St Monica

Anthea D'Ancey (Cowan) was a friend and reports: Anne went to St. Monica's when she was 8 years old. She had been a prisoner of war before this but she never ever spoke about it at school. Shortly before she died, she talked to me about it and said "I was never expected to live beyond 6 years of age and I have had another 70 years". She was 76 when she died and Anthea remembers her having the most terrible chilblains at school.

We have been given the sad news of the death of Mary Jean Butler (nee Robertson) who passed away peacefully in her sleep after a prolonged illness on 26th September 2014. Mary had been at Chagford throughout the War and her husband believes she left in 1945.

Jean King (Gillespie)

We have recently received the following sad news from Pat Milbourne (Goodwin):

I must belatedly inform you of the death of Jean King (Gillespie) on 23 May 2012. Jean left St Monica's in 1957 to train as a nurse subsequently becoming a sister in London and then nursing abroad before meeting her husband John and going to live in Jersey. She was instrumental in setting up the Jersey Hospice for which she received an MBE and was also a Juror (or Jurat as they are known in Jersey) a post she held until her retirement a year before her death when she was already battling cancer.

We have received sad news from Janet Dixon-Smith (nee Howe) that Sally Smith (nee Ingleton), Cavell 1956, passed away a few weeks ago.

December 2011

From Debbie Howard: I am writing to let you know sadly of the death of my mother Valerie Howard formerly Greaves on 20th December 2011. Val was diagnosed with malignant melanoma 6 years ago and battled right to the end when she died in St Giles Hospice in Whittington, Lichfield aged 78 years. Mum spent a week in St Giles Hospice and care by nurses was exemplary and dignified and she passed away peacefully. Mum will be greatly missed by myself, son Mark and daughter-in-law Beverley.

Mum spoke fondly of her time at St Monica's and last year my brother took Mum to visit the old school.

Mum lived life to the full, despite her cancer, and was a keen golfer until cancer forced her to stop playing in September 2011. Also in the first three years of her diagnosis, mum travelled the globe extensively to parts of the world such as Vietnam and many others.

The 15th October 2011 dawned bright and sunny - a perfect day for our members to make their way to The Bishops' School, Chelmsford to attend the AGM and 75th Birthday Celebration. The Committee made it more festive than usual, decorating the tables in the dining hall with balloons and commemorative napkins. Many of the Old Girls wore clothing in the School colours and some even wore actual uniform items. There were old photos and various items of memorabilia on display and these were enjoyed by all. As people arrived there was much chatter and squeals of delight on meeting friends from many years ago, some having not met for 55 years.

After a wonderful lunch provided by Mike Smailes and his team, who received a fulsome vote of thanks and a standing ovation, Mrs Payton and Margaret Gilling were asked to cut the cake. As you know, Mrs Payton is our President and a past Head Mistress of the School and Margaret is one of our most senior members and was Secretary of the OGA for many years. The cake was a triumph after much searching for the house badges. We got there in the end and I am sure you will agree it looks very ele

gant.

Following lunch we repaired to the sunny covered court yard and sang a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday. Greg Waters, the Head Teacher who had so kindly allowed us to gather in his school, joined us and Sue Young explained that following the last reunion the Committee had decided to mark the 75th Birthday with something special for the school. We offered them our well loved school prayer but it was agreed that the wording was a little old fashioned for such young children. The prayer was rewritten for younger minds and Greg asked if we would contribute towards a mosaic portraying the theme of the prayer. The mosaic would be constructed by all the children and sited at the school entrance and would serve as a permanent reminder of our friendship and close association with the school. Sue Young presented Mr. Waters with a framed edition of both prayers and, when completed, a photo of the mosaic will be inserted between them. Mr. Waters then gave a most amusing and informative acceptance speech mentioning the lovely school library (The Essex Oculus) which was designed by Bishop Wilson's son, Sandy, and given by us when the school first opened in 1987.

The AGM followed, Minutes of which will be circulated to all members. 87 members attended and we had received 52 apologies for absence. It is hoped that the next reunion will be held at the Bishops' School once again and the date is Saturday 19th October 2013.

