Jo'Burg Days: Memories Of A Very English South African Girls School - Part Two
...The Head Mistress when I started school was Miss X, who I recall as a stern, strict grey-haired woman, slender and transmitting an air of a desiccated old maid, the kind one read about in the popular girl’s boarding school tales of the period. She had fine black eyes but their clarity and direct gaze was spoilt by the dark circles which lay beneath – perhaps she suffered from lack of sleep...
Barbara Durlacher continues her vivid account of school days at a South African girtls school.
Elementary ABCs and numbers were taught using easy to understand Look and See methods, flash cards and pictures with the first simple words and an alphabet ladder, which we learnt by rote. As we remembered more of the alphabet, our names were moved up a ladder until the first one to know his alphabet got a gold star. Easy and non-challenging for small children, it was a good introduction to memory training for the young (I have no idea what methods are in use today) but sadly, despite all the efforts of my teachers to give me a basic grounding in multiplication tables and simple arithmetic, I’m afraid it simply did not take and to this day, I am almost totally innumerate!
With the quick change of teachers, every time a new K.G. teacher arrived, her almost invariable question was, “Now children, do you know your 2 times tables?” and equally unvaryingly, we would obediently reply, “Yes, Teacher,” without the slightest knowledge of whether we had ever been taught the 2 times, the 3 times, or indeed the 4 times tables.
In the end the penny must have dropped and selected kids were taken away to a secluded area and carefully taught their multiplication tables. I seem to have escaped this arbitrary treatment, and I still have difficulty with mental arithmetic and multiplication. But what does all that matter today, when those boons to mankind have taken the place of brains; ten fingers, calculators, Excel, automatic currency converters and area and volume estimators which are to be found by anyone with the least bit of commonsense or computer literacy? Incidentally, I have managed to keep my dark secret hidden for most of my life and somehow and I think rather cleverly, have never, ever, in quite a long life, been requested to do anything which is associated with figures – not even taking the money at the door at a charitable function!
At the time I first started at St ........’s, the school attendance figures were pretty low and many of the classrooms were unused; as were the dormitories upstairs. In fact, in order to save money, there was no glass in the dormitory windows and there was only a flapping strip of canvas the same width as the aperture to keep out the elements.
A couple of terms later, when a number of children were admitted as full-time boarders and had to sleep in these large windowless spaces, which happened to coincide with another of Johannesburg’s extremely cold winters and freezing nights, many and piteous were the complaints from the young occupants. They were reinforced by demands from their parents for glass to be installed and suitable heating to be provided in very short order. I know that the glass was soon fitted, but as to the request for extra heating, I expect that lack of finance put the kibosh on that one.
The Head Mistress when I started school was Miss X, who I recall as a stern, strict grey-haired woman, slender and transmitting an air of a desiccated old maid, the kind one read about in the popular girl’s boarding school tales of the period. She had fine black eyes but their clarity and direct gaze was spoilt by the dark circles which lay beneath – perhaps she suffered from lack of sleep, or maybe her health was not very good. Who knows, I was just a small girl and probably did not see Miss X more than five or six times before she disappeared (presumably retired) to be replaced by Miss Y, another spinster.
She was reputed to be a bit of a genius, but a proved to be poor administrator and with very little idea of how to run a school. She had the appalling dress sense that seemed predominate in these “English Imports” and wore thick Lyle stockings even on the hottest of Transvaal summer days. The stockings did her no favours, only emphasizing her unflatteringly thick ankles and stocky feet. (Funny the things one remembers about the adults closest to us when one was a child, isn’t it?)
Then one day, Miss Y was no more – and this in the quite literal sense, as the poor woman had gone to the dentist all unaware (it was said) that she was a “bleeder.” When she had to have a large molar extracted, she had a severe bleed that could not be stopped and despite all efforts, she subsequently died.
