CHAPTER VI
FASHIONS AND FAVOURITES
By 1960 the "pop culture" had, I felt, taken over: there was also television - and like puppets on strings the adolescents that I knew were just manipulated by the purveyors of this culture, who were presumably simply out to make money.
Slaves, as always, to fashion, the girls lived when they could with the background noise of pop records, worshipped their pop idols and thought any dancing but jiving just silly and a boy-friend as necessary to maintain life as food.
By the beginning of the sixties it seemed to me that the academic and cultural standard among the girls had definitely fallen and many of them had an interest only in this pop culture.
There were also a number of very disturbed girls; some adopted children whose home life with their adoptive parents had completely broken down and of course we lived, like the rest of society, in what is known as the permissive age, and we too were caught up in the materialistic, affluent acquisitive society that western democracy has bred.
These phrases sound cliche-like now, so often have they been used, but many of the young adolescents at the Community were wanting more - more money; more freedom: to have what they wanted when they wanted it; and although impatience is often a characteristic of youth it seemed that the dislike of waiting for anything grew: waiting for sexual experience, waiting for more money, more freedom, down to simply just waiting for what you happened to want at the moment. This all made for restlessness among the girls that was often very hard to contend with and there were among them some who found it very difficult to conform to the ordinary rules that must obviously prevail in a crowded community of any sort. The old stock phrases "getting their own back on the adult world", and hurting in some way a society which they saw as having damaged them, expressed a truth. Others of their contemporaries had suffered too, but they were stronger and more resilient and able to take adversity in their stride and to ride their difficulties with the minimum of protest.
"Protest" could take many forms - passive resistance, which simply entailed sitting upstairs either on a dormitory bed or huddled in a play-room armchair refusing to come to any meals or later to go to bed. Sometimes the offender could be persuaded to go and see Miss Leila and/or Miss Dave, who were endlessly patient, and the problems might be solved: sometimes it was the sheer inevitable passage of time which provided a temporary cure.
Others demonstrated more forcibly and, occasionally, violently. Sometimes they would allow themselves a period of solitude in the sick-bay.
Anyone truanting from school generally spent the day wandering round the grounds, or sometimes sloping up and down the Ashford streets, sitting in a cafe either alone or with another truant.
They would come in at the back door when everyone else returned from school and come upstairs and have tea, which might be their first meal since breakfast; interviews would take place and it would be left for school to deal with the offender the following morning. The Ashford schools were always most co-operative and understanding.
There were times when a girl, or boy for that matter, would not get as far as the school bus even or make any pretence of going to school and to these Miss Dave would give an "excuse" note for the next day which simply gave as the reason for their non-attendance "unfit for school". These notes had always to be taken after any absence - the word "unfit" was true probably and it also saved face and the culprit started again and we fervently hoped that a week at least would pass before another crisis of some sort took its place.
Later, much more serious incidents took place which involved the police and possible expulsion from school: there could be a two to three day suspension from school which was often very salutary, as an acute boredom set in quite quickly.
Among the boys there was a certain amount of delinquency and truancy and absconding but not, I think, on the same scale as the girls, certainly not where the latter crimes were concerned. It really does seem that adolescent boys do not present as complicated problems as those of their counterparts: for one thing they were able to have more liberty than the girls; the boys were given it: the girls simply took it.
Personally I should have allowed the girls infinitely more freedom than they had but by the time Miss Leila had reached her middle seventy years and then the eighties, although in many ways extraordinarily abreast with the times, she developed a rooted dislike of any great change, or so it seemed to me, and the idea of girls even going to Ashford and shopping on their own filled her with misgiving and even more so if they were in the cinema by themselves: and these were all girls over fourteen. I admit that I used to see the girls into the Odeon cinema sometimes, having taken them down in the Dormobile, leave them there and collect them at five o'clock again. Apart from illicit smoking nothing, as far as I knew, ever occurred in that cinema; perhaps dates with boys were fixed up but apart from these trifles it is difficult to think of anything that could have happened.
It became increasingly difficult to satisfy Miss Leila on a Saturday afternoon that any girl was suitably occupied and supervised. I saw no reason why anyone should have to go to a cinema if they did not want to. Now the fact remains that it is simply not possible to be physically in more than one place at a time which is why I could not be in the cinema with some girls and not in it with others. Miss Leila would only grudgingly admit this.
She would send for me before the mid-day meal on a Saturday and would want to know exactly where everyone was going to be in the afternoon and what they would be doing.
