St Catherine's Boarding School

Knole Park c1955
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I have very fond memories of the school and Mr and Mrs Cooper, and I was one of the privileged children to move to Parkstone in Dorset when the Coopers moved there. I was in Miss Stoddart's class and I can still remember the smell of the herbal cigarettes she used to smoke, and on the rare occasion she would share one with the class. At the end of the summer terms I remember us polishing the classroom floor with wax polish which had a really strong smell, not at all an unpleasant aroma. After prep classes in the evening it was a mad dash to the study to see who could be the first one in so that they could pinch Mr Cooper's dog-ends out of the ash trays, so we could re-roll them to smoke at a later date. Mrs Cooper used to read her newspapers in the study( television room) and if you so much as uttered a word she used to glare at you over the top of her spectacles, and if you left and came back into the room she used to tut at you. At weekends I remember the large wood at the bottom of the garden where we used to build dens and climb the trees. Those were some of my most treasured childhood memories of the school. Such a shame it was demolished. When I think of that beautiful hall and staircase that led to the girls' dormitory... Some of my friends were Arthur Flat, Michael and Ann Ireland, Sylvia Cowen, and Christine Baker. I often wonder what became of them all. I think Mr and Mrs Cooper's son Mellval had a farm somewhere down on the south coast. I would dearly like to hear from anyone else who was also at the school in the early 1960s.