I’ve taken the liberty of trying to enhance this as much as possible. Click for a full size version. Picture kindly supplied by Andy Dennis.

Here’s a great one from Andy Dennis, which just came in this morning. I’m sure readers will have stuff to add to this. It’s a remarkable artefact and I’m hugely grateful to Andy for sharing it with us.

Happy new year to you too, old chap. Always a pleasure to receive your contributions.

Hello Bob

Happy New Year!

Recently, there was mention of Ogley Hay Girls School and this prompted me to reach for my pencil box. It belonged to my mother, but, 70 years on, is still practical. Some of the pencils are from that time, as are the nibs for dipping in ink wells.

The most interesting thing, for me at least, is that it includes a timetable. This is largely self-explanatory, but I am intrigued by a couple of things. First, though, from a school report for 1942 it appears that L&C was Literature & Composition and A&C was Arts & Crafts – no need for Prof. Brian Cox there! The letters at bottom right of each cell appear to represent teachers and I think H was for form teacher L Hughes. The letter that looks as though it could be Cr is probably G, which could have been for G M Hall, the headmistress. The others are B, E and O.

So, what was ‘Piper’? This may be as obvious as it looks.

And what was ‘H.A.’? This had a session of practise before the real thing, so suggests some sort of performance or assessment. There must be some ladies out there who survived this weekly ordeal.

Of course, this was about preparing young women for a life of domestic drudgery; not going to university, but, after a few years of servitude or secretarial work, to be a competent housewife. Mostly it seems to have worked, but, even though this was at about Britain’s lowest point during the war, the times they were a-changin’.

Andy

Click for a full size version. Picture kindly supplied by Andy Dennis.

Click for a full size version. Picture kindly supplied by Andy Dennis.