Memories From Students
Lynn Shepherd (Mrs Bartlett ) 1969–72
To a girl brought up in the idyllic south-west corner of Britain, the prospect of three years in the capital city was at the same time daunting and exhilarating.
I knew that I wanted to teach and I knew that the way to achieve this ambition was to attend Teacher Training College, but I’m sure that my projected expectations of further education took a back seat to my hopes of city life! I was reassured by friends already living in London that I would have a wonderful time. These friends became very important to me during my first term at St Gabriel’s, as did my aunts and uncles.
British Road Services took my trunk of worldly possessions (27 shillings St Austell to St Gabriel’s) and I duly took the train.
I remember little of the first few weeks, except of the kindness of the third-year students in the same hall of residence. Despite the pressures of Teaching Practice, they found time to make sure I was not unhappy. I soon made friends with other ‘new girls’ in Stannard Hall: Barbara Sewell (Bryant), Jackie Downs (Rowley), Linda Gorringe (Mureford), Margaret Green (Jennings) and Mary Lord – all still teaching apart from Margaret. These friendships have been lasting. Christmas communications are eagerly awaited by us all. Barbara and her husband (Canon Richard Bryant) are godparents to my children and Richard officiated at our wedding.
St Gabriel’s encouraged us to build friendships. The common aim, love of children and
teaching, was very much a vocation. We gave each other support and encouragement when essays,
Teaching Practice or our personal lives were not going as smoothly as we would have liked.
Caring and listening skills were developed and I personally was glad of the tips on ‘surviving
city life’ from my city-living peers!
Teaching Practice was perhaps the most stimulating time for me and we were given a range of experiences. A fortnight in our second term gave us insight into an age group that we didn’t necessarily wish to end up teaching. I went to a delightful Infant School. The reception class had a large number of children and I hoped I was useful – mixing paints, sharpening pencils and doing phonic work. The children were learning to sing ‘Jake the Peg’ and I was treated to a polished performance on my last day!
Our first Teaching Practice was in the country schools in Suffolk. With fellow English student Christine, I went to the small village of Bardwell, near Ixworth. We shared a class of seven- to eleven-year-old juniors, ably guided and supported by Mr Dodds, the headteacher. We lodged with a young widow, Mrs Joan Rhodes, who was kind and took us out and about at the weekend, showing us the delights of the Suffolk and Norfolk landscapes. Coming from hilly Cornwall, I found the flat countryside was a complete contrast. The children welcomed us and even borrowed bikes so that we could go cycling with them after school. I felt privileged to be shown their camps and dens, and I was impressed by their knowledge of nature and the respect they had for the creatures living in the trees and fields. Saturday morning saw us on the bus to Bury St Edmunds to meet our tutors for coffee at a comfortable hotel, where we could ask for advice and help in a relaxed atmosphere. It was a tremendously valuable experience. I still have contact with Mrs Rhodes.
What a contrast as I spent my second Teaching Practice in Thomas Carton Secondary School in Peckham. I matured very quickly! I was fortunate in being put in the care of a young English teacher. The social problems were immense and completely outside my previous experience. There were twelve-year-old girls with babies, which were being cared for by the extended family. Toshio Slack was arrested in one of my lessons – he had a selection of knives in his possession and had threatened a local market-stall owner during the lunch break. Persistent truants disappeared between lessons. For many of these young people English was a second or third language. What a challenge it was to give those youngsters some knowledge, and to help them to see that there was a way forward. The teaching staff were amazing: professional, caring and dedicated to improving the lot of those in their care. They even included me in their social life and I went to the English teacher’s wedding. (I was amused to find that her wedding outfit was white hot-pants and a jacket!) Six weeks didn’t seem long enough, so I returned every Wednesday afternoon for the following term and a half.
My third Teaching Practice made the most lasting impression on me. To this day I find it difficult to comprehend how human beings, in this country in the early 1970s, were living in conditions reminiscent of the Victorian workhouse.
Vauxhall Primary School, tucked in behind The Oval cricket ground, was an enormous building with a roof playground. The little souls attending were mostly damaged children. They lived in halfway flats – not quite slums but providing very poor living accommodation. On the ground floor of these blocks lived social workers, whose task was immense. These children were given breakfast, lunch and tea – and clothes, which often didn’t appear again, as they’d been sold at the market. Some children were taken regularly for baths and to have head lice treated. Some even had to be taught that the hand basin was not to be used as a lavatory.
The stress on the staff was immense and the turnover of teachers very frequent. In school, where the children should have found stability and security, they too frequently found more of the instability of their home life. The head teacher was close to a breakdown – I met him once. His days seemed to be spent in his office with social workers, parents, police and officers of the NSPCC and other children’s organisations.
