2021 Newsletter
EDITOR’S NOTE
First of all, we apologise for the fact that there will only be one newsletter this year. A combination of COVID and the changes at the school have set us back somewhat. For all of us, it has been the strangest of times since the last issue of the newsletter. We would love to hear about people’s experiences in lockdown, especially any upbeat or unusual stories. Did you learn a new skill? Change career? Move house? Adopt a pet? Hopefully by this time next year, things will have returned to something resembling normality and we can look back with relief. We very much hope that no-one has suffered too badly during this crisis.
Thank you very much to everyone who has taken the time to send us news, obituaries and other interesting articles for the newsletter. Although every effort has been made to ensure that entries are correct, occasionally gremlins do creep in and the Club cannot be held responsible for any errors that may have arisen.
We would very much like to hear from younger OFs, who have left school relatively recently. And from the boys! We would love to know about your studies, your travels, your families and your lives. If you are the parent of a younger OF, who perhaps won’t get round to sending us news, please do let us how they are getting on, even if it’s only a line or two about their job or graduation or gap year destinations. To date we haven’t heard much from the OF boys, so please boys, do get in touch with your news. We have not received any data from the school about leavers for the past couple of years - if you know anyone who has left recently and would like to go on the OF database and receive the newsletters, please ask them to send their details to lynnoel@uwclub.net.
We are happy to publish information about charity fund-raising, etc., so if you’re planning to climb Kilimanjaro to raise money for Save the Children or to jump out of a plane for the Macmillan nurses, please let us know and you may get a few more sponsors, as well as raising awareness.
We are always very pleased to publish news of any OF gatherings or memories of your time at school and they are one of the most popular features of the newsletter. Please include names of those who attended reunions, together with their maiden names (if applicable) and their house/dates at St Felix. Any submissions and comments should be sent to Deborah Digby deborah.digby@icloud.com (full address in Committee List).
As you can see from recent issues of the newsletter, we can now include photographs, so please send us any that you would like to accompany reports of OF get-togethers, etc. We cannot guarantee to publish them all but will try our best.
Deborah Digby
IMPORTANT NEWS FROM THE SCHOOL
Saint Felix School joins Inspired Learning Group
In April this year Saint Felix issued a press release, announcing a new partnership with education provider, Inspired Learning Group (ILG). Through this partnership, Saint Felix will join ILG, a like-minded group of schools and will benefit from extensive investment which will go towards improving the school’s facilities and professional development opportunities. In turn, this will enhance the school’s existing high standards of teaching and learning and enable Saint Felix to continue to provide the best possible education and opportunities for students and staff. ILG comprises 16 schools and nurseries, supporting over 1,300 students across South-East England.
In view of the significant challenges of the global pandemic, which have led to unpredictable levels of recruitment, especially for international pupils, the School was prompted to seek a long-term, sustainable solution to secure its future.
James Harrison, Headmaster said:
“At Saint Felix we have a long and successful history of providing the very best education and opportunities for students. We are passionate about supporting each and every child to discover and realise their full potential, which is why, with these shared values, Inspired Learning Group is the perfect partner to build further on our rich tradition of academic and extracurricular excellence.
“All our decisions have been made with the best interests of our school community in mind, and I am excited that we are about to embark on this new chapter as part of the ILG family.”
The CEO of ILG, Amit Mehta said
“We are delighted to be welcoming Saint Felix School into the Inspired Learning Group and look forward to supporting the School as it continues to deliver a fantastic educational experience for students and staff.”
The full press release can be found on the Saint Felix School web site: stfelix.co.uk
COMMITTEE
We are delighted to welcome Samantha Bowman, Marina Esteve, Biddy Strachan and Amy Roberts to the committee. Marina has been appointed Social Media Coordinator and has recently launched an OF Instagram account.
TREASURER REQUIRED
The OF Club needs a new Treasurer. It is not an onerous task as there are few banking transactions. If you could spare an hour a month and then attend the three committee meetings in person or electronically, please get in touch with Caroline MacMillan.
REGIONAL REPRESENTATIVES
Over recent years the Regional Representatives have done a great job keeping in touch with OFs in their area or country, arranging social gatherings, feeding news back to Deborah for the newsletter and submitting updates for the OF database. However, over the course of time, means of communication have changed with telephone calls and letters being replaced by emails and Facebook has been joined by Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube.
So, after some discussion, it has been decided not to continue with the network of regional reps. The OF Committee would like to say a very sincere thank you to all the reps for the wonderful work they have done by keeping in touch with those in their area or country, encouraging OFs to meet up with other OFs, organising local events, liaising with members of the committee and generally keeping the OF flag flying. Thank you, regional reps!
THE SUNK GARDEN
The Saint Felix School Sunk Garden (Sunken Garden or ‘Sunks’ as many remember it), in the grounds to the south of the school buildings, was designed by Miss Silcox during 1920 as a memorial to Old Felicians who died in the First World War. The work was carried out by Bertha Steadman, then in charge of grounds, and her team of groundsmen. Miss Maia Bond, an Old Girl on the staff, helped Miss Silcox take measurements and Mademoiselle Buquet supplied the French words for the sundial. A plaque in the school building is inscribed with the names of those commemorated. The garden has been much enjoyed over the last hundred years but eventually it became rather derelict, the borders overgrown with weeds, paths badly damaged and supporting walls crumbling. Sponsors were found and funds raised and with the help of the whole school including pupils, staff, parents, governors and Old Felicians, work has already started and the site cleared. Whilst the COVID pandemic has slowed progress, work continues. More details about the Sunk Garden Project can be found on the OF section of the school website - www.stfelix.co.uk - and also details of how you can help either financially or physically - or both.
OLD FELICIAN INSTAGRAM PAGE
Hello All,
My name is Marina and I am reaching out because I am the newest member of the Old Felician’s Committee. We are working hard to get younger old Felicians involved with the club and so my role is that of social media co-ordinator. We have recently established an Instagram page (@oldfelicians) which has a growing number of followers. The goal of the Instagram account is to keep our members more frequently updated on the goings on of former members. I also want to use it as a space to promote businesses owned by OFs or any charity events being organized by OFs.
I know this year has been a strange one but I am reaching out to see if any of you have hosted events this year that we could post about on the page. Perhaps a few zoom reunions have taken place that you would like to tell us about or you may even know of other social news that could be posted on our new page. If so please let me know, I can even pass on the information to be included in our next newsletter if you so wish.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Marina Esteve, Edmund House, 2003-2011
OLD FELICIAN DATABASE
The database is only as good as the information you give us, and we are finding that changes of address, particularly email addresses, are not being kept up to date. You will not receive your newsletter if your address is not up to date, so please drop a quick email to Lyn Kennedy at lynnoel@uwclub.net confirming your latest name, address, email and phone numbers, if any of these have changed. If anyone wishes to report the death of an Old Felician and to have their name removed from the database, please let Lyn know. This would be hugely appreciated by the membership secretary.
