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This blog will return soon. Right now I am posting some recollections I compiled as a contribution to remarks to be made at the next (and penultimate) meeting of the Enfield County Old Girls’ Association. The photo inserted in the earlier post identifies the subject of these remembrances. The pin shown here was our official Enfield County School pin, worn by us with much pride. You can also find more memories of our camping days here.

Miss F. Sharp—my memories

It’s the suit I remember first: brown and mustard tweed, with a straight skirt. She can’t have worn it every day, but it seems that way. When I look at the photos I have of the school prefects, I recall her “photo” suit. It was a lighter brown with a white stripe. And in summer wasn’t there a beige linen dress? But it is her everyday suit that made the biggest impression. There’s the iron grey bobbed hair, tucked behind the ear on one side, held back by a tortoiseshell clasp on the other. She completed the picture with lisle stockings and sturdy brown lace-up shoes.

There was so much we didn’t know about her: in those days we would never have dreamed of asking. Until Carol referred to her as F.E., I always assumed it was Effie. Where did she go to university? How old was she? Somehow we believed that she, like most of our teachers, was “old.” She first became my teacher in 1952 and it was much, much later, when I read Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth, that I learned that women her age had had a hard time being admitted to degree programs, let alone in Latin and Greek. She knew her stuff and had kept up to date with teaching methods. She greeted us, the class of 2L, with a confusing “Salvete, discipulae,” leaving us convinced that not only was Latin a subject worth learning, but a language that could be spoken. Winston Churchill said “I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour and Greek as a treat.” There were a handful of us who enjoyed that treat, and our results in A and S level were an indication of her effectiveness as a teacher.

Her role, however, was not confined to teaching. As deputy head mistress she was charged with keeping discipline, and a summons to her little room outside the library left many students quaking in their shoes. Beneath her steely exterior was a kind and gracious woman. During a rehearsal for a school play I had managed to step on my glasses case, skid across the floor and break my ankle. My leg was put in a cast and I walked on crutches, and for my whole recuperation Miss Sharp made a huge detour from her home in Woodford Green to Freezywater to pick me up and drive me to school.

She drove a little black car. People who knew about cars said it was courting disaster to travel with her, but several of us willingly did so every year when we went to compete in the Classical Verse and Prose Speaking competition. She drove us across London to Dulwich College, knowing all the while that the prizes would be won by schools like Haberdashers' Aske's, but Miss Sharp trained us and gave us the confidence that we could compete with them. Fifty years later I can still recite the beginning of Clytemnestra’s speech from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon.

A few of us were privileged to know her in another role, that of Cadet Captain. We met once a week after school, although I can’t remember at all what we did at our meetings. I do remember we made tea before the meeting started and that, as we came closer to summer, we spent a lot of time sorting and repairing the camping equipment. There were Easter and Whitsun camps in places like Theydon Bois and Chigwell. Summer camp was the highlight of the year and I went to three camps, two in Scotland and one in Cornwall. We traveled by train and were met at the station by a farmer in his lorry. Somehow all our equipment had been loaded onto the train and transferred onto the lorry with us. With our teenage ignorance of logistics, we failed to realize how much work Miss Sharp and her trusty deputy, Miss Hodges, had put into finding a site, arranging transportation, ordering groceries and arranging for the digging of latrines. I have several hazy black and white photographs of our time in camp and I see Miss Sharp sitting on the ground with us to eat our meals and even paddling up to her knees in the sea in Cornwall. She organized the meals, including the famous summer pudding, and I will never forget how she admonished a girl who went to get a new pot of jam when there was just the smallest trace of jam in the old one. (Remember that rationing was not too far in the past.) These camps took us to many places that we, as suburban children still feeling the economic effects of the war, would not otherwise have visited. We did not pay an excessive amount and I wonder now if she found a way to subsidize the cost, not only of the camp but of the trips we made in the afternoons. My photo album bears witness to trips through the Trossachs, Holy Loch, the Kyles of Bute, St. Just-in-Roseland and Megavissey, among many others.

After I left school, Ms. Sharp wrote to me several times. I kept up the correspondence even after I moved to America, married and had children. It is one of my biggest regrets that I let my busy life stand in the way of the thoughtful letters she deserved. After a while, the letters stopped. I was convinced that marked her death, but I had no way of finding out.

