, awarding me three lots of C- and noting that I found the subject difficult, was a slow worker and finally that I had a great deal of work to do before any kind of standard could be reached. She wasn’t wrong and when we gave up the subject by Spring 1955 in favour of Accounts, although she was moved to say that I seemed to be making an effort and gave me an unadorned C, it is my firm belief that she was mistaken. For the duration of my Wombwell Hall years anything to do with figures continued to elude me and if I am completely honest nothing has changed since.

Miss Springate who taught Geography was our 1SC Form teacher for two terms and I well recall clashing with her regularly and at times speaking to her quite rudely. My failure to get on with her is reflected in one documented examination result where I came twenty second in a class of twenty three. I’m still quite surprised by this result because I don’t remember disliking her subject to that extent. Some of the topics had been moderately interesting and particularly so when we examined the history of coal mining in Kent, an industry that existed in our midst but was almost invisible. Miss Springate was able to inform us that in fact an open cast mine as close by as the environs of Cobham had reliably produced a quantity of useable coal which had actually been used by Lord Darnley to heat Cobham Hall. Two further drifts had recently been dug into the hillside and at one point the mine was thriving and producing 80 tons weekly. For some reason I found the idea of mining in Kent quite fascinating and even asked questions which was not like me and seemed to unnerve her. Were canaries taken into the Cobham drift just as they were in South Wales and in the North for instance? Were they found to be useful? I think I had recently read at least part of `How Green Was My Valley’ and was captivated by the possibility of all the drama that mining seemed to offer the working classes.

Miss Springate did not seem to know a great deal about the canaries except that they were invaluable for detecting toxic gases so she moved quickly on to the village of Aylesham, not so very far from where we now sat she said and built in the 1920s specifically to house Kentish coal miners. Originally 20,000 residents were expected but the building had turned out to be slower than expected. It was still, apparently, a work in progress. It was at that point that Valerie Goldsack said she knew a little about the village herself because an Uncle of hers was actually living there on a temporary basis as a mining consultant. He most definitely did not own or need to own a canary she hastened to assure us and then went on to explain about Test Bores and Failed Sinkings further exhibiting her somewhat precocious knowledge.

Miss E Norman was our Form teacher for three terms and she taught several science subjects and might have been an Elizabeth or an Emily. She seemed to be fascinated by the sheep of the Romney Marsh and appeared astonished when we admitted to knowing very little about them because after all they were virtually on our doorstep so our lack of knowledge was abysmal. More importantly they were famous throughout the world. Why didn’t we take the pride in them we should? We looked at each other helplessly and a few of us, like Valerie and those who sought to emulate her, might even have felt apologetic. Miss Norman had a habit of being surprisingly astonished by various aspects of our lives. On one occasion she was quite incredulous because only a handful of her form class had hot running water at home and they were the girls whose families were fortunate enough to have been recently moved into newly completed housing estates.

When she recovered enough, she asked us what on earth we did when we needed to access hot water then? Jill Butler, a quiet girl, said, somewhat aggressively for her, - `We fill a kettle up with cold water and boil it of course!’ When Miss Norman looked as if she might have to sit down before she fainted, she added `What else would we be likely to do?’ The very nearly speechless science teacher looked about her and asked in a smaller voice, `How many of you have to boil a kettle on each occasion you need hot water?’ As a cautious plethora of hands began to rise she returned to fiddling with the Bunsen burners on the benches at the front of the room. I did not allow my own hand to rise though it was itching to do so because at the time I was engaged in a fantasy of mythological proportions about a substitute family living in a delightful thatched cottage in Cobham village which unlikely though it seemed had every modern convenience available.

English was always my favourite subject and Miss K (Kate? Kathleen?) Smith was my favourite teacher despite her habit of only once giving me a mark above B- and repeatedly littering my reports with phrases like `examination result very disappointing’….. `at times can produce good work’ …. `capable of much better. ….. `should spend less time daydreaming about the future’…. Despite these comments she gave me time whenever I seemed to need it and suggested places where I might send short stories for publication. She became for me the fount of all knowledge and when I had her complete attention I was in the habit of asking her opinion on all manner of issues that had little to do with the study of the English language. What was her opinion with regard to the use of canaries in Kentish coal mines? Why was the wearing of peep-toe shoes such an abomination? Her evasive replies did little to reduce my devotion to her. When she revealed to Miss S Smith my secret ambition to become a famous actress I was mortified but eventually was able to forgive her because it was difficult to hate her for too long and in any case we all knew that Miss S Smith, by that time definitely not my favourite person, and she were very close friends. So close that some girls, more sophisticated and worldly than me, sniggered knowingly when their friendship was mentioned. I had absolutely no idea what the suppressed mirth was all about and despite being thrown abruptly headlong into knowledge of sex and sin within a very short time of leaving school it was a long time before I actually gave any real thought to the subject of same sex relationships.

Some years later I was startled and embarrassed to come across the rather wonderful Miss Katie/Kathleen Smith holding court one Saturday evening in The Gateways Club in Kings Road, Chelsea. I had been taken there by a man I was obsessively in love with who thought I needed to broaden my horizons with regard to matters sexual and what better place to start? She had definitely gained weight but her voice and bearing were unmistakable. She sat half astride a barstool in exactly the same way she had on a number of occasions sat beside me in the library at Wombwell Hall, advising me how to improve my writing, the wisdom of certain types of footwear and whether or not canaries had a special place in the hearts of Kentish miners.

She was wearing a look-alike tweed jacket to that which I remembered from 1955 and she had clearly had more than one gin and tonic but was by no means intoxicated. Had I been capable of doing so I might have engaged her in conversation but I did not take that option simply because I could not on the spur of the moment think of a convincing reason as to why I should be in what was described back then rather inanely as A Girls’Club. It did not occur to me that she might well have the same problem of course because she was Miss K Smith, and thus still neared perfection as a human being.

Years later, courtesy of other ex-Wombwell Hall students I learned that she and Miss S Smith had indeed been extremely good friends and even shared a house together. I also learned that she was not everyone’s favourite which came as a surprise to me. How could that possibly be so?