SAINT FELIX POSTCARDS
Both Alison Clark (Lanbury) and her mother, Margorie Thomasson, were in Clough, Marjorie during the First World War and Alison in the 1950s. Postcards and pictures have been reproduced from the two delightful watercolours which Margorie kept from her time at the school, one of Clough and the other a long view towards Somerville, Gardiner and the main school buildings from the Sunken Garden. You can view the paintings on the OF sections of the school website. Cost and ordering information are as follows:
POSTCARDS: £2.50 (PACK OF 10) plus P&P £1.00 (UK only)
A4 PICTURE: £15 each plus P&P £3.00 (UK only)
Please contact our Secretary, Caroline, for ordering and more information.
FROM 1950s ONWARDS
Former OF Club Chair, Elizabeth Strowlger (Roberts) is gathering information about life at Saint Felix from the 1950s onwards, with a view to compiling a booklet covering life at the school after the period covered in the book Saint Felix School Southwold and the Old Felicians by Bernard Sidney Keeling and Nancy Pelling. Please send any information to estrowlger@gmail.com.
OLD FELICIANS’ NEWS
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
We have received a request for information about Mrs Alker, who taught Physics at St Felix in the 1970s and 80s. If anyone has any information, please contact Deborah Digby at deborah.digby@icloud.com
Lucie Storrs would love to hear from OFs who knew her mother Evelyn (Lyn) Avery Jones, who was at St Felix from 1954-59, and could tell her anything about the photo below, taken on the terrace outside the House of Commons, probably in 1959.
There are some signatures on the back which may help to ring a few bells. Sadly Evelyn died in 1969 after complications following the birth of her second child and Lucie never really knew her.
Philip Hoy would like to contact Jacky Flurscheim, nee Simms, to talk to her about her work as Anthony Hecht’s editor at Oxford University Press. He can be contacted by email at philiphoy@waywiser-press.co
HILARY AIKMAN
Gardiner 1951-56
After leaving school I read English at U.C.L., then married and had three children. I spent most of my working life as a bookseller, first in an independent bookshop in Barnet, then Waterstone’s in Norwich, Hatchards in Colchester and Waterstone’s in Colchester. I am now the Saturday ‘girl’ at Walter Henry’s bookshop in Bideford and in the middle of writing a sort of memoir for my grandchildren. My sister Alison lives with her husband in Driffield.
CHARLOTTE HARTLEY
Head Girl 2013
Pemberton 2006-13
After two wonderful years as an Assistant Producer at Snape Maltings, Charlotte is heading back to London to take up the role of Assistant Producer for the Royal Opera House, focusing on developing new opera for the Linbury Theatre. Charlotte writes that although she is sad to leave Snape, which has been a wonderful place to start her career, she is truly excited and passionate about developing new work in her industry.
JENNIFER FAIR (Nee Brown)
Somerville 1948-53
I was at St Felix, Somerville House from 1948 to 1953 and really very happy most of the time. I broke many rules but never the one about not working on a Sunday. I remember the boothole, with its line of basins and lavatories, lockers for wet games shoes and cold and dampness. I do not think that I made the most of the great educational opportunities. I became a teacher, married, had three children and now live in the little village of Underriver in Kent. I sing in the church choir and when we sing a hymn by Martin Shaw, I remember him as an old man, sitting in a corner listening intently to us singing his music. We also had the unique experience of singing Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols with him conducting us. My love of music is my most precious legacy from St Felix. While my husband and I were still sailing, we used to sail from the Medway up to Southwold harbour, and walk up over the golf course, visit the Crown and the Seaman's Reading room and I once took my husband round the school, quite unofficially. Of course it had changed but it felt the same: the playing fields, the cloisters, the library, the chapel, the two silver birches near Somerville, the big hall, Paris and the cold wind.
ELIZABETH ALLISON
Gardiner 1979-88
Liz Allison, Germ Cell CNS, was awarded the University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust Nurse/Midwife of the Year 2019. Liz says: ‘I am thrilled to have been awarded the UH Bristol Nurse/Midwife of the Year 2019. It was a complete surprise! Being a clinical nurse specialist working within the fields of Germ Cell and Sarcoma cancers is a huge privilege. Explaining to others exactly what we do as a cancer specialist nurse is difficult . . . it is all encompassing. It is not easy but it is a job that I love and I strive to do the best that I can for each individual patient on a daily basis. It is a huge honour to have received this recognition.
RUPERT HAYES
Rowell 2014-16
After completing his education at St Felix in 2016, Rupert Hayes was thrilled to be appointed as an apprentice Agricultural Engineer at Ernest Doe. He undertook the academic studies for the apprenticeship at Reaseheath College in Cheshire and in May this year, graduated with Level 3 in Agricultural Engineering.
He was also awarded the prestigious “Best Academic Student” award. He is now nearing the completion of his apprenticeship as a qualified New Holland Engineer and looks forward to a rewarding career with the company. Rupert was a member of the Elite swimming squad at school and puts a lot of his ability to apply himself down to the rigorous training that he experienced under the guidance of Sue Purchase. He has received a glowing report both from college and his employer and he is very aware that his time at St Felix has taught him some valuable life skills as well as giving him a rounded education.
MARINA ESTEVE
Edmund House, 2003-11
After finishing at St Felix in 2011, I spent four very happy years studying Spanish and Film at the University of Exeter. Throughout my studies and upon graduation I worked in several different positions at a variety of schools before finally making the decision to train as a teacher. In 2017 I graduated from the University of East Anglia with an 'Outstanding' grade in my PGCE in Primary Education. After teaching Year 4 in Cambridge, I was ready for a new adventure, so I relocated to the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. Here I worked as an environmental educator, leading hikes, teaching kids to canoe and spending lots of time in the great outdoors, something I had zero interest in doing whilst at St Felix! Recently I was promoted to the position of Community Programs Director at one of the largest summer camps in the USA. In my role I oversee both a year round after school childcare centre and a day camp that caters to over 250 children on any given week. However the part of my job that I most enjoy is the community outreach work that I do, from organising food and clothes drives, to hosting holiday meals for families that cannot afford a big celebration at Christmas. Despite being a bit of a terror during my school days, I truly loved my time at St Felix and am still in touch with several friends, especially Harriet Wiltshire (2011) who is still my best friend to this day!
RUTH SKRINE (Hickson)
Clough 1939-47
The Pains and Pleasures of Writing in Old Age
An account of my journeys into medicine and writing was published in the Old Felician in January 2020. I hope these further reflections will be of interest to others who are exploring their creative interests in later life.
After editing my mother’s wartime diary, Carry on Coping, I published my memoir Growing into Medicine. I then turned to fiction which was much more challenging. I took various postal courses with the Open University and then gained an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. When writing for the medical and allied professions I had wanted to make my points as clearly as possible. With fiction I had to learn to leave space for the readers’ imagination.
Today’s publishing world is a jungle. I started to look for an agent too soon. By the time my stories were good enough, I was too old to take the long route to mainstream publishing via an agent. I believe the publisher of my first novel, Parallel Journeys, made his money from wannabe authors and never tried to sell the book in the general market. My present publishers are better than ‘vanity publishers.’ They are selective about what they will take, but I do pay them some money. (About a quarter of what I paid for the first.) They make some efforts to publicise my work. The disadvantage of such a hybrid publisher is that the books get no reviews in the national or local press and bookshops are not interested in displaying them.
