Too Marvellous for Words

by Julie Welch

  Gay, Joanna’s sister, spent her first year there in 1964, and told me: ‘Once we were up there they used to forget all about us. We had amazing games, such as The Bra Shop. Buying each other’s bras. I don’t know what with because we didn’t have any money. People had brought dolls, and we pretended we were giving birth to dolls.’

  So Wycliffe was a happy house; so happy, in fact, that lots of girls cried when they had to go home for Christmas but, in the years before, for some, it had been a place of angst and trepidation. Before the college unveiled its purpose-built music school next to the chapel, Wycliffe had been known by another name, Highrow. The music school was in there back then, and the Head of Music was a tall, maquillée, good-looking woman of great talent, perhaps too great to be condemned to a life of teaching piano to the sausage-fingered and tin-eared.

  It is my bounden duty, before I say anything else, to emphasise that Miss Cornford was a huge force for good in our musical lives. Three of my friends, Helen, Gay and Caroline, have nothing but praise for her. Through her connections we were introduced to some of the most prominent musical names of the era including Imogen Holst and Benjamin Britten in Aldeburgh, which was how we were able to hear a performance of Britten’s ‘War Requiem’ in Ely Cathedral in 1965, and how we got to go to Orford Church for Noye’s Fludde.

  Our school was wonderful for music; second to none. I took piano and clarinet and was lucky enough to sing in the choir and play in the orchestra (third clarinet – there was rather a glut of those, whereas there were few takers for the trombone). My timetable was loaded with music. Theory once a week with Miss Cornford, singing with Miss Cornford, choir practice with Miss Cornford, piano lessons (with Miss Cornford), orchestra practice (conductor, Miss Cornford), clarinet lessons. I loved my clarinet lessons. They were with Mr Hailes, who had a comb-over like Bobby Charlton’s and shared my interest in horse racing, but there was a bit too much Miss Cornford for one’s peace of mind. The reason why Highrow could at times be a place of misery was that she took offence very easily, and could be a bit of a tartar. A whole thirty-five minutes with that scary woman was in some ways worse than Chemmy, because at least with Cawley you had safety in numbers whereas with Cornford you were on your own. Sometimes she was very batey indeed.

  ‘Cornbags said I was dim,’ said Lindy indignantly. Miss Cornford had just pushed her off the piano stool for being unable to do her scales. ‘I hate her with all my heart.’ Lindy was going to go to Jonah and ask about dropping her in favour of mild-mannered Miss Parfitt.

  Others sought more immediate relief. The way into the school dining room led through the cloakrooms. On one side were cabs, and on the other a row of washbasins. One morning, on the way to breakfast, I came across two Tyndales, Jan and Chel, hunched over the basins. Jan was holding Chel’s wrist.

  ‘Go on!’ urged Chel. ‘Hit it!’

  Jan, who wouldn’t have hurt a fly, looked aghast and tapped it rather gingerly against the edge of the porcelain.

  ‘Hit it harder!’ urged Chel. So Jan tried again, a bit harder this time, and then Chel, teeth gritted, took over herself.

  ‘She’s got piano with Cornbags this morning,’ Jan explained.

  Chel was trying to damage her hand so badly that she wouldn’t be able to go to her lesson. It ended up so red-raw and inflamed that she had no difficulty getting Sister to sign her off piano. When I saw Chel later that day, her wrist was bandaged and in a sling.

  ‘But Cornbags didn’t come in to take my lesson,’ she said. ‘She was off sick.’

  What performances she got us to put on, though. This was where she was really in her element, with her wavy blonde hair and her twin set and tweed skirt, always neat and tidy, waving her conductor’s baton, readying the choir. We loved it, and were all ready to bounce off as the first note struck. And at the end, when the sopranos hit the top notes, she would beam and put her hands together and say, ‘Thank you.’ When she wasn’t in a bate, it was great; she made you want to perform. The nativity play at the end of my first term is one of my loveliest memories.

