Away from home

As she pulled the faded blue curtains back from her bedroom window looking out at the familiar garden with its roses, hydrangeas and too many weeds for her mother's liking, she felt an unfamiliar type of sickness rise up in her stomach. It was September Thursday 17^th , 1962 ,the day she was to start boarding school.

Her brother had gone the year before at the age of seven which had made her very jealous. Now it was her turn .Charlotte was ten years old, a shy girl with short straight hair, reasonably bright, but not sporty at all. What she really liked to do was read. Her grandmother said she read too fast and couldn't possibly have read all the words. “Granny I have “ she would answer, “I can just read quickly”. “Well” her grandmother was wont to reply, “I shall just have to keep buying more books, shan't I.” She loved this paternal grandmother with a fierce love and they had a particular bond, Charlotte being her first grandchild.

As she turned from the window, she looked at the new school uniform spread out on the bed. She had never worn uniform before. An unfamiliar thing to be doing on a day that was going to plunge her into the unknown, the unfamiliar. She had been counting the sleeps until this day. Now it had arrived she wasn't sure that she wanted it to happen. A shout from her mother that breakfast was ready, interrupted her introspective reverie. She hurried to put on her uniform, struggling a little with the tie which she had been practising how to tie for the last few days. Grabbing the black lace up shoes she went downstairs into the dining room where her mother and father already were.

“You do look smart” her father had said. “Very nice”, was the approbation from her mother. Her father was the local Parish Priest of this small village and her mother helped him in his priestly duties. They made a good team . Struggling to get through her breakfast, she answered the questions that were put to her, about the day ahead, indeed the term ahead. “Right” said her father putting down his paper, “time to pack the car and go, we have quite a drive ahead and there's a church that I want to look at on the way”. Charlotte smiled inwardly to herself, her father never drove straight to anywhere. There was always, a house, museum, gallery or church that he wanted to see on the way.

The car was packed with her case, Teddy, her trunk had been sent off by train a few days ago and her parents two cases , for they were staying with some friends for a couple of days after dropping her off. She had agonized as to whether Teddy should come with her as it did seem rather babyish. They had never spent a night apart for the last seven years of her life, except for one terrible time. They had been staying with her maternal grandmother who lived about 50 miles away so they always drove there. On the way back from this little sejour, they were about 20 miles into the journey when she realised that she had left teddy at Grannies. A disaster. Her mother had saved the day for this distraught five year old, saying that Granny would realise straight away, would be very kind to him, take him to the post office and Teddy would have an exciting journey back to Charlotte. All of which duly happened. So after some deliberation she had decided that Teddy had to come at least for this first term. He was after all going to be her familiar thing from home.

As usual they were waiting for her mother who always without fail managed to be the last one into the car. Her father had the engine going, was looking at his watch, he was not a patient man. Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief, her mother was locking the door , hurrying to the car. They were off.

They stopped at a local service station on the way to fill up with petrol and have some elevenses, coffee for her parents and orange squash for her. Then to the little country church that her father wanted to look at. It was down quite a narrow lane. She thought they were never going to find it, but they suddenly came upon it in the middle of a rather overgrown field. “I hope this is going to be worth it Peter”, her mother said, not liking walking through the mud to get to the church door. “Charlotte try not to get your new shoes dirty”. Easier said than done, she thought as she picked her way carefully tthrough the dirt. 'What do you want to see here Father?” “Well they have one of those Eagle Lecterns that I am making a list of, for the Society of Antiquaries that I belong to ,as they are very interested in them”. Indeed it was a particularly splendid looking Eagle on the lectern, looking rather out of place in this very ordinary country church. The nerves in Charlotte's stomach were starting to play up again, and she wished that her parents would stop looking at this church and they could get on their way. “Okay, we had better be going”, said her father, looking at his watch. “ We still need to get some lunch.”

After a quick lunch in a small pub in the next village ,they then drove straight to the school. In years to come Charlotte always remembered driving down the long driveway, bordered by beech trees whose leaves were starting to change into their startling golden russet colours of Autumn. At the end of the drive was a circular pond with a statue of some greek maiden in the middle of it. Lots of cars were already there. To begin with it looked as if there was nowhere to park, until her mother spotted a spare space into which her father rather haphazardly manoeuvered. Parking was not his strong point! Looking round at all the other cars, the Bentleys, Jaguars and even a Rolls Royce, Charlotte felt that their Ford Escort was definitely not up to scratch.