My three recent novels were published in 2017, 2018 and 2019, the last just after my ninetieth birthday. The first, A Step Too Far, was about the environment. In the second, The Knotted House, I drew on both my clinical experience of trying to help people with sexual problems as well as my husband’s family diaries. The most recent, Samuel’s Truth, is a multicultural story about the search for faith. It is also a kind of detective story. I have set the book in 1968, an interesting year with fears about immigration and nuclear power that resonate with some of today’s anxieties.
Recently I have been writing Flash Fiction. This is very short fiction, anything from six to a thousand words. Most of the competitions are on line and only the winners are published in book form, so few trees are wasted.
The photo of my published books could be seen as a fan of failure. Commercially this is true. But for me, writing has enriched and illuminated my old age. There is a ‘space of unknowing’ inside myself that I have learnt to trust. I am excited when I read something I have written and find words that vibrate with unintended meaning. I write to discover things. Getting inside the heads and hearts of different characters helps me to see the world afresh. I become aware of my blinkered views and glib judgements. As age closes in, horizons narrow and senses fail. But while most faculties are waning, I know that my prose is still improving. Words have sharpened my appreciation of the world, given me great satisfaction and moments of intense excitement.
DAME BARBARA WOODWARD DCMG OBE
Brontë 1972-79
Barbara was appointed Permanent Representative of the UK to the United Nations on 6th August 2020, having previously served as Ambassador to China from 2015 to 2020.
FIONA EDMOND
Somerville 1977-85
Congratulations to Fiona Edmond on winning the English Senior Women’s Amateur Championship 2020 at Market Rasen Golf Club for the second time after three years fighting injury and not playing at all since her win in 2017.
JAYNE TRACEY (Nee Forsythe)
St. George's & Gardiner 1950-57
Hopefully by the time this article appears the pandemic will have retreated into the background as I - like everyone else - have had to put on hold all my usual activities, but decided this was a good time to write about my work as the Area Heritage Secretary for East Anglia for NADFAS - now known as The Arts Society or TAS for short. Having spent my working life in commerce and industry, the pleasure of my current job with NADFAS/TAS is in using all those years of classics and history at St. Felix, which I had followed with a college course in Fine Arts and languages in Switzerland. All of these interests I had pursued as passionate hobbies but NADFAS/TAS has given me the chance to use this knowledge and experience to wider benefit. I feel sure that many of you reading this article will yourselves be NADFAS/TAS members, Committee members or Branch Chairmen and I believe that NADFAS was the original idea of an OF, Helen Lowenthal. She was co-founder and Vice President and it was founded at her home in 1967 with the other co-founder, Patricia Fay.
NADFAS/TAS has a fine record of promoting the Arts and particularly Young Arts and I am sure my experiences will chime with many of you. One of my main responsibilities is to support volunteering opportunities for our members across the East Anglian region and the breadth of this has proved very impressive - as it has in other regions of the country - which becomes apparent when we coordinate our nationwide annual Heritage reports. There are now national, regional and branch websites detailing opportunities for members to volunteer and what follows will give you some idea of the scope and breadth in this region. One of the new national ideas to come out of the pandemic lockdown was to post Walking Trails on our websites where members can write up favourite walks encompassing historical interest for other members to follow and my contribution has been a footpath circling one of the mediaeval, flint, round-towered Suffolk churches which I found mentioned in the Domesday Book! Because our area encompasses Cambridge, many of our members are helping out in college libraries where there is always work to be done conserving and preserving old books. Training is arranged for specialist work and the work is always overseen by a qualified curator. Recently, the Churches Conservation Trust asked us to find an expert in textiles to assist a Cambridge church and for many years we have had volunteers at National Trust properties helping with similar work or stewarding their properties. The restoration of a local mediaeval Guildhall brought opportunities with their re-enactment, education and gardening work and the opening of the new National Horse Racing Museum and Art Gallery at Palace House Newmarket - offering a rolling programme of exhibitions - brought openings for members to meet and greet visitors from all over the world. Volunteering opportunities also exist with the museums in our region and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is overseeing work by volunteers at the Wisbech Museum where the whole collection is being catalogued and digitised and volunteers also work alongside County Archives where needed. Some of these projects will continue indefinitely and others will be more specific projects which have a time limit - there is always something to suit every volunteer's available time. I do hope this has whetted your appetite to consider becoming a NADFAS/TAS volunteer with your local branch if you are not already hard at work! Our work at NADFAS/TAS is so worthwhile.
MARY OAKELEY (Headmistress)
Following on from our short piece on Miss Oakeley in the last issue, we have received an excerpt from The Reader:
‘Lavender Buckland from Shaftesbury has written to The Reader about her aunt, Miss Mary Oakeley. Lavender writes: ‘Miss Oakeley was a remarkable woman. She was appointed - at 27 years old - as the youngest Headmistress in the Commonwealth as Head of Craighead Diocesan School in Timaru, New Zealand, a post she held from 1940-55. After a distinguished career, she was later Headmistress of St Felix School, Southwold, Suffolk, until her retirement. She records in her autobiography The Long Timetable (1997): ‘I was appointed as the second woman Reader in the Anglican Church, by the Archbishop of New Zealand; as the second woman Lay Reader in the English Anglican Church by the Bishop of Edmundsbury and Ipswich, and by the Bishop of Oxford as Lay Reader in the Oxford Diocese’.
FROM THE OLD FELICIANS FACEBOOK PAGE . . .
Margit van der Zwan (Clough 1987-94) writes: ‘I took a picture of my mum (81) because the cafe decor matched her outfit.
“Nice jumper, Mum! Where did you get that?”
“Look closely” she replied . . .
OF MEMORIES
SARAH REED
Carter, Somerville 1962-69
Sarah sent these lovely photos of her sporting memories of St Felix.
The first photo is Sarah at a tennis match Summer 1963.
The second picture is Somerville Juniors Spring 1963 after a hockey match, players and non-players: left to right: Kathy Clarke, Caroline Wykeham, Ann McClintock, Mary Packard, Fiona Sawday.
ST FELIX HISTORY
A Very English Christmas: Jewish Children at St Felix School, December 1938
Evelyn Wilcock nee Gollin, Clough 1952-57
When I first came to Maidenhead synagogue, Harry and Marianne Philipps took me home with them and Harry talked to me about Suffolk, which he loved, and about the angel roof churches there. Because he was a builder, he could tell you very vividly how the first ark was constructed and equally about the building of those Suffolk churches with the great hammer beam roofs. Going back to Suffolk, I stop at Blythburgh church, where the nave is overhung with bleached ranks of flying angels on the roof. Just up the coast on a bleak headland stands St. Felix School. It is a conventional British public school, a world on its own, isolated above the marshes and cut off from the town by the winding estuary.
I was sent away there on my thirteenth birthday. My father explained that a thirteenth birthday had special significance for Jews and he passed on to me a number of his own Bar Mitzvah presents. Yet as soon as I arrived at the school I found myself obliged for the first time in my life to learn Christmas carols by heart. Our headmistress, Margaret Williamson, was formidable and remote. An austere, low church Christian, she grew up in Scotland and did her Ph.D. in seventeenth century letters and diaries. At St Felix we had an excellent theological upbringing. In chapel we had readings from Bunyan and Thomas Moore, and also from women, Dame Julian of Norwich and the pacifist, Evelyn Underhill. But it was not a comfortable place to be a Jew.
