Memories From Students
Ann Jordan 1956–59
I now have to face the fact that it really is forty-three years since I arrived fresh-faced, full of ‘awe and wonder’ (apologies for OFSTED terminology for those still teaching!), up from the Welsh valleys for ‘the interview’. A head appeared at the top of the opposite flight of steps heading for the grand main entrance. Joyce Mee (as she was then) is still a deputy head at a large Leeds comprehensive – and we are still friends. That was the nature of St Gabriel’s: you made and kept friends. A close-knit bunch throughout their College careers remain friends throughout the years. Shirley Reading (Cashmore) arranges the reunions for my year every five years. It is fun trying and hoping to recognise people who join the reunion after many years and of course to be recognised yourself. One of the highlights of the event is Hilary Knagg (Jones) reciting ‘Albert and the ‘orses ‘ead ‘andle’ of Blackpool Zoo fame.
In September 1956 I moved from a village in the foothills of the Brecon Beacons to Knighton House in Brixton and St Gabriel’s College. I loved that house – Georgian, just off Brixton High Street, with the Express Dairy nearby (set up for Saturday morning breakfasts), the market and those mighty burglar alarms that no one turned off! It was a happy house where I stayed for two years. I remember turning down a somewhat more luxurious room nearer the College that was on offer for the Senior Student.
During my year as Senior Student, Miss Atkinson, the new Principal, encouraged us to ‘do
something’ about the College constitution, which needed updating. Fortunately for me,
Brenda Harvey (a mature student who had worked in the city)
knew about constitutions and thus
the Students’ Union was born. I am sure it was amended in subsequent years but we thought
we were changing the world!
On Sunday mornings we’d make a pilgrimage to St Martin-in-the-Fields for morning service followed by another tradition: breakfast at Lyons Corner House at Leicester Square.
I must mention School Practices – why were we there, after all? Three weeks of rude awakening in the Nelson School, Trafalgar Street, Elephant and Castle (three head teachers in three years and the students went there in pairs!). Then there was the Practice in an annexe of Pimlico School in an old Church building in the back streets near Marble Arch. Now that was something like an experience. The permanent art teacher was away sick so I was left to cover most of the art. I loved it – a real teacher at last.
My final teaching practice was at the Cormont Road School. Everyone held their breath in case they were sent there, but I knew in advance that all Senior Students had gone there in the past – it was very near the College. Students were not allowed near the staff room and that set the atmosphere for the whole Practice. We were glad to finish there!
Saturdays were devoted to sporting activities: hockey matches in the winter, and tennis and cricket in the summer months. We took hockey particularly seriously and sometimes played against school friends who were now at other colleges, when not long ago we’d played alongside each other in school teams.
Revd Fenton Morley was the Chaplain at the time, and it was a comfort to learn that he was from Nethystydfil and knew my family. The Welsh hills didn’t seem quite so far away after all.
The tutor I saw most during my two years was my main subject teacher, Catherine Houthuesen. We spent lots of time in the studio with Catherine, a lovely, gentle lady who constantly spoke of her dear husband Albert. She was totally devoted to Albert and his genius. We did not realise at the time that Catherine was a wonderful artist in her own right. I now cherish a painting I bought at an exhibition after Albert’s death.
I eventually met Albert towards the end of the second year when I was granted an extra year to study Art. Albert Houthuesen was going to be our painting tutor. How fortunate I was, and what a great year I had. We lived in a flat on the fifth floor of a block of flats adjoining the College. We had views across London and Surrey which were staggering and an inspiration for painters. Albert constantly encouraged me to ‘go back to your roots, my girl’. I did, and still have paintings of coal mines and miners painted during that year. I also have a Christ-like head sculpted at that time from a piece of sandstone found on a derelict site near St Gabriel’s. When the College exhibition closed, Albert kept this head in his studio for many years; it was returned to me after his death. An abiding memory of Albert is of his joining in (midst oil paints and easels) singing ‘Happy Birthday’ and eating Welsh cakes with ‘his girls’ on my twenty-first birthday.
During this time I met Gillian Whaite who was studying at the Royal College but often worked in the studio. I am very grateful to Gillian for the support she gave Catherine and Albert during their retirement and for her continued support of their memories. Gillian’s description of her expedition to see the most recent exhibition of Albert Houthuesen’s work (held in Penarth, South Wales), included endless train changes and delays in ghastly weather. My own journey was much more comfortable and so worth while. The exhibition was a stunning tribute to the time he spent in Wales, his friends the miners and powerful landscapes. He had such affection for the place. As I stood there lost in his pictures I fully appreciated why he had said ‘Go back to your roots, my girl’!
I still haven’t visited the place where St Gabriel’s stood. Maybe I will someday, and ponder a while on the influence the St Gabriel’s experience had on me and in a hundred years on oh, so many women.
