Housemistresses

[Kim2s70-77]

I don't know what the worst treated grew up to become (Kim, GMA and Lynn) but those of my era who were 'rebellious' all seem to be youth workers now.

Lol!! I have worked in the Mental Health field for many, many years!! Coincidence - I think not! I also act in my spare time - role playing is always fun.

[Kim2s70-77]

Incidently, 40 hours a week of therapy has helped, thank you very much!! lol

[Euterpe13]

I must say that, reading back through all this, Fanny does appear to have been one of the better Housemistresses - I never felt that she was unjust, although strict, and I was very pleased to see her again when I returned for the last O.G.Day in 1984.

It was DR who did me so much emotional damage...

[lonelymom]

Barnes Mum and myself had the same response when we read some of the things on this thread - we both cried!

[dinahcat]

Oh dear, that's terrible and nice at the same time! You must remenber that 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' and Hertford OBs are as tough as it gets. We had some appalling times and just inhuman house staff but we did laugh .
Lynn and I once decided to read late into the night (shocking teenage behaviour) and because we shared a room which faced onto the Square we decided to light candles because to put the light on was stupid and meant certain discovery. I'm sure it was Lynn's idea.Of course this was totally reckless re health and safety but we did it anyway. Our blissful state was interrupted when the door was flung open and the formidable Mrs Campbell burst in. She was a woman with 'the fuller figure' with a face like a bag of spanners and black wispy hair scarcely arranged in a bun on the top of her head.She was either Irish or Scottish but it matters not as she was barely comprehensible at the best of times.
Her rage was uncontainable and we were in fear of our lives . Bur for weeks afterwards we were helpless with laughter at various immitations of her ' Hev yous seen the buuuuurned and blackened boadies of the poor chilun'. I think she meant to say 'It's very dangerous and irresponsible to have candles in your room because it may cause a fire if you are careless and people may be killed' . Which would have been a fair point.

[Jo]

Mrs Campbell was quite a character. She would have been considered eccentric by normal standards, but after the awful Miss Screen she was like a breath of fresh air. I think she was quite a good sport really - I'm sure she knew I smoked in my cubey but she never said anything. She was talking to me at my cubey door one day and suddenly smiled for no apparent reason. After she'd gone, I noticed a fag end on the floor behind me

My only real run in with her was when she pinched one of my cheese scones that was cooling in the house kitchen after cookery. She left me a note saying they looked irresistible so she'd helped herself. I was more amused than anything, and when I next saw her we had a laugh about it. But when I mentioned it again a second time she went off like a rocket - no need to rub it in - how much did I want for it, would 10p be enough (flinging the money at me).....then she wouldn't speak to me for several days. She started to take it out on other people in my year too, not just me, so in the end I went to see her and apologised. She had a little rant about how she was pretty good to us really, and let us watch her TV, which she didn't need to do (quite true), and how petty I was to begrudge her a paltry little scone. Anyway, we sorted it out and made our peace and she was fine again after that.

I've said it before, but I couldn't believe it when I came back at the start of my UVI year and we had a housemistress - Mrs Cooke - who really was normal. No weirdness, no eccentricities, just a nice, normal, motherly woman. For just my final year . Still, at least the juniors benefitted for a bit longer.

[Barnes Mum]

Barnes Mum and myself had the same response when we read some of the things on this thread - we both cried!

Hey, I told you that in confidence! You'll give us matrons a name for being big softies!

[chaosriddenyears]

Jen, the "burrrned and bleckened bodies" were while we were in Little Dorm and after literally jumping out of our skins we really did laugh. Jo, I think it was you who told us that it smelt upstairs of cigarette smoke so we rushed upstairs to hurl talcum powder about - at breaktime Mrs Campbell hauled us upstairs in a flaming temper because the floor of Little Dorm was completely white where the power had settled!

