This installment is a little different. I will not bore you about yet more sunshine in the South of France, but instead take you on a trip down memory lane with me...
In April 2012 Portsmouth high School will be celebrating it's 130th Birthday. All the 'old gals' were invited to send in their memories, to be shared with other generations of it's pupils. There are so many things which I've missed out, but total
recall would have created a book and unless there is demand for this, I shall stop right here!
My
biggest regret about the school is that it wasn't a boarding school. I
used to dream that one of the school buildings ('School House') was full of dormitories! (OK, so I
had read too many Malory Towers books, but still...)
Portsmouth High School, 1975 (Upper 1) to 1986 (Upper 6)
Scene: Duran Duran, Wham, Abba, Boney M, Adam Ant, The Young Ones, the Falklands War and Margaret Thatcher
I have many vivid memories of Dovercourt. I think the first one I have is of just how impossibly huge the staircase was. Always with shiny and polished banisters and just so grand. Many years after leaving PHS I returned for an official nose-around and was very surprised to see that it had shrunk. I remember clearly each classroom and each teacher we had. In Upper 1 Miss Jubb was our very friendly no-nonsense teacher. She usually wore tweed and was a bit like everyone's favourite granny. That year was full of projects, which all felt like playing at the time. We set up a post office and made our own stamps, perforated and everything. We sent letters to each other and took it in turns to be the postmen. We reared silk worms and fed them fresh mulberry leaves every day. Once they had made their cocoons we spent hours gently unravelling the bright yellow silk thread. In dance that year we dressed up in denim cut-offs and long stripy socks (the height of fashion you understand) and strutted to Petula Clark's 'Downtown'. Oh yes, I also have a memory, like most cobbled together, a bit random and bizarre, of at the end of art lessons we had buckets full of dirty water which needed emptying down the loos. I never ceased to be fascinated at how many times you could do this and still the loo never filled up: elementary physics perhaps.
After being nestled in the main building for our first year we went outside to one of the outside classrooms. In Lower 2 we were very strictly ruled by Miss Smith. Definitely the strictest of my teachers at PHS she was also a religious zealot and pressured us to buy Christian artefacts such as silver crosses. When enough parents got wind of this scheme it came to an abrupt end. Also no hour in her class was complete without hearing about 'Nanny' who was sitting in the corner ready to beat any of us with her 'big stick' if we did not behave perfectly. Thankfully Lower 2 finished and we moved across the corridor and into the welcoming arms of Mrs Budden. She was warm and kind from the off. Weaving (baskets and stools) is probably the activity I remember most from Upper 2. Don't mock. Several months ago I re-did a chair of ours pulling on those skills learned 34 years ago. And the original stool is still in daily use in our household.
The corridor between the Lower 2 and Upper 2 classrooms was the stage for me to choreograph dances to ABBA songs. The main breaktime game we played was 'Hey Presto'. After the command of 'Hey Presto' everyone does handstands, and the winner is the one who stays upside down the longest. I probably spent most of my days at Dovercourt upside down. Also, one day the school purchased about ten red barrels for playing with which were great for practising circus skills. French skipping was also a la mode and we all possessed huge lengths of tired elastic. And talking of elastic, yes, we were obliged to wear navy blue knickers! And that has reminded me of the dreadful grey hats we had to wear; it was the only part of the uniform which I objected to really. I even liked the maroon and yellow stripey ties.
My last year at Dovercourt, Lower 3, was spent in the partially underground classroom, and Mrs Wren was our teacher. My most vivid recollection from this year was the 'sport' which we invented. The floor of the classroom was exceptionally shiny and slippery. When the coast was clear we would take it in turns to lie, on our tummies, on the floor. Our feet touching the wall, knees bent and arms outstretched. And then whoosh - we'd push off and see how far we could glide. The place was marked with a ruler or piece of paper and then the next person would try to beat the record. I never understood at the time why it was an activity which so infuriated Mrs Wren. It was also during this year that one morning Mrs Wren told us that a very sad thing had happened to one of our classmates. She went on to explain that her mummy and daddy would no longer be living together. Pupil 'anon's' parents had divorced; something which we'd never heard of before.