  It couldn’t be just any old nativity play, of course. This was The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and it was to be held at the Spa Pavilion, as our chapel was too small to accommodate the slaves, citizens, angels, candle-bearers, boys and choral speaking group, along with the usual suspects, to say nothing of the parents. The aisle of our chapel wouldn’t have been long enough for the opening procession, complete with twinkling lights and expectant hush, which was partly down to the solemnity of the occasion but also because we knew that after it was over there would be HOME. A comfortable bed, Rebel the terrier, my shelf of model horses and my books, and putting up the tree and making paper chains, hunting for mistletoe in the forest that was right opposite our house, choosing the most berried sprigs from the holly bushes in our garden, and wrapping presents; and with luck my mother wouldn’t whinge because the present Jane had given her was cheaper than the one she’d given Jane.

  Caroline and Jan trilled away in the sopranos while I was lower down the register in the altos, and Helen’s big sister, Lydia, sang a solo. Lydia was the music school’s special one, la-la-la-ing all the way to Girton College, Cambridge. I’ve no idea what the solo was. All I remember of it now is a few bars, the moment that voice, young, silver, true, rang out in the dark silence.

  The solo was Lydia’s swansong. I’d never hear her sing again, as that was her last term. But I didn’t need to. The sound has never gone away. Transcendence, in just a few bars of a song.

  Summer brought our next big production. We were going to perform ‘Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast’, a choral work by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who had been so inspired by Henry Longfellow’s epic poem, The Song of Hiawatha, that not only did he set it to music but he also gave the name to his son. Hiawatha Coleridge-Taylor. Poor little chap.

  It was the climax to a term of unfettered bliss (for the most part – there was still Chemmy to be endured). But all the things I enjoyed were in the summer term. We swam in the sea (gorgeous), changing into our swimming things on Cranmer lawn, then picking our way down to the water over the steps – huge stones, really – in hideous rubbery bathing caps and regulation cozzies. The bathing sessions took place in a rough square from breakwater to breakwater. Coulo, the Games mistress, would supervise from a boat, eyes travelling from one of us to another in turn, rowing automatically as if – were her attention to lapse for a moment – some calamity would ensue, as we splashed around, trying not to swallow salt water or meet a jellyfish. What fun! But not for Coulo.

  We had the school gymkhana, and Erica won the showing event on her own pony. I rode Huntsman in the show jumping. We were disqualified for three refusals, but at least he didn’t stop to pee. The seniors had their annual trip to Wimbledon, and we all celebrated Bretch’s birthday, when her present was made by Ridley, and had to be bigger and better than the previous year’s offering, and she would give us a treat in return – ice cream with our tea, strawberries, toffee apples.

  It was the midnight feast season, too, because in June came Old Girls’ Weekend, when by tradition Lower Fives gave up their beds, so former inmates could have the excitement of sleeping in dorms once again. In return we were allowed to camp out on the floor of the junior commie – more fun! The French doors opened directly on to the garden, which meant another exodus at the stroke of twelve, and this time a banquet that included tinned pears and asparagus (not together), granny smith apples, Penguins, Ginger Nuts, Oxo crisps, chocolate cake and, best of all, a pomegranate. We were allowed to order fruit once a week from the greengrocer, and this was the surprise that Della had sprung on us. We had never had pomegranate before. She shared it out – one seed each – and we savoured them.

  And going on all through the term were rehearsals for this monumental Speech Day production of ‘Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast’. And not just on Speech Day – we were going to do it three times, floodlit on Highrow’s lawn, to raise money for Jonah’s Appeal Fund for th
e new, bigger chapel and a swimming pool. On Wednesday and Friday the performance would follow a barbecue on the Games pitches, and on Speech Day it would close a fête that included a dog show (prizes for ‘Most Attractive Dog’ and ‘Dog with the Waggliest Tail’). The choir would sing, the orchestra would play, and 117 girls dressed as leaves and Indians would mime the action. I was to be in the choir, and was looking forward to it awfully. But I had not reckoned on Beth.

  It so happened that to pay her back for cracking an egg over my head I had very recently given Beth an apple pie bed, incorporating her hairbrush and two spam fritters. She had accepted it without comment and even good grace, which should have alerted me, because Beth was very much an eye-for-an-eye girl and firmly in the dish-best-eaten-cold camp. But the days passed without retributive action and I suppose I was lulled into a sense of false security.

