Feet!

[Angela Woodford]

OK. Suppose I'm standing in front of the swings and seesaw.

Left or right to the Shoe Dungeon?

Then where?

Why can't I remember?

[Fjgrogan]

My gut instinct is that the shoe place was in the corner of that covered way that ran behind the the school and science blocks, at the science block end. However I also think that there were music practice cells there, so was that 'as well as' or 'at a different time from'? Or am I just completely wrong?

[anniexf]

OK. Suppose I'm standing in front of the swings and seesaw.

What swings? What seesaw?

that covered way that ran behind the the school and science blocks

Wasn't that "The Cloisters"? I've got a fuzzy memory of the shoe dungeon being in the cloisters & behind the school block. Very vague, though.

[Angela Woodford]

What swings? What seesaw?

Stand between the Science and School blocks, Ann, facing the Cloisters. Two swings and a seesaw.

Before the days of Health and Safety, my friend Frances Holmes slipped from the seesaw at its highest point. Her baggy blues caught on the handhold and she smashed downwards on her face. Poor Fran! Alas for her front teeth!

(And, going off-topic for a moment whilst thinking of Health and Safety, I heard on the radio the other day that if you want to dance with the cast at the finale of the latest production of Hair, you have to wait whilst two flower children hastily erect a ramp and a handrail up to the stage!)

Anyway, yes, I always knew that those hideous blues would turn out to be a dangerous safety hazard!

But the shoe dungeon - I suppose I will go to my grave never remembering.

[Jo]

I thought the cloisters was the bit just outside/underneath the staff dining hall, where games notices and things were pinned up? Though actually it would be a much better description of the passageway behing school block and science block.

I'm positive that when I was at Hertford, the shoe man was in the science block cellar. However, by the time I was there the rooms off that passageway were derelict and only used for junk/storage, whereas I believe that they had been previously used as, amongst other things, music practice cells. So it's quite possible the shoe man had been there originally too.

[Katharine]

My gut instinct is that the shoe place was in the corner of that covered way that ran behind the the school and science blocks, at the science block end. However I also think that there were music practice cells there, so was that 'as well as' or 'at a different time from'? Or am I just completely wrong?

I agree with you Frances, I think it was behind the music cells. Am I right in thinking that the San became a Music school very late on in my time and then music practice moved there? There were more music cells backing onto the main road frontage of the school between the staff houses and Nines. We sat some of our Oxbridge Entrance exams there so perhaps they had stopped being practice cells by then. (I have a very clear memory of hearing that Ian Smith had declared UDI while we were in one exam and someone trying for PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) had just written an essay proving he would never do it! - she did not get in)

[Jo]

You are right that the san became the Music School, Katharine - I'd forgotten that. It was before I started, and I don't think I realised until much later that it had been anything else so recently. That would, of course, explain why various practice cells elsewhere around the school became obsolete. The only two outside the Music School that I remember were two in the other place you describe, between the staff houses and Nines. But there were other rooms there too - I remember having my French and German O/A level orals in one of those rooms.

Fifteen or so years ago Ones was being used by a recruitment consultant, and I had a couple of interviews there. If I remember correctly, one of them was upstairs in the wardrobe room (later the housemistress's flat), and the other was in one of those rooms by the staff houses, to which the recruitment firm had access as a sort of annexe, I think. They were tickled pink when I told them I'd been at the school and remembered what the rooms were originally used for

[englishangel]

The music rooms behind the science block became little rooms with typewriters and 'teach-yourself-typing" books.

I am pretty sure the shoe man was in the basement below the geography room, opposite Sin City which was below the Physics Lab.

And yes The Cloisters was at the entrance to the staff Dining Room, though the covered way running behind the school and science blocks was very cloistery. Presumably that was so we could move between the two in wet weather though I don't ever remember doing so.

Picture by MKM of Alex Thrift and Sue Knight on the seesaw with the swings in the backgound.

[Katharine]

And yes The Cloisters was at the entrance to the staff Dining Room, though the covered way running behind the school and science blocks was very cloistery. Presumably that was so we could move between the two in wet weather though I don't ever remember doing so.

We certainly used the link between both blocks - but perhaps it was before we had macs and only had the brollies to keep us dry. You had to try to find one with royal blue (insert colour of YOUR Ward here!) on the handle. It was definitely not done to take a brolly belonging to another Ward.

Actually I can't remember whether brollies and Wards disappeared at the same time!

[englishangel]

We didn't have brollies when I started in '65

[Fjgrogan]

Returning for a moment to those music cells behind the science block - I remember going to choir trials there and as an alto having to sing the relevant part of Tallis's Canon (?) - I never did get into the choir!

[fra828]

Re the shoes: Didn't we enter the cellar through a metal gate and outside steps? I don't think we ever actually went into science block building to get shoes. Another memory that has come to me is of a gents WC on the other side of that building, also down steps. We often joked that Monty must be the only man to use it cos at that time he was the only male member of staff!

[Vonny]

In the 80's the "shoe place" was in the same place as the main wardrobe room, to the right of Miss Morrisons house if you faced her house. In other words, to the right of the main school gates.

[Jo]

I was picturing Red House and couldn't understand the directions at all, until I realised that Miss M was in the Head's house by then

[Vonny]

I was picturing Red House and couldn't understand the directions at all, until I realised that Miss M was in the Head's house by then

We had Miss Tucker living there from 1981-1982 & then Miss M was there from 1982 until we left in 1985.