Yet Harry was so glad to find that I had been at St Felix. It turned out he had been there too. He told me that those long dormitories with their polished wooden floors and metal bedsteads, where I thought I was the only Jew, had once been full of Jewish children to whom it had offered a real warmth and welcome. A music teacher friend reminded me that when we were at school, we had wonderful concerts played by the Amadeus Quartet. That was because one of the players, the late Peter Schidlof, also remembered his Christmas at the school. Playing to us was his way of saying thank you.
In late 1938, after the Kristallnacht Pogrom, Jewish parents did exactly what the English had done two months earlier. They tried to send their children away to safety. And in response to a crisis delegation from the refugee organisations, the British government agreed to give special status to child refugees and to allow transit of 10,000 children under the age of seventeen. This all happened at immense speed. The first Kindertransports (Child transports) left Berlin and Hamburg on 1 December, and Vienna on 11 December 1938. The Germans would not permit the children to travel direct from Hamburg. They had to come via Holland and they were allowed to bring with them only one suitcase and 10 Reichsmarks.
On 12 December, children from Vienna arrived in Harwich after a two day journey. Most were Jewish, others were ‘non-Aryan’ Catholics and Protestants, but there were also children of anti-Nazis. The boats disembarked at Harwich and the organisers looked for accommodation. It seemed like a good idea to hire the nearby holiday camps, particularly the new Butlins at Dovercourt. Some of the children were housed in chalets at Warners's camp, Pakefield, near Lowestoft. Early in December 1938 it began to snow. Winter had never come so early or been so fierce. There was no heating and everything in the camp froze. The place was unfit for human habitation and the children were moved, on humanitarian grounds, into the Grand Hotel in Lowestoft. It wasn't as grand as it sounds. Five hundred children were provided with mattresses, blankets and pillows and slept on the ballroom floor while an urgent appeal went out for accommodation for them.
One of the people who heard that appeal was Margaret Williamson and remarkably she acted on it. In 1938 she was not at all the severe figure I knew. She was a new, young headmistress in her first term at a girls’ public school which was threatened with closure, as the Depression had led to falling numbers. The school was losing money and pupils. Lord Craigmyle and Ernest Gowers, the Chairman of the governors, had looked for a new headmistress with the drive and force of character to save the school. Then came the Munich crisis. Being on the East Coast the school was completely vulnerable to attack from Germany and the governors were forced to spend large sums to build air raid shelters. Margaret Williamson found that the political and economic disasters were closing in on the school she had been supposed to save. She offered to take a few of the more delicate children. The organisers begged her to take two hundred. Instead of making excuses, and without consulting the Board of Governors, on her own initiative, she appealed to her staff to help her take in the Jewish children and to provide them with a warm and happy Christmas.
Miss Williamson herself said it was a leap in the dark. "We were surprised to find ourselves from the first morning the centre of a large and enthusiastic voluntary organisation for all kinds of service." Southwold was battling with frozen pipes, plumbing emergencies and its own Christmas preparations. "The whole of Southwold and district seemed to want to help and volunteers came to us from all over the country. Presents, showing much thought for the needs of the boys, poured in from our own girls and their parents.” VADs (women of the Voluntary Aid Detachment ) gave up their Christmas holidays to do house and kitchen work, local firms and residents were extraordinarily generous, offering everything from logs to free laundry. Entertainments were laid on free and a PT instructor came up from Southwold, which was much appreciated.
She made hurried but elaborate preparations. Some of the teachers volunteered to stay on and help. Domestic staff agreed to come in to cook and clean. Beds were made up and bath water heated. The little children would arrive towards six and it was planned that they should be bathed and given a nursery supper tucked up in bed. St. Felix was always cold. We had coal fires in the common rooms, knitted ourselves mittens and wore bedsocks. Most of us got chilblains. I dread to think what it was like for Harry and the other children at Lowestoft, where they had no heating at all. Margaret Williamson sent the schoolgirls home twenty four hours early, which must have thrown their parents somewhat. The girls departed at 9.00 in the morning and so freed the school for the Jewish children who arrived at four the same day.
The chattering little children who were expected by these lady teachers never arrived. The buses that turned into the drive carried boys ranging from 12 to 16 years old, with bulky overcoats and large cloth caps hiding their faces. It was snowing. The first thing the boys in Brontë House did was run into the basement where there were washbasins, just to wash their hands in warm water for the first time for days. Then they headed for the open fire in the common room. They hadn't had heat like that for a week. One boy wrote, "When I was in the huts of the holiday camp I wished only to live in a warm room. But when we were in the Grand Hotel of Lowestoft, I saw that a warm room was not enough. But a warm room and a real bed. So I was very glad when we came to St Felix School. Here I had both a real bed and a warm room." Some boys had to be physically prevented from going to bed fully clothed, even with their boots and overcoats. The women of St Felix recovered from their initial surprise. "We were shaking with secret laughter.” wrote another volunteer. "My doubts vanished, as my catering instinct registered double supplies of everything over Christmas."
When the gong rang for tea the boys found the dining room decorated with coloured streamers. These children could not be tucked up in bed and they were too old for the toy trains that had been bought for them. Instead they elected prefects, ate supper off properly laid tables with white cloths (“the best we have had here”, said one), had hot baths (“Here we can bath all day”, wrote another) and resumed the normal pattern of life at St Felix. It was a good public school and it began to function as one. At St Felix there were five houses and the boys divided between them, rapidly developing the same house loyalty and inter-house rivalry as British public school pupils. They even played house matches, much as we did, except that their game was football. But this was not normal school. These children had arrived from terrible experiences.
I was surprised to find that the boys were at the school for only twelve days. How could such a short stay have made such a lasting impression? I think it was because for everyone it was something quite new and different. When the boys heard they were going to a school it put them in a bad mood. They were fed up with being shunted from one place to another. "From Germany we knew schools to be narrow, unfriendly and dark buildings without any possibility of recreation and we felt like people condemned to go to prison.” Instead they found kind ladies and white table cloths. Being a woman, I overlooked the significance of those school mistresses and of clean sheets and table settings, even though the boys mention them again and again. When they leave home, teenage boys miss their mothers very much. They are not allowed to say so, but they do. At St Felix the boys found themselves back in the care of women and it was something they needed very much. The boys encountered English kindness, they began to learn English manners and the English language. It was a learning experience for the teachers too. Many of them had never met Jews and the English weren't used to the extreme personal and political situations from which the boys had come. Both sides made mistakes out of ignorance, but they all wanted the set-up to work, so they both learned from it.
