2. Reading and Rest
There was a thing called “long rest”. I mostly associate this with the Junior Study, since I remember Miss Murdin closing the dormitory shutters so there was not enough light to read by, even though it was afternoon. I do not remember when or how often “long rest” took place. Maybe it was a punishment for a select few.
“Rest” for the juniors was a happier affair. After dinner, before resuming school in the afternoon, we went into the library, took a rug from a chest under one of the windows, and lay on the floor with a book. Miss Elizabeth had charge of this, and was always ready to help us select a suitable book. I suppose it lasted only half an hour or so, but it seemed both longer and shorter, as the time passed very pleasantly.
Personal reading figured largely in our lives. Bedtimes were early, but that left considerable time for reading before lights out. At times, reading was the only option, since those in charge would arbitrarily impose silence and, seemingly, stand outside the door ready to detect the lightest whisper.
In addition, we were read to on many occasions. In the schoolroom, obviously. I have already mentioned Mrs. Robson’s incomparable readings and Mr. Draper’s slightly less impressive efforts. In between came Miss Joan Watson. I do not remember her as an inspired reader, but I recall enjoying her reading of “The Armourer’s House” by Rosemary Sutcliff. She did encourage us to choose poems and read them to the class. I think she also introduced us to Longfellow’s “Hiawatha”. The curious names and the trundling rhythms seemed as exciting to us then as they seem inartistic to me today. In the dormitory, apart from our own reading time, Miss Murdin would regularly read to us – I do not think this was done in later dormitories. If nothing else, there would have been a practical reason. In the Junior Study, we were all together in one largish dormitory. In the West Wing, first floor and top floor, there were several smaller dormitories for each age group and a single person looking after each floor, who could hardly read to one dormitory while turning her back on the others. I remember that Miss Murdin was rather fond of Malcom Saville’s children’s books, especially those located around nearby Rye. She also did not scorn – at least not openly – books of lesser literary pretensions such as the “Biggles” series, but I think she drew the line at Enid Blyton.
However, “reading”, like “rest”, also had a special connotation in Caldecott life. It was the occasion when, once a week, we would be divided into groups for “reading”. It was not necessarily the person in charge of our group who read to us – this was another of those occasions when we might get to know other members of staff we otherwise saw only at a distance. I have mentioned Miss Elizabeth’s powerful reading style. I have no recollection of being read to by Miss Dave. Miss Elizabeth’s “Story of a Community” mentions that she did so, and well, which I can imagine, since she had a fine clear voice and considerable, if classics-inclined, literary knowledge. Perhaps she stuck to girls’ groups*. Reading might have been an opportunity for gender mixing, but this was not done. Mr. Griffiths took the opportunity to parade his eclectic tastes. He started by reading us one of Guareschi’s “Don Camillo” books. I thought this too ridiculous to be funny, until I came to live in Italy and found it was all true. He then decided to bump up the level “just a little” and read us Thomas Love Peacock’s “Nightmare Abbey”. This is written in such a deliberately abstruse style that he needed to stop at practically every sentence to explain the words we did not know – a process that must have fuelled his already well-developed sense of superiority. I have not felt inclined to go back to this book.
Miss Leila’s choice of books was sometimes surprising. She read us one of Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels, for example. She seems to have had an affection for Sayers, since she read us one of her religious dramas, “Zeal of Thy House”, in Chapel. Lord Peter Wimsey may represent a manner of detection acceptable to the British upper classes. By contrast, “Maigret in Montmartre”, set in the seamy world of murdered prostitutes and morphine-addicted doctors, was the last thing you would have expected Miss Leila to choose. Other books she read to us were “Fair Stood the Wind for France” (H. E. Bates) and “A High Wind in Jamaica” (Richard Hughes). I remember nothing except the titles. Presumably, the Bates novel was the one that provoked the Holden Blackford/Griffiths episode over the bits left out. Reading with Miss Leila was intended to be holistic and, in spite of the reservations I have expressed about her failing powers, it sometimes was. Apart from the reading itself, we were expected to discuss the issues involved, and sometimes reading was replaced with a carefully chosen television programme. But we were at a rebellious age and the discussions did not always elicit the answers she wanted to hear. Plus, when Kendall Strout was in the group, even she found it difficult to get a word in edgeways. At times, too, she asked more general questions. After Mr. King had given his first talk in Chapel, she wanted to know what we thought of it. I ventured to say that, while what he said was fair enough, he might have put it together better. Reluctantly, and after some thought, she said, “I accept that”, but insisted that “What the talk showed, was the niceness of Mr. King”. Evidently, she was very anxious that her chosen “heir” should make a success of Chapel.
I am sure Mr. King took reading, but I was never in one of his groups. Once when I was in the sickroom, he lent me two books that he said were at the top of English language humour. One was a Jeeves book by P. G. Wodehouse. I found the slapstick rather tiresome (and still do). The other was an anthology of James Thurber. This causes me to reflect that there is a type of humorous writing that is funnier to think about afterwards than it is to read at the time. I can chuckle merrily about the woman with a dog called “Feely”, or the female sleuth who reckoned she had solved Macbeth and “he didn’t do it”, or the aunt who rolled a stone under her bed every night and, if it failed to come out the other side, it meant there was a man under there. But if I go back to read them, the humour seems forced. Even Walter Mitty is funnier to think about than to read. But then, Mr. King himself could have a droll sense of humour that had you chuckling about something he had said, which you did not notice at the time.
One person who, I am almost certain, never read to us, was Miss Travers. She left this to her assistants, and I dimly remember Mr. Carter reading us a book by Stanley Weyman.
Reading took on a slightly different hue in the sickrooms. Each sickroom had a bookcase to which had gravitated well-worn copies of the various then-popular children’s series – the “Famous Five”, the “Find-Outers”, “William”, “Jennings”, “Biggles” and the like – and since they never got any better, there they remained. Miss Elizabeth gladly sent up carefully chosen material for sick children who were known to be “readers” but, just as I rather enjoyed a week or so off school, so I rather enjoyed unashamedly reading “rubbish” for a few days. And I will say that the William books contain marvellously targeted sketches of the provincial life and people of their day. If only William himself (not to speak of Violet Elizabeth Bott) were not so tiresome. Perhaps the answer is to read non-William books by Richmal Crompton, but the only one I ever found, “The Odyssey of Euphemia Tracy”, did not quite add up. The sickrooms were also temporary resting-places for once popular Victoriana awaiting final discharge. Weakened by fever, I wept over Rosa Mulholland’s “Hetty Gray”. If ever I find a copy, I will wait for a bout of flu before reading it. A sickroom book that greatly moved me was “The Carved Cartoon” by Austen Clare, a fictionalized account of the life of the wood carver Grinling Gibbons. I pestered my father to get me a copy. My stepmother worked as a librarian and was no stranger to hunting down unusual requests, but could only find that it had been out of print for years and it would be almost impossible to find a copy. I made a point of rereading it whenever I was sick. Miss Dave saw me and confirmed that it was a good book. She said she might write to Puffin Books, proposing they reprint it. “Would they do that?” I asked. “Well”, she said, “Miss Leila suggested books to them several times and they published them”. Either she forgot or a suggestion from Miss Dave carried less weight. I forgot about it until, incredibly, I found a copy in a bookshop in Milan. An agreeable read, but I am not really surprised it fell out of favour.
This sounds like a catalogue of my reading at Caldecott but, encouraged by Ashford Grammar School, I delved into a range of then-living or recent authors – Forster, Orwell, Greene, Murdoch – who had not yet made the Caldecott grade.
* Gerald Moran recalls her reading to the Senior Study boys