Housemistresses

[dinahcat]

Wasn't the laundry job considered to be the most responsible? It is certainly true that 'they' somehow picked the most organised and ferocious girls in our house to do the laundry. It was a terrible chore that required rigour and determination. No one could be late with dirty laundry and every one would collect clean clothes on time or woe betide you.In my year Rosemary Pattinson did it from the beginning and worked her way up to the head of the operation.
She was a very pretty girl from London who I think found the restrictions of the school very hard to bear but did so with some dignity.She met a boy at St Matthew's day . He was I think, called Ken Brown and she married him. I seem to remember she went on holiday with him in the LV1th and had told her mother a whole group would be going and therefore her mother shoud have no fear about the sleeping arrangements because loads of girls would be going who would share rooms.In fact it was only Ken and Rosie.
When her mother unexpectedly phoned their holiday cottage( presumably because she had her suspicians) Rosemary grabbed a table tennis bat and pretended to have game with an imaginary girl whilst on the phone to her mother.Her training in the Wardrobe Room left her steely and unflappable.

[Katharine]

Sixes Wardrobe Girls were much the same, once you were chosen then you were one for life. There was a very strict heirarchy of which things you were responsible for each year. The sight of the one responsible for the lisle stockings coming downstairs with all the pairs needing darning is one I'll never forget. We had to tie them together for the laundry so she had an enormous brown 'scarf' around her neck. She'd then go round the cloakroom hanging them on the appropriate peg until all were apportioned. This happened twice a week throughout the winter.

[englishangel]

You may (or may not) be surprised to learn that I wa a wardrobe girl. Thank goodness lisle stocking had gone by the time I was there, though we did have white cotton socks for games for a while until the house coloured nylon ones came in. I can still darn perfectly.

[Fjgrogan]

I graduated from darning to weaving!

[chaosriddenyears]

I can still hardly sew on a button properly - I seem to be all thumbs as soon as I get a needle in my hand.
The wardrobe girls could be really fierce - I remember being chased up by them to "find my blues" many a time.

[J.R.]

I can still hardly sew on a button properly - I seem to be all thumbs as soon as I get a needle in my hand.
The wardrobe girls could be really fierce - I remember being chased up by them to "find my blues" many a time.

We were constantly sewing buttons onto our Housey coats at Horsham.

No-one else would do it for you, so you had to learn how at the tender age of 11 !

[midget]

You jolly soon learned to do a decent darn, because walking in a cobbled up stocking was extremely unpleasant.

[Kim2s70-77]

Could this possibly be a case of the teacher(s)/HM(s) in question being mentally/physically abused themselves as a child ?

.

This might be an EXPLANATION - never an EXCUSE!!

I am truly sorry for having stirred everyone up, by jumping right in with the Mrs Dean saga. I do believe in karma, so she has probably been forced to reap what she sowed. It was a sad time - but fortunately, a lifetime ago. I am still very proud of my association with CH - I wouldn't be avidly catching up with all of you if that were not the case!! Good people were the norm - just the occasional rotten apple. ( I just happened to get a maggoty one in the 2nd form!!)

[Kim2s70-77]

I am catching up with the thread as I was out of town over the past few days. Was it Mrs Newbold who taught sewing? I always did fairly well - surprisingly. She made us keep that detailed notebook of techniques. I lost mine before I even left CH - but remember the contents vividly. It just goes to show how impressionable we were at that time of our lives - I can remember with great clarity many of the lessons we learned from different teachers. { Puts on Lancashire accent and mimics Mr Watson......} " 'Ne' before the DOP (direct object pronoun) and the DOP before the verb and the 'pas' comes after the verb, but before the Past Participle"..... all said rapidly in one breath, with a large gasp at the end! Incidently, did any one else get good mileage out of speaking French with a Lancashire accent?????

[Fjgrogan]

Ialso feel that any problems which I had as a result of my time at Hertford were purely connected with my relationship with one particular housemistress, and not the fault of the school itself. I would hardly have sent both of my children there if I thought otherwise!

[chaosriddenyears]

Could this possibly be a case of the teacher(s)/HM(s) in question being mentally/physically abused themselves as a child ?

.

This might be an EXPLANATION - never an EXCUSE!!

I am truly sorry for having stirred everyone up, by jumping right in with the Mrs Dean saga. I do believe in karma, so she has probably been forced to reap what she sowed. It was a sad time - but fortunately, a lifetime ago. I am still very proud of my association with CH - I wouldn't be avidly catching up with all of you if that were not the case!! Good people were the norm - just the occasional rotten apple. ( I just happened to get a maggoty one in the 2nd form!!)