Another English volunteer describes the first morning. "At breakfast next morning I noticed that the orthodox Jews no longer wore their caps, and was told that they had had a meeting at which they decided that as they were now in a Christian home, they would conform to Christian customs. Each day after breakfast saw the boys sweeping, dusting, washing up, peeling potatoes, cleaning vegetables, etc. and everybody performed his job with hearty goodwill, although one knew that some had never done such work before." Domestic staff had volunteered to help, along with professional people like Dr Borham, the school doctor. "We had splendid help from the relays of Brontë maids who stayed or came back to take their share of the work and, after some initial misgivings, thoroughly enjoyed the experience. After the chores were finished there were lessons until dinner time. Before sitting down to dinner each day, at the boy's request, we all stood in silence for a moment thinking of those left at home in Austria. At first some had to stay indoors in the afternoon, as they either had no boots or their boots leaked. They were very happy with ping pong and other indoor games”. There was over a foot of snow and the thaw did not set in till Boxing day. It was so bad that no one went out the first day. They had a free day to settle and in the evening they had a cinema show. On Friday they started English lessons, three periods in the morning, held in the houses and taught by friends from St Felix. In the evening there was a piano recital in the Gym given by Miss Hess, the Head of Music.
Saturday was Christmas Eve and we are told that celebrations started for Jew and Gentile alike. Germans celebrate and give presents on the evening of Christmas Eve rather than on the 25th December. The Christian boys (there were 17 of them) and the staff went to chapel. The candles were lit and there was a Christmas tree alight and a present for each boy. After a few prayers the Austrian boys sang Stille Nacht followed by one verse of Good King Wenceslas which the boys were able to sing too.
Hannukah, the Jewish midwinter festival of lamps, began that year on the evening of 17th December and it happened that Christmas Eve at St Felix was the last night of Hannukah. "One evening Mr Ernst told us to be very quiet. Suddenly he came back with great cases in his arms. Then he opened it and gave presents to all of us. We all clapped our hands with joy. There were very many of them and all of them were very nice. We were very surprised. I had not dreamed that anyone would be so kind to us and send so fine presents. I'll always remember the kindness we felt here throughout the whole day.
Christmas day arrived and the tables were once again laden with crackers and good things to eat. There was roast beef and Christmas pudding. After the meal some of the boys built a massive snow tank on the lawn outside Fawcett House. In Somerville House K played his accordion and G the piano and the boys sung German folk songs. There was a lot of musical talent among the boys and some wonderful concerts sound to have been given. Boxing day was a normal school day with lessons. "On Boxing day," wrote Miss Rees, "I began having the boys in small groups to tea in my drawing room, letting them talk of their families and look at books, Christmas cards, etc." By Tuesday the weather was fine and the sun was shining. The boys from Somerville had fun feeding the sea gulls after breakfast. The boys did not like the school porridge and evidently the gulls did! New Year’s Day was celebrated with a conjuring show, a ventriloquist and an extra good meal with crackers (again), a House play and music, as well as more presents.
Miss Rees, housemistress of Fawcett, and credited with much of the success of this whole undertaking, wrote "And as the days went on we settled into an ordered routine, the chief impression was one of great happiness and friendliness, so that it was sometimes difficult to realise all that lay beneath the surface and all the tragic experiences through which so many of them had passed. Occasionally one had glimpses of it, for in conversation with the few who could speak English and in their eagerness for letters from home one could sense the homesickness and uncertainty about the future that lay behind their cheerfulness.” The boys, who had found notes of welcome waiting on their beds on arrival, wrote notes of thanks when they left. They were photographed and their picture, taken on a Saturday, Sabbath, still hangs in the school cloisters with their almost illegible signatures on the back. Miss Williamson reported defensively to her Governors that the whole enterprise cost the school only ten pounds. "Certainly," Miss Rees wrote, "We have found blessing - a deep satisfaction at seeing these boys welcomed, after being insulted and hounded in Germany and Austria, and treated as individuals, with their own jobs to do and their own place in life, and not as a mass of refugees. If only it could be for longer.” The housemistress of Gardiner did leave with the boys to go on looking after them, and apparently married one of the staff who had come with them. And back in Dovercourt the boys wrote that they had kept to their house groups. Fawcett boys slept together and beat Clough at soccer. Miss Rees hoped that caring adults would be found to give the boys an anchor, which she herself had tried to be. We know that she wrote to at least one boy's mother and the boys wrote to her.
In the nine months following November 1938, 80,000 Jews found refuge in Britain. And from Spring to Autumn 1939, 350 children arrived, most of them Jews.
Based on a talk given to Maidenhead Synagogue Social and Cultural Society on 9th January 1992, by Evelyn Wilcock (nee Gollin, Clough 1952-57).
Harry Philipp’s Story
(based on information and photographs provided by Harry’s widow Marianne)
Harry’s story began in 1922 in Hamburg. His mother died in childbirth and his father remarried but then he died, followed by Harry’s step-mother. In 1935 Harry went to live at the Auerbach Orphanage, a children's home in East Berlin. In 1937, Marianne (who was later to become his wife), and her younger brother, Herbert, also came to live at Auerbach as their mother had also died and their father couldn’t look after them.
Boys and girls lived in separate houses, only allowed to meet for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoons. Harry approached Marianne and offered to look after 6 year old Herbert, starting a relationship that was to last until his death in 1990. He proposed marriage to her within seven months, but it was to be another 5 years before they married. When he reached the age of 16,
Harry left Auerbach to start an engineering apprenticeship in Berlin. Life became increasingly difficult for Jews in Germany, culminating on 9th November 1938 in ‘Kristallnacht’ when Nazi supporters attacked Jewish businesses, synagogues, hospitals, schools and communal buildings
On December 1st 1938, Harry boarded the first Kindertransport train to Britain and safety, leaving Berlin (and Marianne) behind. He was already over 16 (the upper age limit), but somehow, he was allowed a place. After staying at Pakefield Holiday Camp and a holiday camp at Dovercourt in Essex, and enjoying the Christmas at St Felix, Harry was placed with a foster mother in May 1939 and became a bricklayer’s apprentice.
Eight months after Harry left Berlin, Marianne got a place on a Kindertransport (which we now know was one of the last to leave) to become a nanny in Somerset. After her arrival, her host family found a sponsor for her brother Herbert, but before he could leave Berlin, war was declared and the border was closed. Sadly, neither Herbert nor his father survived.
A New Life in Britain
Harry and Marianne were now both living in England but they were still 200 miles apart. They were able to write to each other, but could not meet. In June 1940 the family looking after Marianne emigrated to Canada and without warning she was sent to London where she lived through the Blitz, spending the rest of the war in a refugee hostel whilst working first as a seamstress and then as assistant manager of the hostel.
In August, as an ‘enemy alien’, Harry was interned on the Isle of Man, but on his 18th birthday in October he joined the Army Pioneer Corps, a non-combat unit. After 3 months training in Bradford, with his free travel pass in hand, he travelled to London to see Marianne. In 1942, he proposed to her again, on Finchley Road Station. No ring or bended knee, but a pragmatic suggestion that if they were married, he could get the (higher) married man’s pay rate! As both of them were under the age of 21, they were “Wards of Court”. To marry, Harry had to have the permission of his commanding officer. Marianne got her father’s written permission (in German), which she then had to translate for the magistrate, who had no idea if she was telling the truth! Wedding presents included clothing coupons so Marianne could buy material for her dress, whilst Harry wore the only clothes he had - his uniform.
Barely into adulthood, they already had experiences of life beyond their years. Married life was hard. After the war, Harry remained in the Army as a translator, stationed in Germany until 1948. On returning to civilian life in England, he restarted his career as a brick-layer and in 1953, they bought their ‘dream house’ in Maidenhead and started a family, having two children who, in turn, gave them four grandchildren.