In complete contrast to Miss Sharp, with her ramrod straight back and her no nonsense hair and suits, there was Mrs. Parker. She too taught Latin and Greek. I did not have her for many classes and I have no idea how they divided up the students. When I think of her I recall sausage curls, flowered dresses and pearl necklaces. But, sadly, I have no photos to jog my memory. Again, I know nothing of her background— with the single exception of her son, Michael. I don’t think there was a husband in the picture, but Michael was her pride and joy. Most students at the County School were smart enough to figure out if a teacher knew her subject, and the grandmotherly Mrs. Parker belied her appearance and taught us well.

These are my recollections of our Classics teachers. Maybe some of you who taught at the County School (Joan Hart?) want to jump up and say, “No, you got it wrong!” Maybe I did. If anyone can fill me in on the lives of these two fascinating women, please do so, but somehow I think my recollections are forever engraved on my memory and will never change

Auf Wiedersehen

I think the time has come to fold up my tents and steal away. There is still a lot to write about and I may return, either to this blog or in a different incarnation. I suspect that if I do come back, some of the bloggers I currently enjoy reading will still be writing stellar posts, while others will have abandoned their work. It always saddened me when people whose life and opinions I had come to enjoy went away. Now I understand: life has a way of intruding on avocations.

Thanks for reading.

A Confession and a Lecture

I am embarrassed to admit that there is one whole category of blogs I steer clear of: blogs by and for people with disabilities and illnesses. I am ashamed of this, because there are countless blogs by people who are suffering mightily with little hope of respite or who are without the means to pay for the drugs which might help them. I justify my callousness by thinking I can do nothing to help. I pray for them daily.

I have spent most of this summer wrestling with my own condition. My kids said I should write about it—not to garner sympathy, because it is just about under control, but as a help to anyone who may meet the same symptoms and not know where to start. The condition is called trigeminal neuralgia and it is easy enough to look up. Early in the summer I noticed short blast of pain while I was eating or cleaning my teeth. By the time my brain realized there was pain involved, it usually stopped. I mentioned it to my doctor who told me to see my dentist. But I wasn’t due for a check up and it mostly went away until a Friday night in early July when I was awakened shortly after I fell asleep by the most astounding pain I had ever felt. It crept up the right side of my face like an un-remitting labor pain. I couldn’t speak: tears were rolling down my face. I didn’t want to go to the ER and I spent four pain-racked nights before I could get to see a dentist. (Note it only attacked me at night: during the days I was perfectly normal.) My dentist banged on all my teeth, but couldn’t trigger an attack. He took x-rays and after muttering “tic douloureux” he personally picked up the phone and made me an appointment with a diagnostic dental surgeon for the next day. A fancier office, words like maxillary surgeon, more pounding on the teeth. “It is not TMJ” was his verdict and he too personally got on the phone to make me an appointment next day with a neurologist, an adorable man called Boris who is the first doctor I have ever met with a sense of humor.

I’m going to make this short: it upsets me to write about it. Boris prescribed a drug called tegretol. It took away the pain, but had horrendous side effects. I threw up, walked like a drunken sailor and all my limbs twitched. Just as I was getting used to the drug, the pain came back, though by no means as harsh. Last week Boris upped the dosage and gave me a slow release form of the drug.

The situation is much better now and I promise not to write about it again. But if anyone reading this ever suffers the same problems, or knows someone who does, here’s a place to start. It tends to afflict women over 50 and almost always on the right side of the face, so I fell right into the demographic. Apparently it sometimes takes years to be diagnosed, but thanks to three wonderful doctors, it only took me four days.

Boris claims that my body will adjust to the medication. I can’t stop sleeping, I suspect my short-term memory is even worse than usual and my hands are quivering badly: typing and writing are an adventure, but I am grateful to be one of one of the fortunate ones. Otherwise I would be writing an agonizing blog that callous people like me wouldn’t read.

A Modern Day Fairy Tale

Once upon a time (actually in 1998) our heroine was about to graduate from Saint Louis University. She had an essay to write and she stopped in at the Computer Center. While there, she made the acquaintance of a student who was working on a graduate degree in Spanish. They spent time together for those last couple of months and when her parents drove to St. Louis for the graduation, they invited our hero to dinner with them.