I hummed and haaed and said "Well", a great many times and glossed over the fact that A. and B. would probably want to do the exact opposite that was suggested and that D. and S. would like to go anywhere but that planned for them and three more just wouldn't want to go anywhere and would like to stay in playing Pop records very loudly. I used to say to the latter girls that I should be in and out at intervals seeing that all was well and of course I should be down at the Odeon cinema too with the majority and taking a walk in the country to exercise the dogs and a few left-over girls.
I don't know whether Miss Leila ever realised these slight problems of a Saturday afternoon: I do not think she did.
Sometimes everyone wanted to go to a particular film and especially when I said that payment would come from the "Float" I was given by the "Office", and no pocket money would be involved. On such Saturday afternoons I knew where everyone was, the house was emptied of them and the raucous "Yeah, yeah, yeah" of the Beatles, or "Jack the Ripper", or "She loves me", or any one of the hundred other favourites was not to be heard in Mersham-le-Hatch that afternoon anyway.
The prime question was always that of transport; Miss Dave, I know, thought it ridiculous that we could not go to Ashford on a bus but it meant leaving the midday dinner early and then waiting with a possible twenty girls and a dozen or so boys at the Mersham bus-stop and then so often seeing the bus sail by full up: this was not an experience I cared about although a relief bus generally came later, but it was a tax on everyone's powers wondering if we would be in the cinema by half past one.
Once in the cinema though it was possible to relax: we sat up in the dress circle. Girls fell over me getting to the "Toilet" or buying sweets which were always wrapped in paper that crackled like machine-guns and pop-corn that seemed to make more noise then anything on the screen.
I remember once, during a very harrowing film about Zulus, two girls suddenly clambered over my knees and crawled down the centre aisle: I wondered if they had gone mad, were going off for a date with a boy or it was a new way of getting to the Toilet, although I always said that no one, positively no one, was to go to the Toilet except in the intervals; but these two were only crawling along at floor-level to rescue round ball-like chocolate-covered sweets that had fallen out of the bag and were rolling down the aisle like marbles, and it was more than they could bear to lose those sweets; they were retrieved and dusted down.
Rows of small Ashford boys sat in the front rows whistling and cat-calling and screamed at by others to "shut-up". Piercing wolf-whistles went up when females appeared on the screen scantily clothed.
During the interval ladies in bright pink overalls and bearing large trays of more sweets, pop corn bags, ices and cardboard cups of orangeade came round: they never finished selling their wares or others buying them before the interval ended and I seldom saw the beginning of the second half of any film as there was always what seemed to be a giantess in front of me with her huge tray, and on either side, "Could you lend me sixpence?"
I must have seen hundreds of films in my twenty odd years at Mersham-le-Hatch, some good, some bad; sometimes we went further afield and saw films in Folkestone or Canterbury - this was quite simple provided I had the use of the Dormobile. A Saturday afternoon in the Odeon at Ashford was an experience in itself; it was also quite an experience getting everyone back again, certainly on the packed Saturday evening buses and if I had the Dormobile there was nothing to do but sit patiently in it and wait till everyone arrived. Sometimes I used to think that much of life with adolescent girls consisted of waiting for them.
If I met Miss Leila later in the evening, as often as not she would say, "Well my dear, I hope you have had a good Saturday". All problems and proposals discussed before lunch forgotten.
Both boys and girls had a "Clothing Allowance" now and bought what they liked. I thought the girls chose their clothes well and they could make themselves look very pretty and attractive.
All the annual events still took place: Miss Leila duly celebrated her eightieth birthday with an enormous party and the Christmas party continued to be run as usual although now every child had a present off the Christmas Tree from eighteen year olds to the nursery children. Each adult in charge of the group bought their presents. I finally gave up trying to decide what each girl would like as it seemed silly to give someone an inexpensive fountain pen when what they were longing for was a chiffon scarf, so I used to ask them and although this may have done away with any element of surprise it also did away with much heart-burning and envy.
A "Talents" night and Fancy Dress Party were held in the Spring Term. At the former any member of the Community, young or old, could display any "talent" they liked, put on any "show", dance, sing, recite and so on: it was sometimes a revelation to see what was displayed.
Much anguish was experienced in connection with the Fancy Dress party: what to go as; how to look like what you were supposed to be, where to get the necessary clothes - some said they weren't going at all; others said that that was just because they were jealous and anyway no one would miss them so why bother. Everyone always went in the end; and the costumes were often most remarkable and memorable.
