COLLEGE
Having decided to go into teaching, my mother hoped that I would apply to a training college close to home, but the pact made with Cassy, and the fact that the best college for primary teacher training was in London meant I applied to Rachel McMillan College, with my second choice being in Liverpool. The interview for Rachel Mac was held at the beginning of November 1959: John Swift (the school's estate manager) put me on the train at Leeds for a magical journey. The weather was extremely cold; from the window the whole countryside was covered in frost and icy snow – a beautiful, dreamlike winter wonderland. It had been arranged that I would stay the night at Cassy's Aunt Joan's flat in Kennington. Joan E Cass, who was a lecturer in education at the Institute of Education, would be away for a couple of days so she sent me the door key and told me to make myself at home. I hadn't been to London before and the whole experience of travelling on the tube and staying in someone else's flat, which was littered with empty sherry bottles, was just as nerve racking as the interview. The interview was a success: Mary D (the Principal) accepted me there and then on condition that I passed English and Music at A level. As it happened I failed both exams but was still given a place with just 5 O levels and no Maths.
College was so different: all the girls were expected to be lady-like, the all female lecturers to be called Mrs. or Miss So and So, and a room which looked out over the A2 road in Deptford, dreadfully noisy at night with lorries thundering down to Dover; it was almost a month before I had a good night's sleep.
Whereas, at the time, a certificate in Education could be gained in two years at all Teacher Training colleges, Rachel Mac ran a three year course which included a lot of teaching practise, child observation, and working at the Margaret McMillan House near Wrotham, Kent. This was a home for primary aged children from London placed in short term care. Throughout the three years we came into contact with poorly fed and clothed children from deprived backgrounds, inadequate parents and single parent families. One evening in my final year a small group of friends were gathered in my room for a chat when the conversation turned to “dreadful mothers”, “teenage pregnancy” and “illegitimate children”. The attitude of all the girls was that these people were the scum of the earth and despicable. I could feel myself boiling with rage. In the past I would have shrunk away from this type of conversation but I was so incensed I blurted out :”Well actually I'm illegitimate”. They did not believe me!: amongst their reasons was that I dressed well, spoke well, that I was educated and that I had been to boarding school. Their impression of illegitimacy was what I had always feared, that people would think my mother must have been a 'loose woman'. I shall never forget their protests that I couldn't possibly be illegitimate, and all the connotations of the stigma of the time.