TGS 120 Chapter. A step back in time…by Kathryn Leithead (nee Rowley) Class of 1991

“It’s been 33 years since I walked out of TGS on the last day of Upper Sixth in July 1991, but as I walked back along the upstairs corridor and into the school hall this past September, it was as if I’d never left.

While so much has changed with the addition of the many new and impressive buildings since my time at the school; nothing has changed at all in this part of the old building, and it took me straight back to being that wide-eyed 11-year-old, walking into assembly for the first time. I could almost picture some of the teachers – standing in their matching twinsets and pearls - on uniform patrol as we filed past, in later years quickly trying to pull down our rolled-up skirts and straighten our 80’s style thin ties before we were caught breaking the rules…again.

The old school photos line the walls as they always did, the collection of wooden honors boards listing the names of the previous head girls still hanging in the same spots, the bright light streaming in through the wall of windows in the entrance, and the exact same smell looming in the doorway, all took me back to a time gone by in an instant. It has a new name now – in memory of one of the great legacies, and the headmistress for all but my final year at TGS – The Mitchener Hall. 

Rows and rows of plush, comfortable seats adorn the room – gone are those hard, grey chairs and wobbly benches; the bookcases overflowing with tattered hymn books nowhere to be seen; our ever-gusty rendition of ‘School on the Hilltop’ hanging in the silence - but for the most part it hasn’t changed a lot; the grand piano remains, as do the wooden stage & dusty curtains - the only thing seemingly missing was the namesake herself, standing at the front addressing her dutiful subjects. It was a glimpse back into another lifetime, those Mitchener years were truly special.

As I explored the vastly developed campus, if I looked hard enough, there were still visible memories of the old days, pinned between the new additions over the years…the stone steps down to the PE changing rooms and gym - now a cafeteria - were exactly as I had remembered them and brought back memories of big green knickers under matching tennis skirts, each item painstakingly embroidered with our initials in chain-stitch, hockey sticks at the ready. The well-trodden path down to the lower gate on Deakin Leas - still in daily use, even though the rickety old huts, the Hillview Annexe and the sweeping driveway have been replaced by rows and rows of houses, with their corresponding back gardens. The old entrance sign, encased on the wall where it always sat, now at the rear of the building missing its former glory, but still hanging on by a thread to its place in the school’s long history. My Year 4 classroom, where we spent many a lunchtime dancing on the desks to Belinda Carlisle, freshly painted and with the ceiling lowered, now repurposed as an IT hub, but still holding an overwhelming sense of being frozen in time.

Understandably, the school has undergone a huge transformation over the past three decades; it’s shiny, it’s new and it’s fit for the 21st century, as it should be, but so many of the old memories are still there if you look in the right places. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to visit the school all these years later. While I certainly didn’t appreciate it at the time – in fact any fondness for my time at TGS has never been a strong talking point - it turns out that this place does still evoke many happy memories of my formative years, and thus, a very special place in my heart…I encourage all TGS alumni to take this trip down memory lane and see what it uncovers, it might just be the closure some need.”

After leaving TGS in the Summer of 1991, Kathryn attended Canterbury Christ Church College, where she received her degree in Professional Education & History. She worked at St. Mary’s Platt C of E Primary School in Kent for 17 years before she moved to Seattle, WA in 2014, where she lives with her husband Chris, daughter Yasmin (17) and son Josh (12). She continued her career as a teacher in the US and comes back to visit her family and friends in the UK as often as she can.