Extra-curricular activities at a girls' grammar school in the 1950s
Based on experiences at Copthall County Grammar School, Mill Hill, north London in the 1950s
My grammar school in the 1950s arranged a number of extra-curricular activities, although I was
only ever involved in three - see below. This was because extra-curricular
activities tended to cost money, and it seemed that
my parents were always saying that they couldn't afford things. How much this
was true and how much simply a natural reaction to anything involving money, I
do not know. Nevertheless, I only took part in extra-curricular activities that
were reasonably local.
There were certainly overseas visits. So other parents did pay. It is
likely that they came from better-off families and that if Copthall had not
been such a top grammar school, they would have paid for private education
for their children. There were also cultural visits within the UK for the
sixth form, but these were mainly for the girls who were taking subjects in
the arts and humanities. I was a science student.
There were also after-school lessons to learn musical instruments, but
that wasn't my forte because of my poor hearing - at that time undiagnosed.
Anyway, they too would have cost money.
The school dance
The school tried to prepare us for life outside school and in the future for when we had left school.
One way was through ballroom dancing. At that time - or to be more precise,
about 20 years previously - all well brought up young ladies knew how to waltz,
quickstep and foxtrot, etc, and indeed all well brought up young gentlemen knew
how to partner the young ladies and lead them round the floor.
When I was at Copthall in the late 1950s, the accomplishment was already well in
decline as a necessity. Nevertheless, we all had to learn ballroom dancing.
We had ballroom dancing lessons with boys from Haberdashers for
about six weeks prior to the Copthall school dance. These lessons
were held after school and a professional dance teacher
took them. Boys and girls were paired up by height. The classes
certainly gave us some confidence.
After a few weeks my partner invited me to the Haberdashers dance
and because my older brother flatly refused to escort me to the
Copthall one, I returned the compliment and the Haberdasher boy came
as my partner. I am
sure we enjoyed the dance more being with a partner.
On arrival at the dance, we all had to line up and present our partner to Daisy.
Then during the dance, the teachers were placed at strategic positions around the Hall and we had to ask permission to go out to use the cloakroom.
Sally Lawson (formerly Sally Porte
In my year, the tuition came from a teacher in the hall to music on a
gramophone and we girls had to take it in turns to learn the male steps so
that our partners could practice the female ones.
Then came the school dance, which was for the fifth form (the O level
year). I believe that we were allowed to invite a boy to partner us, but
only a few knew anyone suitable. So numbers were made up with the school
inviting a clutch of extra boys from the local public school, Haberdashers.
The dance was an acute embarrassment to me, as at that stage I didn't
have a boyfriend and sat like a wallflower all evening as most of the boys
were too embarrassed to ask us girls to
dance. It was a shame for my mother who had put quite a lot of effort into
making me a ball gown and buying me suede evening shoes.
I could not have been alone in my embarrassment - although I pretended to
everyone that I didn't care - because the school clearly learnt from the
experience, and - as Sally Lawson's recollections show - things were very
different by two years later.
The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
The Royal Institution Christmas lectures take place, as their name implies, close to Christmas
at London's Royal Institution. They are annual events at which a renowned
scientist runs a series of lectures with inspirational demonstrations. These
days they are televised and have been for most of my adult life.
The whole class went, and, being in London, there was no significant
cost. I can't remember what the lectures were on, but I do remember the awe
I felt in the Royal Institution's curved and raked lecture theatre. I have
since been there many times.
Visit to Mill Hill Observatory
Copthall, being in Mill Hill, was close to Mill Hill Observatory. A small
group of science sixth formers went there on a visit, me included. It was a clear night and possibly there
were far fewer street lights then. The sky was black, and looking though a
telescope at the moon was something I shall never forget because I had never
seen anything like it. In the ordinary way, the moon looked - and still does
look - to me like a flat disc, even though of course I well know that it is
a globe. Somehow though, through that telescope, it seemed like a real globe
and it was difficult for me to accept how it was possible for it to hang
there, motionless and bright in the blackness, without falling to the ground
- this even though I well knew the science involved.