Harry and Marianne lived a Jewish life and were members of Maidenhead Synagogue for many years. Harry specialised in running a programme of educational visits to the synagogue for local schools and involved himself in many other aspects of community life. When failing health forced him to retire, he took on more voluntary work.
He died on January 1st 1990, aged 68.
Our thanks to Marianne and family for allowing this brave and extraordinary story to be written and heard.
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY COMMEMORATION EVENT
On Monday 27th January, St Felix School was privileged to host Southwold’s HMD Commemoration event for the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The Silcox Theatre was packed to overflowing with members of the local community and school pupils.
In his introductory address, the Headmaster gave a resumé of the part played by the school in hosting over 200 Kindertransport boys from Germany and Austria during the harsh winter of 1938-39. This was followed by a presentation from Nigel Spencer MBE who provided more information about the Kindertransport in East Anglia together with black and white newsreel film about conditions and facilities in their holiday camp base in Harwich. The next two speakers (Evelyne Raphaël and Larry Lisner) respectively described their experiences of living in Nazi-occupied France and surviving in Auschwitz.
Holocaust Memorial Day not only commemorates the victims of the Holocaust but also those affected by more recent ethnic cleansing regimes. Dieudonne Gahizi Ganza spoke very movingly about the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, in which over 50 members of his family were murdered.
Following the Kaddish prayer, the event concluded with Klezmer Music, which originated in the Jewish ghettoes of Eastern Europe. This haunting music is based on the traditions of the 18th century Ashkenazi Jewish communities and provided an appropriate and thought-provoking finale to the presentations.
OTHER NEWS
BLYTHBURGH FOCUS MAGAZINE
A recent issue of the Blythburgh Focus village magazine included the following request ‘The daffodils that cover the left bank as you turn from the A12 onto the Beccles road are also reason to pause and remember. They were planted by St Felix School girls within living memory (best anecdotal estimates seem to suggest about 60 years ago) but so far no explanation has been forthcoming as to why. If you have any information on this it would be lovely to hear from you.’ If any OFs can remember why the daffodils were planted, please let Deborah Digby know and she will pass on the info to the magazine.
OBITUARIES
SHEILA CANDACE AUSTIN (Nee Collett, Centre Cliff and Brontë, 1933-41)
Sheila was born in Uttar Pradesh in India on 18 January 1926, the youngest daughter of Arthur and Sheila Collett and sister to Anne and Tony. She was christened Sheila Candace but was always called Candace. Her father was a Latin and Greek scholar at Cambridge and Candace derives from the Old Greek word for incandescent, which is a wonderfully apt description of Candace.
Both her parents were born in colonial India but when she was five, her father, who was in the Indian Civil Service, was offered the dubious honour of being Governor of the Andaman Islands, a remote and undeveloped archipelago off the Indian coast and home to one of the world’s last unconnected tribes. For the sake of his young family he declined gracefully and retired to Suffolk from where his family had originally come. The family moved into The Lodge at Hollesley and the years she spent there before the war were some of her happiest. When she described it, it sounded so very Enid Blyton - lots of freedom and adventures and lashings of butter on crumpets! There were tea parties and tennis parties and riding her beloved horse Bison, who sounded just as naughty as Candace could be. She and her brother Tony would race their horses across Shottisham Heath completely unfettered by parental restraint, unlike today’s children. One day, they were thirsty and Candace suggested they stop at the pub for a drink. Tony offered to hold Bison and in she went and ordered ‘Two ciders please’ to the shock of the publican and the hilarity of her brother. That became her standard drink whenever she went to the pub, right to the end. It was in Suffolk that her love of both the sea and tennis began. In the summer, the family would regularly cycle, passing magnificent Suffolk Punches on the way to Shingle Street and camping out behind the windbreakers, swimming and picnicking with only the seagulls for company. She loved the sea and swimming and swam at Southwold until she was 92, with the help of the lifeguards or her ‘toyboys’. She would lavish them with biscuits and cake, just as she would like to do with anyone who visited her. One of her great pleasures was having people over for tea and cake.
Candace loved her tennis and Fred, their gardener, kindly prepared the ground in front of the garage so she could practice. And practice she did, for hours. When she wanted to master something, whether tennis, gold, windsurfing, French or the piano, she was determined to work hard and she loved to do so. Her passion for tennis saw her play for Oxfordshire with her dear friend Rachel Wells, play at the Wimbledon Championships in 1953 where she was beaten in the second round by the ultimate winner, win many tournaments in Canada and the Singapore Open several times.
Candace was sent to board at the age of seven at Saint Felix School, starting at Centre Cliff, which she said was so cold that the water in the basins froze, but it had a fantastic view of the sea. People who knew her at the time remember her as the naughty Collett.
Towards the end of the war she went up to London to start her training as a physiotherapist. She was given a limited budget by her parents, but she worked out that if she walked to the hospital every day, she could afford to have a piece of lemon cake every Friday at Fuller’s Tea Room. Her enjoyment of cake was something she never lost and it was always a treat. At the end of the war she went to work at the Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford for a few years, which she enjoyed. However, tragedy struck when her sister Anne, who was a Wren, was returning from Malta to be demobbed and her plane was shot down by a rogue German rocket. Candace was only allowed 48 hours to return to Suffolk and grieve with her parents.
After the polio epidemic in the early fifties, Candace went to work with polio survivors in Denmark and then in Canada. She was ahead of her time in terms of her career, her independence and her adventurous spirit. In about 1954, she sailed to India to visit her brother Tony who was a tea planter and she met her husband Peter, a rubber planter from Malaysia, on the boat - a true shipboard romance. They were married less than a year later in Singapore. Candace went to live on the rubber plantation in the midst of the Communist Emergency. They had to live behind security fences and had four policemen to guard them as there was a constant and very real threat of being killed. Their daughter Sheila was born at this time and Candace must have been so strong to live through the dangers, isolated in the middle of nowhere with a small baby. But she was tough and resilient and built a good life in Malaysia even though life on the plantation could be pretty challenging and she missed her work.
When the family returned to England after 25 years, she retrained as a physio in London. She was always very energetic, working, volunteering at a centre for young paraplegics, walking her dog, taking French classes and playing tennis. She also took up windsurfing when she was 50 and gave up just after 70.
Candace and Peter bought their house in Southwold in 1965 as a base while they were in Malaysia and their daughter was at St Felix. Candace adored Southwold and often said she could never not live by the sea. In later years she threw herself into life with her many interests and positive outlook, despite her husband’s advancing Alzheimers. Her golf, bridge and interest in music, theatre and opera kept her busy. But it was her quiet faith in God and her terrific friends that she really valued, and of course, her wonderful summers with her family.
She had such a generosity of spirit, not just with her entertaining, or ‘partays’, as she used to call them, but she also supported many charities, a lot of them beginning with horse or dog. In her 80s, she volunteered at the Salvation Army on Christmas Day. Till the end she kept her sense of humour and her sense of fun. She was a much loved mother and will be greatly missed.
Adapted from a eulogy by her daughter, Sheila Austin, also an Old Felician.