  We were on our way to Singing. The walk to Highrow was a long one but lovely in the summer, with the sky an old-fashioned postcard blue, the gardens a riot of colour, the Games pitches spruce and all-over bright green, and the grass courts echoing to the thwack of tennis balls and shouts of ‘Played!’ and ‘Shot!’ Highrow’s trees were in full leaf, and from the shrubbery came the intoxicating smell of lavender.

  ‘What’s Beth doing?’ Chrissie said suddenly.

  She was kneeling by the herbaceous border, the skirt of her red-checked summer dress tucked over her knees. She seemed to be rummaging around the soil and now she was scooping something into a matchbox. Then she straightened up, slipped the matchbox into her pocket and brushed earth off her dress before gazing at us with that evil smile of hers.

  ‘This bodes no good,’ I said to Chrissie.

  We were starting on the second verse of ‘The Ash Grove’ (as arranged by Benjamin Britten), when I felt a tickling around the back of my neck. It moved to my shoulder and then down a bit and, when I looked, a bug of some description was crawling along my arm. I jerked my elbow out to dislodge it, catching Cherry right between her non-growing bosoms, and she let out an involuntary shriek. There was a rattle of the baton on the music stand. Miss Cornford’s eyes bored in on me.

  ‘Go outside. Miss Jones will be told how you misbehaved in Singing. See her after supper.’

  I walked slowly out, head bowed, trying not to cry. Then I sat and waited for Chrissie to come out, and when I saw her I just burst into tears. ‘That’s done for me now,’ I sobbed. ‘Cornbags will throw me out of the choir and I won’t be in Hiawatha!’

  I wanted to murder Beth, but she was keeping out of my way. At tennis she made up a four with the Tyndales, and at tea she sat at the other end of the table and grinned at me evilly. Everybody seemed to think what a great joke it was. How mean of them. It wasn’t as if I’d made a big thing about being in the choir. Well, I might have trilled a bit. But I hadn’t swanked. I hadn’t lain in bed softly humming ‘Onaway Awake, Beloved’ while everybody else had to spend hours scrubbing greasepaint off their arms and legs and faces because they were only leaves or Indians. I endured the rest of the day as best I could and, after supper, I trudged up to the top floor of Cranmer and Jonah.

  ‘Apparently you misbehaved in Singing.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Jones. Sorry, Miss Jones.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I jogged the arm of the person next to me and made her sing the wrong note.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did something happen?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘That’s not true, is it? A girl did something that made you do it.’

  ‘Well . . .’

  I can’t tell on Beth. It’s dishonourable to sneak. I was enjoying the feeling of being virtuous, although a small voice told me it was really because Beth would despise me if I told on her.

  ‘Miss Cornford knows you weren’t to blame. Off you go.’

  Chrissie was waiting for me when I got out. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Oh, she was jolly decent. She knew it wasn’t my fault. Someone must have told on Beth.’

  ‘No. Cath’s just told me. Beth owned up and apologised.’

  Well, bugger Beth, to be honest. By then I was looking forward to being hailed as a hero and a martyr. She had stolen my thunder. She had owned up and apologised, and taken her punishment, which was a letter to her parents and having to run twice round the Games pitches before breakfast. She was the hero now. But at least it meant I was still in the choir.

  Whenever I thought about it in later years – and it was always one of my favourite school memories – ‘Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast’ was bathed in sunshine. Highrow’s lawn was stippled with daisies and dappled with shadows. Miss Cornford waved her conductor’s baton against a background of gaily painted wigwams and a tree transformed into a totem pole. Bees hovered above the lavender hedge. There were butterflies.

  The school had hired a professional singer called Grace Something to sing the lead but, because she was a contralto, with one of those rich, vibrato voices like quivering treacle, she dropped an octave every time she had to sing the top note. Each time it happened I felt a kind of existential jolt, as if all the rivers in the world had suddenly started flowing backwards. It must have been the dress rehearsal I was thinking of as so idyllic because what actually happened was the opposite – as inverted and topsy-turvy as Grace Something’s solo. It poured with rain. All week. It didn’t rain all the time; deviously, it would stop long enough for the skies to clear and the roads to dry, and the parents to set off to enjoy the Wednesday and Friday night barbecues, and the dog show and raffle and darts and stalls on Saturday.