Thankyou all who have responded to the saga of Mrs Dean - if Kim hadn't hurled herself into the subject just as she hurled herself down the long jump and over hurdles I don't suppose I would have said anything.
It is hard to describe how she was - it wasn't just the terrible things she said, it was the intensity with which she said them and her eyes stretched wide open. It was awful to wake up with her torch flashing in my face and hear her whisper "I'm going to break you Lynn Ford, break you".
She said this many times - at every opportunity. And yet she was capable of walking out of that office and entering the role of motherly housemistress instantly. She was completely plausible.
The teaching staff did know about it - she kept me in her office at break and I was often late for the next lesson so the order and disorder marks piled up. I blurted out one time that she kept me in late and something must have been said because she went really insane one day. She kept me in her office at break and then literally dragged me over into class after the bell had gone - she had the shoulder of my mack in a vice-like grip and shook me as she dragged me up the school-block stairs. I had never been treated roughly by an adult before amd couldn't believe it was happening. It was Mrs. Britten taking class and I remember her amazed look as Mrs Dean burst in with me ranting on about she had done this to prove that she was not the one to make me late for lessons. She then shoved me into my desk with my mack all askew and stomped off. After a stunned silence Mrs. B suggested quietly that I take my mack off and teaching continued. I could hardly keep hold of my pen all the lesson because I was shaking so badly from rage and fright and disgust. Mrs. B came over while we were writing and asked if I was alright and I said yes. As I did to Miss Morrison when she accosted me on the square - I was used to her sighing over my appalling tie and re-tying it within seconds with one of her caustic comments - I liked her very much, but my mind boggled at the thought of going to talk to someone so dizzyingly high up in the hierarchy.
DR met her match in my mother - memory has been jogged a bit so I will tie up this story from my end at least. DR suggested she talk to Mrs. Dean and hear her side - my mother said she didn't want to talk to her, she would rather strangle her. When it came out about the effigy and DR said that Mrs. D was understandably upset my mother said she didn't see why she was so upset - it didn't work. did it? More's the pity too!
At this point I was sent to wait outside.
DR asked me if I had friends in other houses and then promptly sent me to 5's, where I didn't know anyone.I don't know why. When I got back to 2's Mrs. D was ringing the bell violently and all the house assembled in the dayroom where she held a ranting speech on my wickedness and that she refused to have me in the house any longer. She forbade anyone to help me so I ended up struggling down the square with my belongings tumbled into my case, schoolbag on shoulder and teddy bears under my arm. I must have arrived at 5's like a refugee. I hated having to move there, I only wanted to go home.
Gerrie - it was as I left that she said about being a millstone round my neck. And she was as good as her word. I was constantly bumping into her and she would tell me how her point had been proved as 2's was "such a happy house" since I had been expelled from it. Everyone knew about my wicked lies. So she continued to torment me until she left, dogging my footsteps and undermining any new-found self confidence.
My mother - bless her - was adamant in her wish that Mrs. D be sacked on the spot and publicly disgraced. DR promised that Mrs. D's contract would not be renewed and I think this happened - she left the Christmas after I had moved to 5's I think. My mother wrote to DR after I was in 5's saying that she could not feel easy thinking that Mrs. D was still in charge of children. She was really concerned about the other girls in the house.
I only started to settle down in 5's after she had left - I got chatting to Jenny who then became - and still is - my closest friend and in the 4th form began to feel that I belinged to 5's.

I feel really disturbed by the thought that anyone else could have been her victim. It really affected me for years.
And that's the end of my story of Mrs. D.

I work as a freelance translator/interpreter and am currently studying to qualify to interpret in the criminal and civil courts. Otherwise I work in theatre, music and hold English theatre projects for schools where I write and direct short plays for children to perform in English.
Lots of other things - I suppose I am a sort of vagabond of the arts!

[lonelymom]

Barnes Mum and myself had the same response when we read some of the things on this thread - we both cried!

Hey, I told you that in confidence! You'll give us matrons a name for being big softies!

I know, I'm sorry! Am off to beat myself up now!

[Barnes Mum]

Barnes Mum and myself had the same response when we read some of the things on this thread - we both cried!

Hey, I told you that in confidence! You'll give us matrons a name for being big softies!

I know, I'm sorry! Am off to beat myself up now!

No, no violence please!

[fra828]

All this about Mrs Dean has made me tearful to. What a cruel, vile woman she was. Do you think her daughter Lucy , in 3's had any idea of what was going on, or maybe Mrs D treated her own daughter like it too?? I travelled to and from home with a girl from 2's (I'll call her J). We were both in the same class and she was unhappy a lot of the time. When I told my mum this, she said 'oh J has got such an awful housemistress'. Hearing these disturbing accounts, I wonder if J was a 'victim' too....

[J.R.]

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

Many people believe this is what causes this kind of activity in later life.

Food for thought..........

[chaosriddenyears]

It's difficult to say without knowing her past history, but psychologists tend to agree that victims either remain victims or abuse other victims.
I think Lucy was probably worse off than any of us.

[chaosriddenyears]

By the way, having asked what the housemistresses actually did, one thing has occurred to me! They definitely made the breaktime bread and butter and poured milk in the mugs that were waiting for us in the cloakroom. And I think they organised the sending off of laundry etc.
It must have been such a dreary life for them though - no wonder so many of them were eccentrics. Mrs. Cooke was an oddity because she was normal, otherwise they were nearly all of them quite strange. I think back to Mrs. Bond in 1's - I never heard that she was nasty, but she was strange. She was tall and thin and had two dresses exactly the same style only one was green and the other red. I don't remember her ever wearing anything other dress while I was there.

[englishangel]

By the way, having asked what the housemistresses actually did, one thing has occurred to me! They definitely made the breaktime bread and butter and poured milk in the mugs that were waiting for us in the cloakroom. And I think they organised the sending off of laundry etc.
It must have been such a dreary life for them though - no wonder so many of them were eccentrics. Mrs. Cooke was an oddity because she was normal, otherwise they were nearly all of them quite strange. I think back to Mrs. Bond in 1's - I never heard that she was nasty, but she was strange. She was tall and thin and had two dresses exactly the same style only one was green and the other red. I don't remember her ever wearing anything other dress while I was there.

The wardrobe girls did that, but I suppose the housemistress had to be in when the laundry van came. Certainly we put all the dirty stuff in bags and sorted the clean when it came back.