After the formalities were over Joy Sang played a DVD of past school activities, which was hugely enjoyed by all. There was more viewing of the photos and members wandered back to the dining hall to enjoy tea and birthday cake.

We are sad to have to report the death of Patricia R S McKee, who died on 9th September 2011 after a short illness. Patricia attended St Monica's between 1941 and 1945 and was in Cavell House.

A reminder that Biennial subscriptions of £5 are now due from those who are not Life Members and any other donations will also be gratefully received. This entitles you to newsletters and communications as stated in the Constitution.

The Newsletter: do think about sending your entry for the Newsletter in by e mail. Pass it on to the Editor via the Webmaster so that it is received by 31^st January 2012. Remember, if you like to read news of others, they like to read news of you too. Please consider at least giving your contact name, address, phone number and email where possible so your old friends know you are OK and can get in touch. Holiday reports, poems and similar are also very welcome.

It is most helpful and economic if copies of the newsletter can be emailed to members when possible - let us know if you are happy to receive the next edition via e mail.

Please see News – Members for information concerning the recent death of Katie Neame (nee Swan).

December 2011

We have received sad news of the death of Valerie Howard nee Greaves. Further information is in News - Members.

April 2011

We were sad to receive the news that Katie Neame (Katrina Swan) had died on Friday 15^th April.

Her sister Zigi Davenport (Angela Swan) wrote that Katie had died in Pilgrims Hospice in Canterbury. Zigi had been with her that day and Katie had her son and stepdaughters with her. She was 64.

Zigi says “Katrina Helen Stuart Swan – Cavell House – left SMS the same year as me (I had been head girl) to go to Bush Davies Ballet school immediately after her O levels. She was offered a job with Sadlers Wells touring company then found she could make more money doing modern dance and TV parts. She was the teenage daughter in Kellogs adverts for a few years. I sometimes had to stay in to count the number of times the advert appeared to be sure her agent wasn’t undercutting her for repeat performances! She was also a pretty good piano player. She married Rex Neame and had a son, Jasper, who was 30 yesterday.”

March 2011

We have recently received some photographs from Helen Whittingham (nee Gillespy-Smith) which have been placed in the Gallery.

They include the School Birthday 1947, attended by the Duchess of Kent and Bishop Wilson on Speech Day 1950.

Helen says that she was there in 1947 herself, aged 12, and that would have been the 11th birthday of the school founded by the Bishop. The 21st birthday would have been in 1957.

She remembers a birthday celebration every year, starting with a church service (she wondered if this tradition continued and Sue Young confirms that indeed it did, sometimes enlivened by film shows)The girls who had been in the school longest had FACTA NON VERBA spelt out in letters pinned to their tunics. In Helen's time they were all girls who had been at Chagford.

Also in the Gallery is a photograph of The Remove - Autumn 1950. Helen reports that "we were not fifth form, and not sixth form. (Due to a new law that you could not take O levels until you were 16 - which has continued until this day) The really annoying thing was that we were not allowed to go up the front stairs, and we wrote to Mr Attlee about it He assured us there was nothing in the act to prevent us going up the front stairs!"

February 2011

It was good to hear recently from Rosemary Bryant (nee Chappell), one of three Chappell sisters who were at St Monica’s in the 1960s. Rosemary was in Keller from May 1964 to July 1968.

Rosemary sent some photos which are shown below. The first set include two of Patricia Roscoe who was at St Monica’s from 1959-1966 in Keller. She sadly died in a road accident when only 25.

The first of the photos is taken outside Washford and the second is of Patricia receiving a prize from Mrs Payton (Miss Parker).

The third is of an occasion when the ‘juniors’ served the ‘seniors’ with tea on the front lawn at Washford. Anne Weatherly and possibly Rachel Townsend are at the far table and Mary Noble and Sally Sheringham are ‘waitresses’.

The second set of photos show a production of Joan of Arc in St James Church, Clacton. Rosemary and her twin sister Carol are the ‘soldiers’ standing on the stone steps to the right.

