TGS Chapter Ursula Osmond. Dates at TGGS 1965 – 1972

Headmistress: Miss Hiscock

Form Mistresses: 1B Mrs Easton, 2C Miss Clarke, 3D Miss Debney, 4He Miss Heyes, 5Ho Miss Homewood, L6M  Miss Moore, U6 Miss Moore

House: Somerville

For the latest crop of pupils of the school, it will seem VERY long time ago that I was there! The equivalent for my First Form self in September 1965 would be a student who started at “the Grammar” in 1904! However, that I am writing about my experiences at the school, almost 60 years later, clearly demonstrates that it has had a disproportionate influence on my life.

It may surprise the modern student that some things at the school are, so I understand, the same – although I believe the “Annexe” has finally met its end. I had two separate years with a form room in its unlovely asbestos (?) walls. It always seemed just on the cusp of falling down, but ... ... and was always cold! During my time, the “new buildings”, which housed the library, I think it still may, was built. Their construction was a source of infinite interest, but we were forbidden to go anywhere near it, or the new music block and Small Hall, until they were complete. I also remember “the Huts” and drinking school milk (yes, I am that old) at the entrance of what I think was an air raid shelter.

I had the good fortune to have many outstanding teachers whilst at TGGS. First and foremost was Miss Debney. She taught me history from my First Year all the way to “A” Level, plus she had the (mis)fortune to be my form mistress in my third year. Even after I left school, in fact until she died, I sent her a Christmas card every year. Since I left, I have been to two reunions, on both occasions, without missing a beat, when she saw me she addressed me by name!! There was also Miss Waldron, mentioned by Victoria Hislop as one of the major influences on her and her writing. To have a 7/10 from Miss Waldron was something else; you had to have produced something very, very good.

I am also very grateful to Miss Lewis, as somehow I achieved a Latin “A”Level. This has served me in good stead. When at University, Roman Law was a compulsory subject, was I grateful to understand the Latin terms. Whether I will ever need to utilise my knowledge as to how to manumit a slave is open to question, but at least I did understand what it meant! In those days, I believe it has now changed, in the exam, you had to translate portions of the set Latin texts. Effectively you had to learn the texts as near to by heart as you could. I thought I had long since expunged all memory of any of the set texts, until I came across the Latin text of Dido and Aeneas, whilst Googling something completely different, and there was the concluding piece about the goddess Juno sending Iris snatching Dido’s soul – and I knew what it said. Same worked for the set text for “O” Level, Caesar’s Gallic Wars Book 6: clearly engraved on my brain are the words, “As Caesar was expecting, for many reasons, a more serious uprising in Gaul ...” I think I would have found the Gallic Wars far more interesting had we had to read Colleen McCullough’s book on Rome. However, I think, mayhap, I enjoyed her books BECAUSE I had been taught Latin well at school?

I learned German (I was not very good then, my German is way better these days), my year was among the first to use the new, much feted, Language Laboratory. Looking back, it was an unbelievable waste of time to get it all set up, but then it was “progress”. We were using it one morning and I became increasingly frustrated as to how I was NOT making it work, eventually muttering to myself, “I don’t know what I’m talking about” – through my headphones came Miss Stock’s words, “I do sometimes wonder Ursula”! I met her years later at a reunion, yes, she knew who I was! I did plead in my defence that my German was now much better.

I did (and do) not like French at all, but, as I have discovered in places such Cité de l’Europe, learned more than enough to purchase goodies in the supermarket without the locals looking at me in a pitiful fashion, or ignoring me completely.

I was not of the scientific persuasion: to this day Chemistry and Physics are a closed book! I just got away with Biology as my only science subject. Physics and I parted company when my father decided he would no longer do my homework! Added to which, I had to do the exam without his help.

School reunions are interesting. I have been to two. On both occasions I was given to wonder at the impression I may have made, as the staff I had known still knew and recognised me. I tell myself that it is because I look the same, other than the now white hair, but ... ... just sometimes I do wonder. The other salutary thing was to look at the Honours Boards, then up by the Headmistress’s study, and see my name and my degree on one, yikes! (I have wondered since if the school also got wind of the fact that I managed to get an LL M, back in 2000. The fact that a) I did and b) to my surprise, got a Distinction, is 100% down to the quality of the teaching and the way I was taught at TGGS. It was odd how the niceties of essay writing drifted back into the little grey cells. How I had been taught to present work really showed when I had to write a Dissertation, not something which I would care to do again.)

Way, way back in 1965 we were taught what was then called “Scripture” by a (very) scary Miss Wolverson. She retired the following year. Many years later, I must have been in my late 20s, I was with colleagues having lunch and drinking alcohol in the Rose & Crown in Tonbridge; I heard a voice I recognised and saw Miss Wolverson come in, with some others; lest she see and recognise me (I think she would have done!) I hid from her, just in case she would be disappointed that I was drinking a glass of wine.

Again, at the wedding of one of my school friend’s daughter, one of the photographers came over, she had recognised me from her days at TGGS!

The spread of former students is also quite surprising. I now live in the Wilds of Wiltshire, some way from the delights of Deakin Leas. I was at a meal in a restaurant and the subject of schools came up. The woman sat opposite me mentioned that she had been to TGGS, naturally, as a former pupil, I enquired as to who was Head at the time. When she said Miss Hiscock, I knew we had to have been there in the same time period, as Miss Hiscock was not Head for that length of time. Sure enough, she was in the year above me. She showed me her copy of the school photograph of 1971(?); she was in the row behind me.

Looking back to those years, I think that the influence of the Grammar was not apparent immediately, it has shown up over the years in the way I approach my work; how I think; the way I do something – even how I have written this piece. For that I am, and will always be, grateful to the “School on the Hill”.