CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNING
My life at the Caldecott Community covered a span of thirty-five years: a long time even measured by the standards of those pre-war years. This information is often greeted now with incredulity, then horror, then a reluctant grudging admiration that anyone in their right mind could stay for so long in one place: but there were others who had already been at the Community for some years before I came and who left after I did.
I first arrived one wintry February afternoon in 1936. The Community was then housed in The Mote; a huge imposing late Georgian mansion standing firmly and solidly in the middle of many acres of park-land, whose western boundaries touched the outskirts of Maidstone. There was a fine view to the south, open park and magnificent trees to a distant lake. I was not to know then that every blade of grass, speck of gravel on the drives, and shape and size of every tree and bush would become as familiar to me as the shoes I walked in.
I went in at the double-front door; the house seemed entirely silent. I had expected to be met, if not exactly on the door-step, but at least in the front hall, by the sound of children's voices; there was in fact no sound at all, nor was anyone to be seen.
The first living object that met me was a very large and very beautiful Golden Retriever dog who advanced slowly down the long wide hall to see what I was. The dog stood and surveyed me very deliberately for some seconds, sniffed, then apparently satisfied with what it saw and smelt, sat down at my side and with me, just waited: the dog calmly, and I, with considerable trepidation.
A young woman suddenly appeared in a door-way, gave one look and went away very quickly, shutting the door firmly behind her.
The hall, which looked simply enormous, had long 18th century windows and a great many doors; it had two trestle tables, both laid for a meal, I saw. Well, I thought, if there are knives and forks, someone must eventually come and use them.
As I was wondering what to do for the best, another door suddenly opened and the Director of the Community appeared. This was Leila Rendel, whom I had first seen when I was a child of five, seventeen years ago, and then once later when I was a school-girl.
My aunt was initially responsible for my going to the Caldecott Community. I had been very uncertain as to what I wanted to do after leaving school. I had tried one profession and disliked it and I was therefore at a loose end when it was suggested that I went to the Community on a term's probation; this I accepted, as the only thing I was then quite certain about was that I liked children and was interested in them.
As I remember, Leila Rendel seemed to the eyes of a five-year-old child, awe inspiring and massive; she was followed always by an equally massive and awe-inspiring dog: there was to be a continuous succession of these dogs for the next forty years. They were always Golden Retrievers who lived to great ages and were as much a part of the establishment as the building itself; they gave invaluable assistance to the general running and well-being of the whole household.
Apart from the fact that her hair, in the course of time, changed from black to grey, to white, and a good deal of weight was added to her figure, Leila Rendel looked much the same to me then, and later, as she had done to the original child.
My first real introduction to the Community, after a greeting and renewal of acquaintance from “Miss Leila”, as I understood she was always known as, came when she took me to see Ethel Davies who, she said, was "taking rest”. I thought she had left out the 'a' and I had a vision of some woman sitting comfortably with her feet up: when I did see her she was certainly sitting, but with her feet firmly on the ground, where I learnt later, they were always to be found.
She was in a not very comfortable-looking wicker-cane chair in an enormous room, or so it seemed to me; on the floor of which, lying in neat orderly rows on red rugs, were some twenty small boys and girls, all dressed alike in grey and blue; they were reading. It was, to my eyes, a very impressive sight and I liked the look of it; there was total silence while forty eyes stared unblinkingly at us as we stood in the door-way. These children, I found, were to be my charge, my work. Well, I thought, in my poor green ignorance, this looks fairly simple. I shall enjoy taking 'Rest' every day for about forty minutes after the mid-day dinner: we shall all be pleasantly tired after the mid-morning walk that I had heard they were to be taken on after school, and be ready to have a nice rest on those gay red rugs and all with good children's books to read.
It is difficult to understand now, after thirty-six years of experience, how anyone could be so crass or so plain downright ignorant of the ways of children; or so downright stupid, I came to think later.
Supper took place at seven o'clock in the evening; this was for all staff and seniors, the latter being children over the age of eleven. The tables that I had originally seen in the hall were again laid with green check tablecloths: these cloths saw service in the Community for, I should think, about thirty years. A great many more tables were laid in the dining-room which opened off the hall.
I sat in the hall, next a large fat girl called Elsie; she was very kind and explained life at the Community to me for the entire meal, without apparently pausing to draw breath or stop eating. The food was very good and there was plenty of it, but I thought I had never had any meal in such noise or seen such fast eating.
We reached the end of the meal and a little bell tinkled from the dining-room; "it's for silence", said Elsie, and then I heard "Tables can clear". I must have heard that statement many thousands of times in my career at the Community. A boy or girl from each table shot up and with incredible speed, made for some side-tables, where they collected wooden knife-boxes which, with equal rapidity were filled with knives and forks by the head of each table, the boxes and plates were whisked back to the side-tables and the 'clearers' sat down. I was a fast worker myself and consequently always too impatient with the slow; "not enough attention to detail" I was to be told many times by Miss Leila, but I thought the speed of that first night's clearing quite wonderful.
The following morning Ethel Davies, or Miss "Dave", as I learnt she was always called, saw the children of the group I was to take over from her, off to school. I watched with admiration the easy way she seemed to have of getting twenty boys and girls out of sandals and into outdoor shoes, the boys into black lace-up boots and all of them into navy blue mackintoshes, and off they went to school. I did just begin to wonder then if I should be able to do the same.