The next photo was taken in the garden at Washford of Rosemary Hassall (nee Turner) who now lives in Australia, Nicola Farquarson and Elizabeth Swindells, circa 1965.

The other photos in this set are of Speech Day 1965 – watching the gym display with Rosemary’s elder sister Margaret facing towards the camera and Rosemary in front of her looking away.

In the marquee, on the stage are the Governors and Guests of Honour. The Chappell sister’s father Denis, who was a parent governor, is in the back row at the far end.

We hope that these photographs may stir some more memories.

Anne Lamb has extracted these two accounts of days at SMS from Hildegard Nash and Joyce Manning – they make truly fascinating reading:

MEMORIES OF SCHOOLDAYS IN THE 1940s

When I read Mary Greene’s memories of the 1950s at SMS I suddenly wondered if memories of the 1940s would be of interest as part of the history of SMS. As one of its oldest pupils, and one who did not go to St. Monica’s by her parents’ choice, this is maybe a little different

Probably many do not know that the Bishop of Chelmsford and the Governors had offered two free places to refugees from Hitler, as did many boarding schools and private families. I came to SMS at the end of March 1939. My family had fled from Vienna to Prague in September 1938, but a few months later Hitler invaded there. My father had been trying for months for the Quakers to take his three daughters to safety in England. When the day came, it was literally a question of a few hours’ notice.

Just women and children, we travelled by train across Germany and Holland to catch a ferry to England, then a train to London After one night we were each sent to a different place. I was so lucky to be sent to SMS. I remember arriving on a Sunday evening, I could only speak a few words of English acquired by seeing Shirley Temple films in Vienna, such as “please”, “darling” “thank you”. The first few days are a haze, but years later girls would still say to me: “Do you remember the first day you arrived here? You had THREE helpings of jelly!” (I had never tasted jelly before).

I was lucky that the school had offered another free place the year before to a girl from Germany, Ulla. Although a year older - normally that excludes talking to girls younger! - she was a great help to me in translating what was said to me. I must say, from the beginning I really loved everything at SMS - the green curtains round my cubicle, the smart peacock blue uniform, the food! I was a very poor eater as a child, but over here I ate everything except rice pudding. If one did not like the pudding, there was always “the other”.

My first headmistress was Mrs Dewar, and I shall be eternally grateful to her for making me do English Grammar during Latin lessons. I confess I said I had forgotten all my Latin, but fate caught up with me later when I had to take Latin for Higher as I wanted to try for University.

In Austria I had always done a lot of swimming, and so, when we were taker to swim in the sea at Clacton in my first Summer Term, I was thrilled. Until I dived into ice-cold water — AND no-one had ever told me that sea water was salty!

Miss Shand arrived, I think after my first two terms. Always elegantly dressed, very efficient, and I dreaded having to sit at her table for lunch as one was not supposed to finish eating before she did. And she did talk rather a lot.

I remember Princess Marina coming for Speech Day - beautiful - and I think we were all secretly surprised when she renewed her lipstick during the meal.

In June 1940 the school was evacuated to Devon. I think it was around the time of Dunkirk. We went in several large coaches and each Senior was given a Junior to look after. I had Mary Richey (Luckie) and it was another bit of good fortune for me. Years later I joined the ATS, and her mother often had me to stay in London when I was on leave.

Holystreet Manor was wonderful despite the very steep hill we had to walk up each day to Ferndale — and sometimes twice on Sundays to church in Chagford! Ferndale, a former guest house, was where lessons were held, and was also where the Juniors lived, the Seniors being at the Manor.

When we arrived the bedsteads had not yet come, so we had to sleep on the floor on mattresses for a few days, which we really enjoyed. Some of us slept in the outbuildings, such as the Stable Block and in the Upper Sixth a few of us were above the large coach house, which served as the Gym. This was really nice.