JENNY CRONKHITE (Nee Harper, Fawcett 1949-54)
We have been informed of Jenny’s death by her great friend from schooldays, Carolyn Jory. She tells us that after school, Jenny did a secretarial course and was working in the Agricultural Department at the University of British Colombia, where she met her husband, Marshall Cronkite (who was related to the famous US broadcaster, Walter Cronkhite). Marshall’s family had a farm at Aldergrove, BC, not too far from Vancouver. They had five children including two sets of twins and she settled happily into her life as a farmer’s wife.
PRISCILLA CAMPBELL ALLEN (Gardiner, 1942-47)
Priscilla joined Saint Felix while it was based at Hinton St. George in Somerset during World War II. At school she clearly demonstrated an academic bent, especially in the field of mathematics and was highly commended for her performance in scholarship examinations. She rapidly passed her London General School Certificate with Matriculation Exemption.
As Priscilla progressed through the school she took on a number of leadership roles including the following: a member of the Library Committee, treasurer of the Photographers’ Club, School Prefect and Head of Gardiner House. After leaving school she took up a place at Newnham College, Cambridge to read for the Mathematics Tripos and was awarded her degree in 1951.
Priscilla then took up a post as a member of the experimental staff of the General Electric Company at Wembley and lived at Harrow-on-the-Hill. In 1958 she took what could probably be described as a somewhat belated Gap Year, travelling mainly around Canada but also visiting Old Felician friends in the USA. On her return to the UK she embarked on her highly successful career in the financial sector.
In the 1980s she became a member of the Board of Governors at Saint Felix, forging a strong friendship with Anne Mustoe whom she assisted and supported with the logistical side of Anne’s bike rides throughout the world.
I benefited from Priscilla’s sound advice and wise counsel when one of the first Saint Felix Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Award groups went ‘missing’ in the Lake District late at night. At the time I was acting as liaison back at base in Southwold and she enabled me to co-ordinate search operations successfully.
A number of us planned to attend Priscilla’s memorial service in London in April but this has been yet another casualty of the coronavirus epidemic.
Fran D’Alcorn
PRISCILLA CAMPBELL ALLEN (Gardiner, 1942-47)
I have known Priscilla for nearly 80 years. I immediately gave her the name Scilla on account of her very blue eyes which are the colour of the little blue flower. She was born in London in 1929 and was the second daughter of Fred and Ethel Campbell Allen.
Our friendship began in 1942 when she came to St Felix, one term after me, when we were both 13 and now we are 90. At school we kept some rules and broke others, like making toffee over a fire in the beautiful wooded area round Hinton House, the mansion in Somerset to which we were evacuated in 1940. Scilla was a bright pupil and excelled at work, especially in anything mathematical, (essay writing was not something she enjoyed!) and she was appointed head of Gardener House, while I was her Deputy in our final year.
After school Scilla went to Cambridge to read Maths and we shared happy holidays together in her little Morris Minor car in Scotland, Brittany and in the Pyrenees. After Cambridge, Scilla made a name for herself in the financial world in London and beyond, working for the Swiss Reinsurance Company. She was a highly successful woman in what was then a very male dominated environment.
She was one of my bridesmaids and my children and I visited her often in her flat in London, which was a highlight for the children, born and reared in the country. She frequently came to Scotland, originally to my parents’ or my house in Edinburgh or to her parents’ home in Aberdeenshire and latterly to her sweet cottage in Ballater.
Scilla, along with her late partner Rupert, was keen on the outdoors and walking, and they enjoyed many adventures abroad. Scilla had a wonderful sense of humour and an evening spent with her was always filled with fun and laughter.
I have lost one of my best friends and I shall miss her very much.
Janet Buchanan Smith
JANE BROCHNER (1940s)
Jane was born in Dorset and attended local schools before going to school at St Felix School - years that she remembered with great affection and her life was a great credit to her time there and what she learned. After St Felix, she embarked on her three-year teacher training at Deptford. This led to her first teaching post in Kentish Town. She was there for seven years, living in Hampstead. She then returned to her beloved Dorset and joined the staff at Radipole School, near Weymouth in Dorset, where she spent the rest of her teaching career.
Her father, Rev. Theo Brochner, who was vicar of nearby Milbourne St Andrew in Dorset, and later rector of Chickerell, was one of the most saintly people one could meet. So too was her wonderful mother, Judy, and both provided the qualities, the unshakable faith and the values that were at the centre of Jane’s life.
Jane was a lovely, friendly person who was loved by everyone who came into contact with her. She was kind, generous and thoughtful, a great character who showed compassion and resilience and had the capacity for forgiveness that is humbling. She also had a gentle but infectious sense of fun and the ability to enjoy life to the full, even when it was not perfect. That is not to say that she did not have stubborn streak.
There are few greater privileges, but also greater responsibilities, than to work with young people and help them prepare for their adult lives. To give them knowledge, but more importantly, skills and a love of learning, to help them find in themselves talents and qualities that they did not know they had, to help them develop values and an inner strength that would sustain them through the challenges and opportunities of life. Jane fully appreciated this and, as a teacher, dedicated her life to those in her charge. Not only did Jane have a loving and caring attitude to all the children who came into her care over the years, but she also had a great friendship with their parents, as they were all in close proximity to the school. Former pupils and parents have sent messages of thanks and appreciation. Jane was special.
One of her former pupils, Duncan, said, ‘I owe Jane a great deal, and it is a privilege to play at her funeral. It's no exaggeration to say that not only did she give me a very happy time at the age of 5/6, but she made a longstanding difference to my life. Jane knew how to engage with and respond to children as individuals. Jane engaged with me positively and kindly. She saw what a very anxious child I was, and gave exactly the right kind of support to me, and to my parents. She also identified and utilised my particular abilities. There is no doubt that this helped greatly to set me on the path to finding the confidence and stability I needed to flourish as I progressed further, as well as giving me many wonderful memories. She was a powerful force for good in my life. Had it not been for Jane's fine teaching, and her humanity, my early years would have been far colder and much more difficult.’ Duncan is now a successful professional musician.
Jane reinforced her teaching skills by sharing one of the other great passions in life - her love of music, which she had developed whilst at St Felix. Both in the classroom, and in her life beyond school, Jane played the clarinet and piano, and enjoyed singing in concerts. She especially enjoyed the annual concerts at the Albert Hall.
Another of Jane’s great passions was sailing and where better to live but near the centre of British sailing, Weymouth. She had a series of boats and windsurfers. Inevitably, she named her one of her boats, ‘Calamity Jane’.
Jane also loved travelling. Every year she went to her two favourite destinations, the Scilly Isles and Iona, where she was guaranteed a warm welcome from friends that she had built up over the years. Jane also made some more distant and enterprising trips that included several trips to Australia and New Zealand and also to China, at a time when the bamboo curtain had only just come down.
It was through her father, Theo, who worked closely with Rev. Tubby Clayton, the founder of Toc H, that Jane became a life-long member of Toc H. The four points of the Toc H compass are: Friendship, Service, Fairmindedness and Reconciliation and they sum up the guiding principles of Jane’s life. But underpinning everything was her deep and very strong faith. A faith that was clear to everyone who met her. In her quiet, self-effacing way she touched so many lives.
Peter Booth, Jane’s cousin.
