Memories From Students
Anne Wedd 1948–50 and 1952–53)
My first memory of St Gabriel’s is going for my interview. I travelled up to Victoria from Sussex and caught a tram that trundled towards Camberwell; the nearer it got the more my spirits fell. In my young life I had never seen such dreary streets and walking up Lothian Road did not help. I hoped I would not be accepted. However, when I turned into Cormont Road I began to feel better, as it was a beautiful April day and Myatt’s Fields was in bloom.
When I got into College and was told to wait in the Junior Common Room I thought everyone looked happy, and by the time I had to see Dr McKie, the Principal, I was beginning to revise my opinion. I decided that I would like to be accepted as a student, and accepted I was.
In September 1948 I began my two-year course at the College. I was immediately very happy and can remember walking along Cormont Road thinking how glad I was that I was a first-year in my first term.
There was no residential accommodation and students were billeted out in the neighbourhood. I was in Flat 7 in Dover House in Cormont Road, which had five second-year students and four first-years. The warden in charge was Miss Blackburn. When Prince Charles was born in November I shouted up the stairs ‘It’s a boy! It’s a boy!’ Miss Blackburn appeared and asked, ‘Does it really matter what sex the child is?’
We had to be back in our rooms by 10.30 p.m. each night, with late passes to 11.00 p.m. on
Wednesdays and Saturdays. Failure to be in on time meant a fine of one shilling and sixpence,
and many a mad dash we made from the Camberwell New Road to Cormont Road to beat the curfew.
Miss Blackburn was very understanding, however, and if we had been to the theatre, a concert,
or the ballet she would not fine us. On one occasion I was seen by Mrs Wynn-Cornish, the bursar,
and I told Miss Blackburn, who took the 1s. 6d. but later returned it to
me. She never wanted us to miss the end of a performance, so we used to tell her beforehand
if we were going to the theatre and she would wait up for us. So now we ran, not to escape
the fine, but so Miss Blackburn would not be kept waiting.
Our course consisted of Education, English Language, Craft, Health and Physical Education, all of which were compulsory. Then we could choose what else we would like to study. We had to have a minimum of four points: two points for the advanced level and one for ordinary level.
I chose to do advanced PE as one of my subjects, as having been evacuated during the war I’d missed out on things like gym. Poor Miss Flannery had never had a student like me! She managed to teach me some of the basic vaults but would not let me attempt a particularly advanced one called ‘the wolf’. Finally Miss Flannery decided the course was beyond my limited ability and advised me to change to another course. In this she did me a good turn as I decided I would like to do advanced Pottery and Crafts with Miss Enock and so began a life-long interest. I also did Art with Mrs Houthuesen, Divinity with Miss Westlake (Mrs Ulrich Simon) and ordinary English with Miss Blackburn. I’d started with advanced English with Miss Davies, a brilliant lecturer, but her brain worked far faster than mine and I couldn’t keep up with her.
During our first term we went out on our first School Practice. I went to Vauxhall Street School, which was pervaded by the smell of Marmite from the factory nearby. Miss Enock was my supervisor and I can still see her coming into the classroom with a hat on. It was quite distinctive and if my memory serves me right it was dark green.
Rationing was still very much in force in 1948, so every student had two lidded honey jars for her weekly ration of sugar and butter. These jars had to be put out every Monday, washed and ready for refilling. Washing the butter jar was not an easy task as there was no detergent in those days and the water was not that hot.
We all had our meals in the Dining Hall and on weekdays there was a formal dinner. We stood by our places and waited for Dr McKie and the resident lecturers to process up to the High Table. After Dr McKie had said grace ‘Benedictus benedicat per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum’ the meal began.
Each evening six students would be detailed to join the staff on the High Table. The top two on the list sat on either side of Dr McKie. This was a dress occasion. Most of us had a basic ‘best dress’ and it was easy to pick out those dining ‘on High’ by their appearance. Clothes rationing was still in force and most of our coupons went on College uniform: blazer, PE shorts, shirt and a dance tunic. We were not stopped from wearing trousers when we went out, but we were not permitted to combine them with anything that identified us with St Gabriel’s!
In our second term we had to go on what were called Group Lessons. A group of fifteen to twenty students went into a school once a week, and one of us would have to take the lesson while the rest observed. This was quite hair-raising but our education lecturer, Mrs Engholm, prepared one for it and if one followed her advice the lesson would go well. If no one volunteered then she would take the class herself. She was a born teacher and made it look so easy.
We had lectures each morning, some free afternoons and then more lectures in the evening. We also had lectures on Saturday mornings, which always finished with the whole year being taken for singing by Miss Everden in the Great Hall. On Monday afternoons we had either compulsory games or swimming. For games we went to some playing fields in Dog Kennel Hill for either netball or hockey. I didn’t like hockey as I’d never learned it and spent most of my time running from one end of the pitch to the other, so I’d try to wangle myself on to the netball courts. Mrs Flannery put a stop to that and insisted that I played hockey each week regardless of what the rota said.
This came to an end quite dramatically when we had to practise in pairs flicking balls over our opponents’ sticks. I was determined that the ball would not go over my stick and succeeded: the ball flew up and hit me between the eyes. I ended up in King’s College Hospital with a broken nose and two black eyes. Dr McKie forbade me to play hockey again. I was triumphant and told Mrs Flannery, but she had the last word, saying I could always umpire!
We used to have method lectures on how to teach various subjects. One course was arithmetic method taken by Mrs Holland. She made us all learn our 13 to 16 times tables and then tested us on them orally, to help us to understand how difficult tables were for a young child to master. Health education was taken by Miss Barnes and covered a wide variety of topics. The thing I particularly remember was her insistence that we should take trouble to look our best when we went into schools. We owed it to the children, she said; they had to look at us all day.
At the end of my first year the College celebrated its first fifty years with a service of thanksgiving at Southwark Cathedral attended by Lady May Abel Smith, first cousin to the King (George VI). Miss Everden trained up a special choir for the occasion and, though not a singer, I volunteered for it as I thought I’d get a better view from the choir stalls. Miss Everden tried the volunteers out and gave me a note to sing; it was too high for me so she told me to try it an octave lower. I had no idea what was required so I growled out some sort of a note. She looked despairing but still let me be in the choir. It was a grand occasion.
Also at the end of our first year there was a production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel produced by Mrs Engholm and Miss Pickard. To the amusement of my friends I headed the list of people chosen to be angels. It was a good production and I enjoyed being part of it.
Chapel was an important part of College life and we had daily services. At Christmas there was also a Carol Service which took the traditional form of nine lessons and carols, with the whole College somehow squeezed into the Chapel.
In the summer, the Saturday after Ascension Day was Dedication Day when we commemorated the dedication of the Chapel with a big service. Everyone wore a spray of lily of the valley. This was followed by a special lunch.
In our second year we had a final School Practice in March and then exams in the summer term. All too soon our two years were over and we all dispersed to start our teaching careers. My own career was spent in Peckham and Camberwell and I ended up as head teacher of St John the Divine School in Camberwell New Road. So although my initial view of London was not very favourable, I stayed and worked there all my teaching life. Incidentally, I also lived in Lothian Road very happily for seventeen years, so first impressions are not always best.
In 1952 I returned to St Gabriel’s to do a third-year course in pottery, which was very rewarding and enjoyable and quite different from my first two years.