After graduation she went to Brittany for a year and the young man met up with her in Paris at Christmas time and showed her his beloved Spain. They spent Christmas in Pisa with Al and Gody and assorted Tangheronis, and he then went back to St. Louis, taking up an assignment shortly after in Guatemala. On her return from France, our heroine visited him in Guatemala and then they both went off to conquer the world.

During the next seven years there was an occasional “How are you doing?” e-mail, but they never saw each other. Our heroine landed up in Washington, working as a writer and an editor, while our hero went to Miami for another graduate degree, finally ending up back in St. Louis where he earned a law degree. After that he lived and worked in Germany for a couple of years, eventually returning to his parents and a job in St. Louis.

In early 2007 our heroine decided she wanted to leave DC and return to Detroit to study and write about more creative endeavors. As she was making plans to leave, our hero went to Baltimore on business and e-mailed an invitation to dinner. The next night there was dinner in Washington and this was followed by trips to wherever they could meet up, while at the same time keeping Southwest Airlines in the black due to numerous trips between Detroit and St. Louis.


Fairytales have to have happy endings and perhaps you can guess this one. This weekend Lucy and Chris got engaged. God bless you both.

From the Analyst's Couch

I think I need to contact Dr. Phil. Let me explain. The other night I went with Kate and Lucy to see Mamma Mia. Much to my surprise, I loved it. I have certainly never been an Abba fan, but I found myself tapping my toes. And what’s not to love about that fantastic Greek scenery which brought back memories of a trip to Greece in (I think) 1962. But for the first part of the movie I found myself getting anxious. Here’s Donna who is giving a wedding the next day and she is turning somersaults, climbing up a goat house, singing and dancing and generally having a good time, when even I can see that a trip to the hairdresser might make us all feel more comfortable. Well, I admit, she does at one point wield a caulking gun, ineffectively but ultimately with a felicitous result. Now, I have had two daughters marry, and the day before I was checking with the florist, ironing tablecloths and various dresses, feeding guests and generally micro-managing the whole affair. I remember my friend Sally collapsing with laughter once when she read a tip in a woman’s magazine advising the hostess to spend the last minutes before the arrival of guests sitting down and resting. “I’m always cleaning toilets”, she said. Aren’t we all? Well, apparently not Donna, though I do admit she seemed to have a staff of Greeks, but most of them joined in the dancing with abandon.

All this took me back to an earlier Meryl Streep chick flick The Bridges of Madison County, which caused me a similar sense of unease. Francesca has invited Robert to dinner and spent part of the day preparing stuffed peppers. When Robert arrives, it soon becomes apparent that eating is the last thing on their minds and dinner gets cold. Perhaps Dr. Phil could explain why I can remember the menu and why I was upset over the waste of a perfectly good dinner.

On the other hand, if the three lovely men from Mamma Mia or even Clint Eastwood were to show up on my doorstep, maybe my psychological hang-ups would do an about -face. I never liked stuffed peppers much anyway.

Dear NBC

I love the Olympic Games. I wait expectantly for four years. I get goosebumps when I hear your Olympic Anthem.

But I have seen enough beach volleyball to last me to 2012. Thank you.

A Tale of Two Trays

Sometime after my mother’s death, my dad came to stay with us. It was summer and we frequently ate outside. He noticed what a job it was for me to lug all the plates, silverware and glasses outside and since he was the kind of man who didn’t like to sit around and who liked to make himself useful, he made us a tray. I don’t know whether he used wood that we had lying around, or whether we bought it, but it wasn’t real good wood. However, by the time he’d varnished it, it looked pretty handsome and it was sturdy. We have, in fact, used it for 30 years. It does, however, have one drawback. I’m sure Daddy measured our doorways, but he failed to allow quite enough room for fingers to pass between the jambs. Ernie claims my dad had it in for him, but I think he was trying to make the tray as big as he could. So maneuvering the tray through doorways has become quite an art in this house.

Elizabeth didn’t fail to notice how useful our tray is, and she asked Ernie if he could make one for her. He rose to the challenge, making this magnificent tray with cherry sides and a black bottom, finished with 5 (five) coats of varnish. My job was to crouch down in the workroom and personally guarantee that the drill was being driven in at exactly the right angle to allow the screws attaching the bottom to the sides to go in perfectly aligned. They did. I hope that Jeff and Elizabeth will still be using this tray in 30 years time.