MARGARET MAWSON (Nee Norton, Gardiner, 1943-48)
As well as being an Old Felician, Margaret was a School Governor at St Felix during the headships of Miss Oakeley and Mrs Mustoe. Unfortunately her failing health over the last years had curtailed her attendance at St Felix events but she had enjoyed so many until then and she was very proud of her association with the school and a staunch supporter. She was the beloved wife of the late David Mawson, loving mother of Diana and Iain, and proud grandmother of Alexander, George, Rowena, Thomas and Clare.
PATRICIA MARY WOODALL (Somerville, 1941-45)
My sister Pat and I were sent to St Felix because our mother (Norah Haden, Somerville, 1911-16) was so happy there. She was evacuated in WWI, as were we in WWII. However, Pat had two years back in Southwold, after two at Hinton House. She was an all-rounder and excelled academically and on the games field, eventually going to St Hilda’s, Oxford, on an Exhibition to read History. While there, she captained Oxford Lacrosse and St Hilda’s Tennis. However, her real love was dance and she choreographed any dances needed in productions put on by the Oxford University Drama Society.
Although she worked for the BBC in ‘New Information’ and on two occasions for ‘Schools Broadcasting’, she was always trying to find the answer to her love of dance. She trained at the Laban Centre in Addlestone, and the British Council gave her a grant to research Romanian Dance. This was fascinating for her at a time when it was still all behind the Iron Curtain. Eventually, while in Paris, she met Alain and Françoise Chantrain, who had devised a method of Dance and Expression, giving everyone from 3-93 the chance to experience the joy of dance. This was just what she was looking for, and after training with them in Paris, she was given permission to bring the method to England and there she set up her School of the Chantraine Dance of Expression in North London, which she ran for over 40 years. She also trained three others, who started their own successful schools. Her pupils, and there were a great many, were her family, and she cared for all of them deeply.
The last few years of her life were very hard, her scoliosis deteriorating and dementia developing, and finally she had to give up, in spite of trying desperately to keep going. My nurse daughter looked after her for months which was wonderful, though very difficult, and finally she found a perfect care home in North London where all her needs could be met and her friends could come and visit. She died on 2nd June 2019, aged 89, after a long and interesting life.
ANNE WILSON (Nee Telfer, Clough 1944-49)
After leaving St Felix, Anne did a year’s cookery course at Chelmsford Tech., then cooked in a prep school in Hassocks, went from there to St Peter’s Hall in Oxford. Then she left (1955) and married Edward Turner who taught at Brighton College and Christ's Hospital but sadly died too young (45). They had a daughter and a son. She remarried Charles Wilson in 1985 (inheriting 4 step-daughters!) and they lived at Fitzhead in Somerset until he died in 2008, when she moved to Heytesbury in Wiltshire to be near her family.
VENETIA FRANCIS (Fuglesang, Somerville 1956-60)
Venetia Karen Francis (nee Fuglesang) passed away peacefully on June 16th 2021. She is survived by two sons and three grandchildren. Venetia’s Mother, Bridget Fuglesang (nee Martin) was also at St Felix. In 1973 she married Martin Francis, Chaplain of Tonbridge School. After school she attended St Martin’s School of Art and Stranieri, University of Syracuse, Florence. She also studied botanical art at Eastbourne Art School and received a Bronze Medal at the Royal Horticultural Show in 2006 for her botanical studies.
DAVE ROGERS (Member of teaching staff - EAL department 2012 – 2015)
Dave Rogers passed away unexpectedly at home on 14th January 2020. He was born in Bethnal Green in 1950 and had already begun planning his 70th birthday celebrations in June 2020.
After graduating in German, French and Spanish from Aberystwyth University he qualified as a teacher in Sheffield. He was an outstanding linguist, a very gifted teacher/ teacher trainer and educational specialist working at one time for the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate to develop their GCE examinations on an international level. He was also a very keen and talented sportsman; when younger he played football, cricket and tennis and recently added badminton and bowls to the list.
He and his wife Fiona moved to Wrentham from Cambridge to start their retirement in 2012 but he soon returned to teaching when he joined St Felix School as a member of staff in the EAL Department. He very quickly fitted into the demands of life at a busy boarding school and played an important role in enabling foreign students to fulfil their potential. He was mainly involved in preparing them for the examinations which would enable them to progress to the British and American universities of their choice and was remarkably successful in doing so. His outwardly gentle demeanour concealed the fact that he was not prepared to tolerate any failure to meet deadlines and many overseas pupils have reason to be grateful for his vigilance and support. He was a valued and supportive colleague, and a popular member of the staff room. He became a member of St Felix Choral Society and the choir sang at the service to celebrate his life at St Nicholas Church, Wrentham.
Dave was a wonderful all round man, intelligent, practical, helpful and sociable. He threw himself wholeheartedly into everything that he did in the local community and will be missed by everyone who knew him.
“He has gone before we had the chance to say goodbye”
JEAN GILLIES - (Member of teaching staff for Speech and Drama)
Jean Gillies passed away peacefully on 28 September at the age of 93. There will be a service of remembrance for her in Reydon when people are allowed to come together again. Jean’s daughter, Kate Robinson, is raising money for the RNLI through JustGiving in memory of her mother.
Although I was only 11 at the time, my Speech and Drama lessons will always stick with me, all thanks to ‘Mrs Gillies’. The first thing I have to thank her for is encouraging me to ‘project’ my voice - I now cannot help but be the loudest in the room, throwing my voice from one side to the other. The second is that I know the correct way to say ‘little’ - who knew?! The third is that she showed me a relaxation technique which I have used countless times from when feeling nervous to when I was studying sport psychology at university. The fourth and most important thing to thank her for is knowing how to correctly read a poem or piece of prose - my children now have the most amazing bedtime story reading they could wish for! (If I say so myself).
Amy Roberts (nee Davies, Edmund 2001-08)
DEATHS
We have been advised of the deaths of the following Old Felicians and ex members of staff. We are very sorry to bid them farewell. If you learn of the deaths of any fellow OFs, we would be grateful if you could inform us so we can record them here and include obituaries/tributes where possible.
Name
Priscilla Campbell Allen
Sheila Candace Austin (Collett)
Jenny Cronkhite (Harper)
Margaret Mawson (Norton)
Jane Brochner
Patricia Mary Woodhall
Anne Wilson (Telfer)
Ann Hadfield
Julie North (Plumpton)
Venetia Frances (Fuglesang)
Suzanne Oates (Grey)
Jeni Mobbs (Parr)
MEMBERS OF STAFF
Nigel George
Dave Rogers
Melanie Tucker
Peter Walker
Jean Gillies
Date
07/12/2019
18/01/2020
02/03/2020
22/07/2019
09/01/2020
02/06/2019
June 2020
25/04/2021
26/06/2020
16/06/2021
June 2019
2019
10/01/2021
14/01/2020
27/03/2020
27/04/2020
25/10/2020
House
Gardiner
Centre Cliff/Brontë
Fawcett
Gardiner
Clough
Somerville
Clough
Fawcett
Somerville
Somerville
Clough
Clough
1942-47
1933-41
1949-54
1943-48
1946-52
1941-45
1944-49
1945-50
1948-53
1956-60
1938-43
1951-57