Then up to the big school. As is the case for most pupils in this situation, we went from having been the big cheeses to the little squirts. The school seemed enormous and the corridors and staircases endless and rambling. Whilst trawling memories of my school days I realised that whilst in Dovercourt each school year brings with it distinct recall of exactly which teacher and which classroom we had, in the senior school I cannot remember our form tutors or even which classrooms we had. Instead my recollections tend to fall into subject areas, in my case the most important one being sport.
Sport was my raison d'etre. I loved being Games Captain, the most maligned postion ever, due to the fact that it was the Games Captains who had to carry the very heavy bucket of balls to and from Southsea Common. I did not however thank PHS for being an inner city school and not having a playing field away from the prying eyes of the Southsea Common Wanderers who walked their dogs to and fro in order to catch a glimpse of what lay below our short grey pleated skirts. This torment was further increased by playing lacrosse, as all our adversaries were schools such as St Swithins and Bedales, which had vast, vast grounds in beautiful surroundings. Being cold is probably my strongest memory of playing lacrosse. Is this the time to mention that it has not been forgotten that certain games teachers sat in their cars with the windows wound-up and steaming, drinking a hot drink from their thermos, whilst we continued to shiver on the pitch. Gymnastics and tennis were my favourite sports. The annual GPDST gymnastic competition, usually at Sydenham High was a huge event. The standard was very high and we didn't usually do that well but the experience was terrific. Each school bought along it's tape recorder, and with luck, when the play button was pushed the crackly sounds of the Hawai 5-O, or James Bond theme tune would start so we could perform our 45 second floor routines. Most lunchtimes there was gym club, which meant that almost every day I got to practice my favourite activities - being upside down or flying through the air - preferably both at the same time. Over the years I have shed most of my childhood memorabhilia and have no regrets about that, but I do regret that there were no cine or videos of my gymnastic days. Yes, I really could do 8 back flips in a row, but how can I prove this to my 4 and 8 year old girls now? They can't believe me!!
We also attended annually the GPDST schools tennis and lacrosse tournaments. The lacrosse tournament was played at Merton and I only remember mud and mist! The tennis tournament was held at Queen's Club, London. This was a very prestigious venue, especially the time of year we were there as it usually co-incided with Wimbledon, so the likes of Jimmy Connors and McEnroe would turn up to practice whilst we drooled over them.
Geography was my favourite subject. I never understood why geography is not considered a 'proper' subject, and, back in the 80s it was, along with music, the subject which girls at PHS gave up at the first opportunity. Mrs Lane and Mrs Zahra were the two geography teachers, joined by Mrs Trim for my 6th form years. Mrs Lane was passionate about global issues before it became trendy. She rode in on her bike everyday to school from Hayling Island. One day she brought her bike into the classroom and dissembled it in front of us and we had to look for the origin of all the parts; tyres from Germany, saddle from China. This was to make us think about international trade issues. Mrs Zahra was as exotic as her name and wore such large earrings that her ear lobes had trebled in size. I'm sure that these were not the details we were meant to remember but some things just stick. I was one of only 2 girls to choose to study geography at A level and even though the class lacked the dynamism of a big group, the individual attention was fantastic. We joined forces with a school from the Isle of Wight and had a fabulous field trip in Scotland.
Languages: not my strong point. Poor Mrs Knowles (a very proper person in the nicest way possible, although she'd disapprove of me using the word 'nice') tried her best with me but failed to make me an English scholar. I faired no better with French and despite me being a good mimic (thought to be a good skill to have when learning new lanuages) I was a very mediocre student.
I studied German for the shortest time allowed with Mr (Nick) Downes. Hyper-trendy with shaggy hair and an enthusiastic teaching style and high-waisted pin-striped flares to match. Le and la were enough to put me off French, so der, die and das did so at an even quicker rate. Once, when I was annoying him, probably by talking too much, he threw the board rubber at me but I ducked and it hit his 'pet' who was sitting behind me.