Don't be sorry! It certainly did me a great deal of good in many ways and I'm glad you stirred things up!

[Angela Woodford]

Sixes Wardrobe Girls were much the same, once you were chosen then you were one for life. There was a very strict heirarchy of which things you were responsible for each year.

Alas, Katharine, I began as the youngest Wardrobe Room Girl when I came into Sixes. Tuesday was Hanky Changing Day. I would spend the week of duty-time desperately trying to put together a "set" of Hankies - three piles of twelve Hankies numbered from 1 - 36 + Mary Verge's Hanky no 37.

Inevitably, Hankies got lost. The laundry may have chewed them up, or perhaps the well-blown-in Hanky might have languished in a mature state in tunic or raincoat pocket; never handed in! Missing, presumed lost!

When the clean laundry arrived back in the Wardrobe Room in big white sacks, I would fossick through for the bundles of clean Hankies. There was never a straight flush of 1 - 37. I had a pile of understudy Hankies in my Hanky drawer which I could substitute for missings in the set.

Tuesday morning, I would wake early in a state of nervous agitation, and would dress below the covers. The trick of doing this would be to hide all my clothes under the sheets with me. A little tossing and turning before the Rising Bell to struggle into everything meant I could erupt forth from my sunken mattress and bolt from the dorm before everyone else had opened their eyes and before the last shuddering bongs of the bell had died away!

The worry of it all! The Hankies had to be laid forth in perfect numerical overlapping order in the top of the entry-end lockers. There could be no omissions or there would have been bitter complaints. At the foot of the bank of lockers lay a basket into which used well-blown-into Hankies were discarded. I would then take that basket and count them in to a laundry bag upstairs in the Airing Room. Pprooff! It was not a joyous task. Sometimes I would be in search of non-hanky-producing miscreants, and pursue Cloakroom Workers or Dayroom Workers or Bathroom Girls, begging and beseeching them to hand in their Hanky. At last, the huge clumsy bags of laundry would be tied up to be boiled and cleansed.

And then, like a great inexorable Force of Nature, the whole cycle would repeat itself!

Then there came the glad day when, as an U1Ver I was promoted to Vests. I longed for Vests, thinking that with Vests I might find a modicum of peace, of fulfillment, of.... predictability. The Hankies had reduced me to a state of unnatural agitation, frustration and grief. Now Vests! But I was again in despair. How could Vests go missing from their sets with even more evil intent than Hankies?

I was sacked for "incompetence". Alex Thrift was promoted to Wardrobe Room Girl in my place. She performed the duties of Wardrobe Room Girl with calm and competence and I was demoted to a routine of up close with a tin of Gumption in Upper Bathroom. I admit to having felt an illuminating glow of satori. You know where you are with a ring of scum round a bath.

Still - the sense of panic on a Tuesday morning still returns sometimes. Hey, it's Monday night!

Looks as if I'll be sleeping with my clothes under the duvet.

[englishangel]

For those who are interested, Kim (now known as Elizabeth) is still a sporty, leggy, blonde. I don't know if she hurdles and longjumps but she did the Eagleman Triathlon at the weekend.
http://www.trifind.net/triathlons/maryl ... n/results/

[MaryB]

The worry of it all! The Hankies had to be laid forth in perfect numerical overlapping order in the top of the entry-end lockers. There could be no omissions or there would have been bitter complaints. At the foot of the bank of lockers lay a basket into which used well-blown-into Hankies were discarded. I would then take that basket and count them in to a laundry bag upstairs in the Airing Room. Pprooff! It was not a joyous task. Sometimes I would be in search of non-hanky-producing miscreants, and pursue Cloakroom Workers or Dayroom Workers or Bathroom Girls, begging and beseeching them to hand in their Hanky. At last, the huge clumsy bags of laundry would be tied up to be boiled and cleansed.

And then, like a great inexorable Force of Nature, the whole cycle would repeat itself!

There is a whole chapter of the book to be written about the wardrobe room. Rosemary was the WG in our year in 3's - likewise unflappable and completely in control of hankies. But surely linings were the worst.... no, don't even think about it.

[chaosriddenyears]

Thank God I was saved this Wardrobe Room Horror - I didn't mind being on either Upper or Lower Bathroom. The housemistress never seemed to be around and I quite liked cleaning and polishing in a peaceful kind of way. The smell of Bluebell and rags still lingers in my memory...... or was it Brasso? Or both?