  Once everything was set out, the face paint applied, the cars turning in to the temporary parking on the Games pitches, it would start to rain again. The Right Reverend, the Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, opened the fête hanging on to an umbrella. The choir and orchestra had to go inside and sing and play with the French doors open. The French windows were opened and the parents, probably driven by Jonah with a pitchfork, had to sit outside and listen. How could I have forgotten that?

  In fact, my recall of ‘Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast’ was completely unlike what really happened in all respects except one. Grace Something was still singing ‘Onaway Awake Beloved’ upside-down. But the fact I remember everything as being bathed in sun proves how much I loved it. Though it would be some time before I forgave Beth for the bug.

  17

  THE PHANTOM CLOTHES STREWER

  Something had happened when we came back after the summer hols of 1962. Our orchard wasn’t there. Instead we had a building. The Art and Dance studio had sprung up next to Ridley. Chrissie and I signed up for Modern Dance. Life in Middle Five was leotards and leggings, the soundtrack ‘Slaughter on Tenth Avenue’, ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ and ‘Je Ne Regrette Rien’.

  Our new commie was spacious. We didn’t have to share it with the juniors. We danced in there too, in the space between the tables. We bopped to Bobby Vee and ‘The Night Has a Thousand Eyes’, and Mark Wynter’s ‘Venus in Blue Jeans’, and ‘Sherry Baby’ by the Four Seasons. We held twist competitions to the sound of Chubby Checker. Let’s twist again, like we did last summer . . . and we did, again and again, knees wiggling, heels jiggling, arms swinging. The Middle Five commie was jam-packed with undulating hips. We heard the Beatles for the first time, a muffled and crackly ‘Love Me Do’ on Radio Luxembourg. Why did I like it so much? ‘The Night Has a Thousand Eyes’ had more of a tune but ‘Love Me Do’ gave me the strangest feeling. It was a kind of snapping of a rope. I was separate from my parents. I was entering a world they couldn’t share.

  Middle Five meant perks. We were allowed to have a boiled egg with our tea. We could put our names down on a list for Rose the maid to cook, specifying whether we wanted hard-boiled or soft. We ironed the bread. The end product was damp, but it was warm, and butter melted on it deliciously. We could put up posters. Of matadors, mainly – gorgeous young men in tight trousers and spang
led jackets, flapping cloths at huge creatures mad with pain. Who cared about the moral reprehensibility of a spectator sport that featured the torture and killing of an animal? It was the matadors’ buttocks that interested us. Anyway, we were used to all those images of Christ on the cross. Blood, gore and suffering were our wallpaper.

  The best perk of all was choosing our O Level subjects. Lindy fought to give up Maths. ‘You don’t need Maths O Level to do a job,’ she said. ‘Anyway, women don’t have to work. You give up when you get married. We don’t go anywhere, so, come to that, what’s the point of Geography and Languages? It’s all just very, very hard work. And boring. Why do it?’

  But nobody gave up Maths. It was something you just had to do, like Chapel and Games, whatever the weather. You might as well say you were going to put a halt to the sun rising tomorrow. But in and out of Jonah’s study Lindy went, stating her case. She had found something called RSA Arithmetic. What on earth was that? She explained. RSA stood for Royal Society of Arts or, to give it its full name, The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. It was a major examining body concentrating on vocational and non-academic subjects, mainly in commercial and office skills and Languages. One of the exams offered was Arithmetic. It was considered to be more useful to office staff and shopkeepers than Algebra and Geometry.

  ‘Shopkeepers and office staff,’ I said. ‘Jonah won’t like that.’

  ‘How many tins of paint do you need for a sitting room if you have a ceiling height of fourteen feet?’ asked Lindy rhetorically. ‘How much weedkiller do you need for half an acre of lawn? Knowing about an isosceles triangle isn’t going to solve any of THAT.’

  I was astonished by Lindy’s fixity of purpose. It was a battle Jonah was never going to win. No more Maths for Lindy. And for me, no more Chemmy. My O Levels would be English Lang., English Lit., French, Spanish, Latin, Maths, Bilge, History and Geography. Never again would I have to enter Cawley’s shard-strewn lair.