The tennis court was opposite the Manor, but the hockey field below Ferrndale. We played a lot of matches against other schools, being taken there by coach in spite of petrol restrictions. I seem to recall Stover School, Newton Abbot and others. One Christmas we joined with another school for “The Messiah”, which was wonderful.

I also spent many holidays there, as did some of the girls who came from London, to avoid the bombing. We had a lovely time, cycling all over the moors, picking bilberries and blackberries, and having Devon Cream Teas. When, many years later, one of my sisters moved to Plymouth, it was like coming home as soon as I got past Exeter. One year I did drive to Chagford - the Manor had by then been converted into Holiday Lets, the hill was just as steep, but it all looked just as lovely, if smaller.

I remember Miss Wooller, creating excellent meals even with rationing during the war; Matron - Mrs Robinson; Miss Wood, whom I used to chase for extra Latin homework at Ferndale, when I suddenly took a big fancy to the subject at 16! And many other teachers.

I look back on my time at SMS with pleasure and nostalgia, and I feel it laid a wonderful basis for my future life with the grounding I received there. And I am still in touch, after 70 years, with Joyce Manning, Jean Simpson and Margaret Huzzey –how lucky I am. I hope I said my heartfelt thanks when I left in July 1942.

If you want to hear more about me after I left school?

I did get on the waiting list for St. Hilda’s, Oxford, but as I had no family here I could not wait to see if I got a place. The Governors kindly paid for me to take a 3-month Secretarial Course in London, after which I became a shorthand/typist at a firm in Fulharn, living at the Ada Lewis Hostel for Girls in Barons Court. I knew I would be called up at 19, so before then I volunteered for the ATS and spent the next 2½ years all over England, starting with Pontefract for training, Portsmouth, Bridgewater and Salisbury Plain, working on supplies for D-Day. I then applied for OCTU and went to Windsor for training, then Chilwell in Notts, and ended up at Welbeck Abbey after a course to become an Education Officer. I really enjoyed it there, in spite of the terrible winter of 1946 — deep snow everywhere and for three months the only vegetables were swedes. After three days I never touched a swede again — to this day! We were allowed to wear great coats and even blankets indoors!

I met my future husband on this course, but we did not get married until July 1948 That’s 60 years now! WOW!!

Hildegard Nash (Sachs)

Having seen Hildegard’s account on its way to the website, I thought it might be relevant to add another nugget of reminiscence.

I joined SMS in September 1938, perhaps in a more usual way, and I share Hildegard’s happy memories of our time there, especially our years in Chagford. I too took Oxford Entrance, though a year later than Hildegard, and was delighted to get a letter from Lady Margaret Hall saying I had been given a place. However, the letter continued, since I was due to be called up shortly, I couldn’t take up the place. End of my Oxford ambitions.

It was said that all my age group were to be sent to work in factories — not a very pleasant prospect. However, the FANY had circulated a number of schools seeking recruits for confidential work as coders or wireless operators. In answer to a question at the subsequent interview I had said that I liked crossword puzzles, so I was pronounced a coder - a far cry from today’s selection techniques, but it worked!

After the initial FANY training, I was told the nature my job. The work of SOE (Special Operations Executive) is now widely known, and I felt lucky to be part of it, however small a cog. Security was intense, and I had the pleasure of being in the second of two taxis taking our group of recruits to indoctrination at SOE HQ and hearing the driver told to “follow that cab”. Life on the outstation was uneventful, walking to work each day or night (we worked round the clock in a cycle of 8-hour shifts) to a building half sunk into the surrounding field in the rural wastes of the Oxon/Bucks border. Many of us came straight from school, and boarding schools are good training for Service life!

I worked in this isolated spot for two years, and then went to Germany, to a small, undamaged town near Rhine Army HQ. The war had just ended in Europe, but not in the Far East. I stayed in Germany for 18 months, then came home to civilian life and Secretarial Training College.

Joyce Manning (Giltrow)

The Hon. Anne Lamb (Saul) - left SMS 1944 and had a book published in 2007.

Heads and Hearts - An Inquiry into Integrity.