Each class had two teachers and three ancillary helpers, and to my horror we were locked in the classroom to prevent the children running away. I was distressed; I’d cry on the way home, as I wrote up my day’s notes and as I planned my lessons. These children needed love and security before they could begin to learn. In the first week I had bruises on my shins where I was kicked, and my St Gabriel’s cape had been cut with scissors as it hung on the back of the door. The kicking and aggressive behaviour stopped as the children realised that I couldn’t be intimidated.
My support came from the handful of teachers who had been in the school for some years, and my College friends, many of whom also had difficult classes. My boyfriend of the time, a good Cornishman in the Merchant Navy, would drive from Southampton on Saturdays and take me out of London for the day, to the coast or countryside. I’m sure that this break every weekend renewed me mentally and physically.
I remember my tutors supporting me during this time. During that long autumn term the male tutor who was supposed to come and observe me in the classroom made just three visits, and two of those were spent peering through the door. He’d found his first visit – inside the locked room – terrifying! I cannot remember his name, just his face peering through the door!
I also remember the American ladies and Knightsbridge ladies who came into school to ‘do reading Miss’. The children went individually with these ladies into a comfortable room to read and always returned with a gift (books, felt-tips and pencils). The staff resented these ladies, not least, I suspect, because the head had purchased a Royal Doulton tea service for their afternoon tea! Those same ladies paid for coaches to take the children out to Box Hill, but it was nightmare! Children who weren’t used to the countryside and freedom just scattered. We spent a lot of time coaxing them from under shrubbery and down from trees! They had a wonderful day.
By the end of term I was exhausted mentally and physically, and I came home for Christmas with a very bad back. I’d pulled Roland Burrows (a second-generation, half-caste, albino child) off the top of the wall surrounding the roof playground. He said he wanted to jump off and he didn’t care if he died, no one loved him and ‘I know all about suicide’. In pulling Roland I’d damaged my back which later required physiotherapy at King’s College Hospital. I managed to sort the Christmas post to boost my grant (£38 a term) but was unable to sail on Boxing Day.
I was offered a job at Vauxhall; my heart said I should accept but I knew that I would not be happy living in London, and so after much soul-searching and praying I decided to return to my beloved Cornwall.
Clubs at St Gabriel’s were an interesting exercise. We brought a child into College one afternoon a week to study his/her play patterns and language development, and in order to increase our knowledge of child development. The little boy allocated to me was called Jonathon; he was a delight and we spent happy hours together. (I still have the book Children of Today written by Mr Pococke, about the value of Clubs.)
I remember Miss Duncan, my English tutor, as a small, energetic lady keen to install a passion for English Literature in us. We were given long reading lists, and I was able to indulge in a favourite pastime – losing myself in a book. I have not been able to do this with the same intensity since leaving College.
I rarely saw the Principal, Miss Blackburn, out of her room, which was large with an appropriately sized table. On just a couple of encounters I found Miss Blackburn courteous and kind.
Miss Lanes was not only the Bursar but the Warden of Stannard Hall, and her eagle eyes missed nothing! After her retirement, Miss Lanes bought a tearoom in Truro and we communicated again.
Miss Foster, our Education Tutor, was a tall, willowy lady. I believe she specialised in infant education but she was always available for help with essays or Teaching Practice queries.
I renewed my faith at St Gabriel’s, having lapsed in my late teens. I began to attend services in the Chapel and found fellowship and strength through worship. I attended the re-dedication services at St John the Divine.
My time at St Gabriel’s not only thoroughly prepared me for my chosen profession but built on the foundations for life so skilfully installed by my parents. I often chuckle confidently as the Government produces another new(!) initiative. The Literacy Hour, introduced as revolutionary in this academic year, is based I’m sure on all the training given to me at St Gabriel’s.
I was prepared for children with special needs – high flyers as well as slower learners; to encourage not only academic skills but practical, artistic and sporting prowess; to relate to parents and their concerns and to work together for the benefit of their children. I am delighted that I have managed to install a programme of Personal, Social and Health Education at our village school – until recently the only Primary School in Cornwall where PSHE had all-year-round time-tabled lessons – and recognised by OFSTED as ‘excellent’. Without the pastoral training and Christian foundations of my course I would have found this difficult.
My husband and I have two fine sons, aged eighteen and nineteen. I took a seven-year break in teaching to bring them up to school age – a delightful if exhausting time. I know that my training opened my eyes to parenting skills and helped me to be the best parent I could possibly be.
Thank you, St Gabriel’s, for instilling in me a pattern for life, and for teaching me to educate our children to the best of my ability, and to be aware of and assist those who have a difficult start in life or continuing adversity.
