4. Miss Ruhl, Mima Ogilvie and Joy Blackaby

 

The Junior Study girls’ dormitories were looked after by Miss Ruhl. I never heard her first name – other staff called her “Ruhly”. She was tallish with dark hair, a deep gruff voice and was slightly deaf. Her forbidding exterior suggested another Miss Diana and she suffered no nonsense, but an essential kindliness shone through. I was not one of her direct charges, but the seating in the dining room purposely mixed ages, groups and staff so that everybody knew everybody at least a little. Miss Ruhl had an obsession with straight backs at table. “Sit up, boy, what do you think God gave you a spine for!” she would bellow. Her surname suggests Teutonic ancestry, but surely at least a generation back, since she spoke the most refined English. If Miss Leila and Miss Dave were both absent, Miss Ruhl was often called to sit at the main table and we would imitate, afterwards, her announcement, having duly tinkled Miss Leila’s bell, that “Tables may claaar”. Her sense of humour conformed to English expectations of German humour, though. “I rule you with a ruler” was the best she could do, and she gave an almost girlish giggle as she said it. A crusty but likeable aunt-figure.

Miss Mima had the Senior Study Girls’ dormitories. She took over the Junior Study after Miss Murdin left and also the Senior Girls after Miss Elizabeth left. Maybe she was shunted around too much - she also acted briefly as resident cook. Of the principal staff during my first years at Caldecott, she is the one that left the least impression – I remember her only for her Edinburgh accent. I never heard that anyone disliked her, apart from Miss Jean. She left Caldecott at no great age to run a boarding house in Scotland, but died of cancer not long after*.

I have mentioned Miss Joy with regard to Mrs. Vinson’s strawberry teas. My only other real memory comes from the Senior Study camping holiday. There was a competition, I forget the name, where we were divided into groups, taken somewhere in the van, given maps and instructions and required to find our way to a specified picking-up point within a certain time. A member of staff accompanied us, but only to ensure we behaved properly, not to help us out if we went the wrong way. Miss Joy accompanied our group. I took charge of the map and led our little band flawlessly to the stated destination with so much time in hand that we got bored waiting for the van to pick us up. I thought we deserved the prize for this, but the prize went to another group that had, it was said, a more difficult assignment. A competition where the goal posts were different for each competitor seemed unfair to me. Another black mark against Mr. Marshall, who had organized it. Perhaps this was the holiday where a group of us, come Sunday, got a fit of religion and, having attended Caldecott chapel week after week under protest, decided we wanted to go to church. Mr. Marshall took us to a tiny local church where a mealy-mouthed rector took a look at us and remarked, “Nice to see little children in their” – sniff-sniff-wince – “holiday clothes”. I thought the sermon rather good, and said so. Another of Mr. Marshall’s sidelines was that he was a Methodist lay preacher. “I’ve given that sermon many times”, he grunted morosely. Religion would be a splendid thing without the people that practice it.

 

* In 1979. Information from Gerald Moran.