History and RE I also jetisoned at the earliest opportunity. In those days we all did RE O-level a year early. I think the idea of this was to get one O-level under our belts and to prepare us for the onslaught the following year. That year, 1983, we ALL got As. Credit to Mrs Tighe-Ford! Apart from drawing pictures of the ten plagues I don't remember too much about our RE lessons. I might have got an A for my RE O-level but I don't think anyone could have dragged me through a history O-level. My reports from Mrs Perrin were probably the only ones to say 'could try harder' and to omit 'Tessa is an enthusaistic student'. In fact, one year I won the Progress Prize, which at the time was a bit of a wooden spoon prize, as with it came the knowledge that you were not one of the school's geniuses. However, looking back now I'm flattered that I was awarded it as effort is now seen as possibly more deserving than attainment (I knew my time would come).
Our biology teacher was on long term sick leave for much of my O and A-level (we were terrified of her as her bark was ten times the size of her bite). In her absence we had 8 different teachers over a 2 year period, which obviously made continuity difficult. It was biology lessons and dissecting pregnant rats which led to me becoming a vegetarian, something I kept up for more than 20 years, until I moved to the largest fishing port on the French coast and felt obliged to eat fish.
Maths: another sore point. The year before we were split into streams for maths our exam results were to determine which set we were put in. Three of us got 50%; two went into the B set and I went into the C set. I was furious, and can still feel the injustice of it today! Anyway, under the very wise and attentive tuition of Mrs Bullock I finally understood what I was meant to and actually got an A for my O-level. If I remember correctly I was the first student ever from the bottom ('thick') set to get an A.
The prize for the most enthusiastic teacher must surely go to Mr Campbell (close second: Mrs Spender, nee Hynard!). I found chemistry a very hard subject but Mr Campbell made it interesting and exiting. I loved watching things fizz in the fume cupboard. I also enjoyed physics - do you remember the ticker-tape-timers? and the wave pools? For A-level chemistry we had Mrs Coombes, who arrived at the school in her racey red car. I was later to discover that she made delicious home-made ice-cream. We didn't make things easy for her though when she arrived. During the first few lessons we all pretended to be each other and gave her fake names; but it didn't last long as we soon realised that she was down to earth and very nice! I believe it was Mrs Coombes who told us that having lots of boyfriends was good as then we'd get to know what we liked and what we didn't about boys!!
Living in Lee-on-Solent I went to school across Portsmouth Harbour on the the ferry. (That's about 4,500 ferry trips in my school career! and since then I've always loved telling people that I went to school by boat. It sounds very glamarous to those who actually haven't seen the Gosport ferry.) The forbidden fruit of the Grammar School boys (PGS Pigs Grunting Society) made it all sociable and fun, particularly in the 6th form years. There were certain rules about the distances that had to be kept between 'us' and 'them' but I don't remember anyone adhering to them.
We weren't always the 'nice gals' which we were supposed to be. I had detention a couple of times, probably for skiving assembly. And once I was banned from playing in a tennis match as I 'defaced' the tennis notice board by re-writing who I thought the team should be. We also had some very naughty girls who did things that most of us considered just too bad, such as letting off stink bombs and letting down teachers' car tyres.
I wonder if this tradition still happens? About once a year during lunch break a group of St John's boys would come running into the playground pushing a huge linen trolley on wheels. They would then quickly run off. Several seconds later a bemused and naked boy would lift the lid and die of embarrassment. I'm not sure about what happened next: I assume that a teacher came to his rescue.
We did light-weight April Fools. One year I squirted water in the seat bit of the wooden chairs so that when the teacher sat down they got wet behinds (sorry Mr Diffey, but maybe it serves you right for standing on a chair to shoot goals in the teachers versus 6th form netball competition!); another year I put my arm in a fake plaster cast and pretended I'd broken it and another one I remember is driving poor Mrs Bullock bonkers by everyone doing synchronised jumpers on/jumpers off every 5 minutes.
I was at Portsmouth High for 11 of my 44 years, and my head is packed with memories of it - far more than can be mentioned here. If I close my eyes and recall events I could swear that it all happened only yesterday. I think that on autopilot I could cycle into school, leave my bike in the bike shed and go up to the 6th form common room and carry on the conversations that we were having more than 25 years ago. It wasn't all perfect but if I could do it all again, I would without a doubt. Any vacancies for a games teacher anyone?