All the children under eleven years of age were educated at the Community's school which was housed in the old stable-block.
At half past-eleven I took my first walk with this Junior study group: it was the first of thousands probably, each walk always totally different from the last. This first one was unforgettable.
I collected the children from school, all coated and shod and we moved slowly up the drive to the front of the house where we stood in a huge phalanx outside the front door: no one moved, we just stood. "Come on," I said brightly, "we'll go down to the lake". The boys then suddenly ran round and round in circles shouting and yelling; the little girls stood in knots and groups giggling and laughing.
A window was suddenly thrown open and Miss Leila looked out -
"Go on! go on! she shouted
"Whatever are you all doing?"
"Yes", I said hopefully,
"We're just going".
We all moved slowly away from the window and went very slowly down the drive; the boys who always seemed to act as one, then took a lot of paper torn from exercise books out of their capacious mackintosh pockets and began tearing it up.
"A Paper-chase! a Paper-chase! Let's have one!" they screamed. They rushed down the drive scattering paper everywhere, through the gate, tore across parkland and disappeared from sight.
"Oh!" screamed the little girls and rushed pell mell after them.
"Here, stop! wait!" I screamed,
"Where are you all going?"
But by then they had gone.
It was frightful, I thought, they'll all fall in the lake and be drowned, or if not drowned, they'll be soaked. I must get there too: better I should be drowned with them than have to go back on my very first day and say they had all gone.
I ran madly down the road, and suddenly saw the whole crowd of them hiding behind some vast plane trees. The boys sprang out:
"Thought we'd gone, didn't you?" they shouted. With as much dignity as was possible under the circumstances I simply said - "We'll go back now", but on looking at my watch found we had only been out for about fifteen minutes.
"No, we'll go on a bit" I said. "You said, go back”, they shouted. Suddenly I saw the paper, all round, everywhere. "Perhaps you'd better pick the paper up," I said hopefully. No one took the faintest notice. The paper remained till the following day, when two of the offenders were sent out by Miss Dave to clear it up. They went meekly and at once. I wondered if I should ever reach such a pinnacle when two small boys would do exactly what I told them to do.
I spent the whole of that first term deciding it was my last. I lived in a state of chaos and confusion from the beginning of the day till the end. I was thrown into that group of twenty eight-year-old boys and girls as you might be thrown into the deep end of a swimming bath, unable to swim. I sank, and wondered if the end of term would ever come. No one seemed to be worried by the noise that came from the group's playroom. I took "Rests" every day after the mid-day meal; I sat in the wicker-chair and some children, just a few, settled down on those gay red rugs I had so much admired, and they read books. The majority sat and chatted, and wandered round the room.
"Lie down! sit down! be quiet!" I roared, but all to no avail.
I took walks: we straggled through the park, those in front about a mile ahead of those behind: the latter probably never left the grounds for all I knew.
At last it must have reached the attention of Miss Leila that all was not perhaps as it should be.
"Well" she said one evening, as she surveyed the wreckage of an evening's play after the children had gone to bed. "Well," she said again, "it's all experience and you'll learn". And learn at last I did.
The following day I found pencilled notes dotted about the playroom - "This fireplace is not a waste paper basket; where is the basket?" The basket had, in fact, been taken into the garden and never seen again. "What is this?" was put on some appalling object that smelt and should have been in the dust-bin. "This needs a dust" on top of a book-case. “These need attention” was written on a piece of paper and pinned to the book-case.
At the beginning of each "Rest" in came Miss Leila. The children rushed to their rugs: the books were sorted, dealt with: back at the end of "Rest" came Miss Leila again: Anyone not reading properly on their rug was taken to her sitting-room after tea, where they sat and read then.
After a week of this a faint air of peace crept in: more notes found their way into the playroom though - this needs to be polished, that to be cleaned, this locker needed turning out.
It was certainly a novel way of teaching and I learnt from it. I suppose nowadays I should have walked out in disgust, reporting the whole thing to a union; but I stayed. I learned to take walks: I grew to like the dog Sally. Miss Leila said one day, "the dog needs exercise, you'd better take her out with you when you take the children". So she accompanied us every day till the day of her death. She was greatly loved by the little girls and many of the small boys; some of the toughest thought it 'cissy' to openly show affection either to humans or animals, but when they thought themselves unnoticed, would be seen giving a small stroke or pat to the benign and loving Sally. There was much argument as to who should hold her on the lead; it was quite unnecessary that she should even be on a lead but the disappointment was so great that for half the walk she led in turn one child after another; no one was far behind, no one was out of sight; she was worth her weight in gold was that dog.
I learnt how to manage "Rests" so that eventually I also was able to read sitting in the wicker-cane chair. There was peace, there was quiet for that forty minutes. Miss Leila ceased to come in at the beginning of each "Rest": the notes dotted about the playroom ceased; what had seemed like a bunch of young tyrants became young individuals of immense interest, immense potentiality, and it became a pleasure to meet them and not an endless anxiety. I decided to stay for another term; Miss Leila decided the Community would keep me and after that I never looked back. The following term I was there fro the start, I knew what to expect, I knew what I was doing, and going to do.