A Childhood Memory In The 1950s

Yes I also had to walk around for talking after lights out.. Miss Glenday would yell at us from her window and sometimes we walked all day. I was 11 yrs old in 1957.
Stephanie Pasfield

Thanks Stephanie for replying! I am a year older than you and was there from September 1953 to July 1954. Did our paths cross? I could only cope with one year there and fortunately my parents allowed me to go back to my old school St. Swithun's in Winchester. It seems that Miss Glenday has left every lasting memories with a number of us!

I was there from 1948 until 1951. Miss Glenday was a menace. I spent more time walking round or weeding the same path than I ever spent in class. One day they gave us mince for lunch which looked like worms and I couldn't eat it. I was made to sit for an hour until I had finished then had to stand in the corner of her study and was sick all over her floor...a glorious memory.
My best friend was Mary Peagram and my favourite teacher Miss Cheesewrite (she had a bent back and got married but I don't remember her married name). When I left aged nine to go to Boscombe Convent, Miss Glenday wrote on my final report that I was a liar...Mum drove up to the school and stood over The Menace until she wrote a proper Report...dreadful woman.

Avalon Eastman (was Hutchins)

I think she really hated me.. she refused to pronounce my name correctly, falsely accused me of stealing,but we had no recourse..our parents were overseas and she read all our letters to them. A bully and a tyrant.

I was there from September 1958. I walked miles around that pitch and have profoundly difficult memories of the school and Miss Glenday!

Here's what my darling mother in law, now 90, said about her experience at Rookesbury Park School near Wickham in Hampshire and its headmistress Miss Glenday. She attended this school from 1935 until the war, from 8 until 12 years of age.

"The headmistress was Miss Glenday, a hearty, healthy, horsey woman who appealed to parents as a good, sensible sort. In fact, she was a bully and in that school she had total power. I believe she was as hard on her staff as she was on the children. The mistresses were a dispirited lot of older single ladies without a teaching qualification among them.

School was a "home" lacking warmth, humour and fun. Even friendships among the children were discouraged. Miss Glenday used criticism and ridicule to divide loyalties ... Punishments were frequent, both for misdemeanours such as making your bed without the proper "hospital corners", and running in corridors, and for poor school work. I earned those punishments for both types of crime. We didn't get the strap, but we were sent to sit alone in "the dark room", where school supplies were kept on rows of shelves, and the only light came indirectly from the hall outside. I found it necessary at those times to pretend I wasn't there and try not to think of the ghostly presences which I knew were waiting in the shelves. Later my mother wrote to Miss Glenday forbidding her ever to use that punishment on her children again - and to her credit, Miss Glenday stopped the wretched practice altogether ... The awfulness of those days and nights at school was relieved by holidays. It was like going from darkness into sunshine".

I was at that dreadful school from 1979 to 1982. The headmistress was Miss McVicar, lacking in any warmth and tremendously overtly religious, though this didn't feed through to any compassion. The head matron was Mrs Burrows - a sadistic figure who would pull down our pyjama bottoms and spank us if we talked after lights out. Our letters home were read by the headmistress before being sent, and i recall one time being told to change mine before it was allowed in the post. The food was dreadful and i remember a friend being sick into her porridge one morning and being made to eat it. two of my friends were Nigerian and they were publicly humiliated in front of the whole boarders one weekend, after being told off for a minor transgression and told to 'remember, you are guests in this country' - this said by Mrs Burrows, who i think was Scottish. The only happy memory i have of that horrible place is playing in the grounds and making dens with my friends. It is extraordinary that such cruelty was still commonplace in the 70s and 80s. And sad to think that, having just turned 9, i had long periods where there was no adult i could confide in or have a cuddle from - and there were girls of only 8 there too. can't stress enough what a horrible place it was. i wish i had never gone there - needless to say

I just read your comment Mary Ann and it made me feel so guilty that I had experienced exactly the same but from 1963 aged 8 until I left in 1969. My next school not much better but at least I was bigger and older. I think I assumed it got better at Rookesbury.
I drove past there the other day and went up the road I had made an attempt to run away from the back gate. It took me back to how completely hopeless we must have felt then. My matron was Molly Isaacs .. sounds like Mrs Burrows. Complete sadistic bitch who beat us with a leather slipper. But one of the saddest things was how she shamed the younger matrons to beat us even though they clearly understood it was wrong. So many awful things happened there