TEACHING
My teaching career began in September 1963 at an infant and nursery school in Clapham. Once again my mother was disappointed that I wasn't going home but along with three other college friends who had been assigned to Lambeth schools we rented a furnished flat in Elmfield Road, Balham. We occupied the top half of the house : two shared bedrooms, living room, tiny kitchen which contained the water tank for the house ; the bathroom was on a half landing and shared between us and the family below (Mum, Dad, and young son), although there was a toilet and hand basin on the ground floor for them alone. It was my home for twelve years.
I thoroughly enjoyed teaching. Having been to Wennington I was used to diverse ethnic backgrounds and cultural differences so knew how to deal with problem children and parents, like the West Indian grandmother who, when bringing her granddaughter for her first day at school, offered a strap “to beat her with”, and the mother who would not let her son go into Mrs B's class because she would “make him do as he's told”.
After a couple of years, a spare classroom became available in which to set up a library and the head offered me a scale2 post to take on the responsibility for this. I was in heaven; selecting, ordering and displaying books for nursery and infant aged children as well as the daily lesson planning, teaching and record keeping of a class teacher. This was the start of my meteoric rise without any sense of ambition on my part. When the deputy head left in 1967 the headmistress suggested that I should apply for the deputy headship. At the interview with the governors my anxiety level was such that I couldn't refrain from coughing. The governors were really concerned, the headmistress flew out for a glass of water, I relaxed, and was appointed. In 1969 the headmistress retired and I became acting head for a couple of terms before a new headmistress was appointed. By 1971 I'd been at Clapham Manor for almost eight years – it was time for a change. The mantra of the time was that for the first three years of a teacher's career the school was giving, the teacher learning, then the reverse - the teacher giving back and the school benefiting. One shouldn't change jobs too often, but mustn't stagnate. My next step was to get a deputy headship at a school in more affluent Fulham. Here, again, the head saw the potential in me, convincing me to start applying for a headship. “Nobody gets appointed at their first application – you need to have lots of interview experience”.
I applied for the headship of a nursery and infant school in Bermondsey. The procedure was that the chief inspector would come to see me in action in the classroom to assess my suitability for promotion. This was a fiasco; the children were all quiet but positively occupied when one boy went to get something from a shelf and yelled out: “MAGGITS!”. The whole class swooped to see the crawling mass on the shelf which caused much disruption to the atmosphere. Someone had brought in a bag of mince, to feed to the fish, which had been forgotten. To this day I don't remember how I stayed calm or how I restored order in my classroom but my application was endorsed so must have made a good impression. The next stage was that the school's governors would, from all the applicants, select six for interview by them, from whom three would be put forward for interview by a panel of inspectors at County Hall who would make the final decision. On arrival at the school for interview with the governors the deputy head informed me that this was the second advert for the post; all six candidates at the previous round of interviews had been rejected, so there was stiff competition. I was shattered – if six had already been rejected what on earth was I doing there – NO CHANCE. Miraculously the governors selected me to go forward for interview at County Hall.
By the morning of the interview nerves had reduced me to a wreck. Dressed in a formal suit, with handbag, gloves and well polished shoes (my mother's influence) I vomited all the way along the Embankment trying to avoid making a mess of my outfit. Waiting in an ante room with the only other candidate (the third had dropped out) she surprised me by getting out two pairs of shoes from a large carrier bag and asking which pair I thought she ought to wear for the interview. I thought that if she couldn't decide on which shoes to wear how was she going to make decisions in running a school, but was too polite to say so. When the call came to enter the lion's den I was past caring. I left the room as the youngest ever to be appointed head of an ILEA school, at the age of 30, at my FIRST attempt! Not bad for someone without ambition. On the journey home I felt so emotional about my success I called into the nearest Inter-flora shop to send my Mum a bouquet of flowers as a thank you. Later, when I telephoned her she was bursting with pride.
For nine years my career was a happy fulfilling experience with a staff of excellent like-minded, caring teachers and support staff including parents. My school had a good reputation in the area, particularly for dealing with children's social and emotional development as well as the academic. The inspectorate appreciated the good relationship with all members of the community, such that I was asked to take on a lesbian teacher in the throes of having a mastectomy who was being bullied and very unhappy at the school she was at. She was totally accepted and turned out to be a very good teacher and a popular member of my staff. Also, the New Kent Road Annexe to Rachel Mac College would send their 'difficult' students to me for teaching practise. The only part of the job I disliked was taking assembly, attending governors meetings (where I had to give a report), or any gathering where I was the centre of attention: my stomach would churn, my hands shake uncontrollably. Whenever I expressed that I suffered from nerves people were surprised, commenting how cool, calm and in control I always appeared to be.
Throughout my time at college and during my career, every holiday I would go home to spend some time with Mum or take her on CHA walking holidays or B&B trips to visit National Trust properties. She would go to Wennington reunions with me and during term time would occasionally stay with me at the flat in Balham. One by one the other three girls had left to get married. I was joined by an ex-Wenningtonian friend, Judy, who was working at Kings College Hospital, in Brixton, so there was room for visitors.