Heads and Hearts explores the many dimensions of perception and self-understanding, which arise through our use of language. It is a world in which everyday words themselves demonstrate ambiguities, nuances and multiple meanings, possibilities which we often hardly even acknowledge. Heads and Hearts traces a line across a great landscape, ranging from the personal to the abstract, from the individual to the societal, from the existential to the divine. How do we frame, manage and cultivate our own memory, intelligence, feeling, belief and will? Why do we frame principles and seek ideals, and how do we expect them to work?

This is a personal odyssey which acknowledges few boundaries or limits, whose points of reference - to literature, history, politics, belief - are many and various. Heads and Hearts holds within itself a distinctive generosity of vision and an insistence that in every area of life we face realities: inter-relationship, inter-dependence, of integrity, which need to be resolved. Wondering and believing awaken personal trust: faith, hope and love.

Normally selling at £12.99 + £2.50p&p, Anne is happy to supply OGs at £10.00 + £1.99 p&p. Purchases may be made via Calder Walker Associates, 2 Umbria Street, London SW15 5DP (tel.no.020 8480 5150 or email alangw@copperstream.co.uk

December 2010

Carol Moonie (Cordy) alerted us to the following after reading it in the local paper in Clacton.

HIBBS

Blanche Mary

Passed away peacefully at

Spring Lodge Care Home, Clacton

10th December 2010

Sadly missed by all family and friends

The Funeral Service will take place at

Weeley Crematorium 4th January 2011

at 12.30pm.

Flowers or donations to Cancer Research

c/o Lesley Barlow

Clacton Funeral Service

Carol says that Miss Hibbs was a teacher at Washford (St Monica's Junior School) during the years that Carol attended Washford (late 1950s). She was a teacher of science and was particularly interested in Biology. Carol has fond memories of Miss Hibbs taking groups on walks and identifying many wild flowers.

September 2010

The Committee had a Christmas card to Miss Jeacock returned with a note that she had died. We are delighted to report that following further investigation Miss Jeacock, although frail, is well and residing at Oakfield Care Home, Weston, Bath, BA1 4AS should anyone wish to get in touch.

As members will remember Miss Jeacock taught mathematics at St Monica's, was a well respected housemistress of Slessor House until the early 1960s, and we wish her well. We believe the confusion arose as it was her sister who had sadly died.

September 2010

From Janet Gotch (nee Rich)

I have just received a letter from the children of Bridget Snow telling me that sadly she died on 2nd September at a nursing home in Dorking, near her daughter's home.

Bridget Aubry taught English at St. Monica's in the late 1940s and 1950s. She married Frank Snow who was a Headmaster in Newmarket where they lived for many years.

Her funeral will be at Randalls Park Crematorium, Leatherhead KT22 0AG at 2 pm on 23rd September. The family would welcome friends at the service and afterwards.

August 2010

From Jane Hughes:

A long lost staff member, Doreen Milo-Turner, contacted Jane Hughes via Lynne Zwink (Simpole) saying that she very much regretted losing contact but she had been in Egypt for the past 5 years and would now like to renew her membership. She was Doreen Skinner, 1965-1968, music teacher and then housemistress of Cavell.

Susan was in Anderson House and she left SMS in the mid 1950s. She had lived in Tiptree, Essex and she died during the autumn of 2007.

The Duke of Gloucester was among the congregation at a thanksgiving service and evensong to celebrate the life of Professor Sir Colin St John Wilson, architect of the new wing at Chichester’s Pallant House, at Chichester Cathedral.

Dean of Chichester, The Very Rev Nicholas Frayling officiated and preached the homily at the cathedral service.

‘Sandy’ Wilson, who for many years had a home at Bosham, died last year. His widow, M J Long, and his daughter, Sal Wilson, read the lessons. Director of Pallant House Gallery, Stefan van Raay, paid tribute.”

We have been alerted by Jackie Story (SMOG) to the announcement below in the Clacton Gazette. Letty was at St. Monica’s in the late 60s and the younger ones of you will probably remember her. Jackie's recollection is that she was most likely in Keller.