Concerts took place at the end of each term. The Community ran an orchestra as several of the staff played various instruments, one or two boys were learning the violin and all the Junior children were taught to play the Recorder; they also played a Glockenspiel. The grand piano in the library was moved by the united efforts of a dozen boys. The infant prodigies, taught in the Community by the resident Music Teacher, played with tremendous aplomb, showing no nervousness, no temperament and would start to play almost before they had sat down.
There were two boys who were taught the piano at the Community and fairly early it could be seen that they showed considerable promise. They both went on to the University where they took Music Degrees.
It was always a pleasure to hear them play at these concerts for they played in a remarkably adult manner.
During the last decade the music at the Community had developed enormously, despite "Pop". There was a very good Chapel choir and there was a Gramophone Recital every Sunday night after supper; this was attended largely by boys as, sadly, the Senior girls grew less and less interested in any music but that of their favourite pop idols: it seemed impossible to inspire them otherwise.
Miss Leila experimented one Summer Term and played Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem" in Chapel one evening each week: she divided it up into so many parts: she would first read the particular poem that was to be sung - this too was attended chiefly by boys and staff: only the two most senior of the girls, who were both at the Grammar School, coming. Although of course this is not a work written for the young, despite the fact that young choirs take part in it, the fact is that so many of the girls in those 'sixty' years were so enslaved by Pop music that they could not allow themselves to be aware of any other.
It is almost impossible I find to believe that there was a time when there was no "Pop". Although not my favourite kind of music I learnt to tolerate some of it and grew to really like the Beatles: but I had no sooner developed this appreciation when they were labelled as "square".
I learned to let much of the noise flow over me, as it were, and so inured to background noise did I become that I really did only hear what I wanted to hear: it always seemed strange that that particular music had to be played so loudly.
There was, too, television. Miss Leila had one in her sitting-room and there was one large Communal one upstairs in the Junior Study playroom, which the girls watched after supper. The boys had one in their wing and later a large one was got for the outside "Prep room" which could accommodate large numbers.
Only selected programmes were watched but I think they were generally approved of by the majority: there were very few who did not see "The Forsyte Saga". The weekly "Top of the Pops" was attended by all.
We watched the World Football Cup match in the Prep. room one Saturday afternoon. It was a question of men and boys first; women and children sat in the back rows.
There is no doubt that television did take the place of certain individual pastimes, games, reading and so on although the girls did not watch every evening. I always hoped that there would not be a fascinating programme on a Friday evening when it was choir practice, which took up at least an hour after supper.
I have not so far mentioned an institution peculiar to the Community; this was known as "Meeting". It took place at the beginning and end of each term and although it altered a certain amount over the years in essence it was still the same in the nineteen sixties as in the nineteen thirties.
The whole Community, except the Junior Study and nursery children, attended. It was really a kind of glorified School Assembly.
Boys and girls stood in lines in front of Miss Leila and Miss Dave, who sat behind a table. The "charter" was read. This Charter was a statement of principles or tenets that Miss Leila and others had evolved in the distant past; it began by stating that "the household was a community". It was quite clearly stated I thought and was perfectly easy to understand.
Miss Leila read part of this and a boy and a girl read other parts. Notices were given out and any honours incurred in the outside schools together with inside news. The whole affair lasted about half an hour, or less and ended with the singing of "Jerusalem", or "This earth, this England" and later rather a fine poem of Cecil Day Lewis which had been set to music. I never found the ceremony inspiring but it served a useful purpose.
I have not so far, either, mentioned the winters, one or two of which were Arctic-like. If there was enough snow there was a lot of tobogganing and several times the lake and heron pond were frozen, although not safe to go on.
Some of the younger children were down by the lake one wintry afternoon and strictly against orders one small boy ventured on the ice; it cracked and he went through to the deep water below. An old boy on a day's visit had just arrived on the scene and without a moment's hesitation went on to the cracking ice, which fortunately held him, and pulled the child out. It was a fine action and did much to mitigate the not very satisfactory reports of the boy who had always been a wild unruly child with a history of delinquency.
Such weather always brought with it the troublesome question of Wellington boots: who had them; who hadn't; and there would be a lot of scrapping and arguing in the cloakrooms. Both boys and girls were loth to spend their precious clothing allowance on such things as boots and indeed the girls often seemed very inadequately shod as anything suitable for country walking was known as "clodhoppers" and despised.
At breakfast on a snowy Saturday Miss Leila would hopefully give out a notice about the wearing of other people's boots, gloves or scarves: polite attention was given to this notice but ignored later by the unscrupulous: but those weekends of snow were beautiful and the enjoyment of them was tremendous.