Girls of all ages were in the process of getting cases out, saying goodbye to their parents, greeting their friends with glee after the long summer holidays. To Charlotte's eyes they all seemed so at ease, comfortable with their surroundings, not minding saying goodbye to their parents. Indeed some of them seemed to welcome it. As Charlotte got her case and Teddy who she hid underneath her coat, she felt very small, lonely and sad, trying manfully to hold back tears that were threatening to spill.

“We have to go to Matron, that's what the instructions were”, her mother said. “She should be inside in the foyer”. Her mother lead the way. This school had been chosen for her because before she had married, her mother had taught there for about a year, only part time, travelling down from London 2 afternoons a week, to teach Latin and Scripture. Dutifully following her mother, with her father now carrying her case they found as predicted Matron inside, with a list of the new girls. Matron appeared quite formidable to Charlotte's eyes in a dark navy dress with a white nurses cap on her head and very highly polished black shoes. The welcomes were performed, then they were entrusted into the care of a much older girl, a prefect, Charlotte learnt later, to take them up to where she would be sleeping.

They climbed the front stairs, in future to be forbidden, only the back stairs were to be used unless you were a prefect or even more elevated, Head Girl. Charlotte's new sleeping quarters were very near the Headmistress's rooms. Her dormitory was made up of seven beds placed in a row, all looking exactly the same . Each bed had a name on it. Finding hers Charlotte was pleased to see that she was near a window and only had someone on one side of her. The dormitory was called Barrie after J.M. Barrie the author of Peter Pan. To get to this dormitory one had to go though another dormitory that had 12 beds, looking even more formal with 6 beds down each side of the long narrow room. Charlotte was glad she was not in this dormitory. It looked very forbidding.

Then came the time to say goodbye. This had to be done in the dormitory and she knew that she had to keep a stiff upper lip and not cry. Her father put a one pound note in her hand as he hugged her. Her mother gave her the new Girlfriend magazine, kissing her goodbye, then both of them walking away.

Charlotte went to sit on her bed as she didn't know what else to do looking idly through the magazine. Soon two more girls came into the room followed quickly by the three others. A couple of them already knew each other from their prep schools but the others were like Charlotte and didn't know anyone. Now it seemed there was only one girl who hadn't arrived, the girl who was to be in the bed next to Charlotte. Looking over at the name placement, she could see the girl was called Rose Green.

Suddenly the door opened to reveal an extremely glamourous woman with a mass of auburn hair, exquisitely dressed in a fur coat and knee high black leather boots. “Darling, here we are” she said in a very upper class accent. The girl she was talking to was already putting her suitcase on the bed, smiling at Charlotte at the same time. “I'm Rose”, she said, “What's your name?” It took Charlotte a little while to answer, then she spluttered , “Charlotte”. “I love that name, I am sure we are going to be good friends”, this very confident young girl replied. Charlotte just continued to stare at her. She had never seen such a beautiful girl. In contrast to her mother's auburn hair, Rose had the most beautiful black hair, streaming down her back. She was tall and willowy, even though she was wearing the exact same uniform as everyone else it seemed like she had still outdressed everyone.

Charlotte's inability to speak was interrupted by the ringing of a bell. Rose seemed to know exactly what this meant,endless though how, Charlotte had no idea. Quickly saying goodbye to her mother with no hint of sadness, she then reached for Charlotte's hand saying,”Right that is the bell for tea, lets go down and find the dining room”. Charlotte followed her new found friend in stupefied amazement. Timidly she asked, “How do you know where to go?”. The breezy reply was, “Oh my older sister was here,she left last year so I know my way around here”.

“Gosh” thought Charlotte, “here am I in this new strange place feeling completely lost, out of place, a fish out of water and here is this beautiful girl who has befriended me, me, for some strange reason and knows exactly where to go”!

The next few days were a blur for her. A melange of bells, instructions, rules, assemblies,endless new faces and above all a general feeling of complete unfamiliarity. The light on the horizon was Rose who took her under her wing, chatted endlessly to her about her life in London, her mother who was a model for Vogue magazine, a father who was a famous barrister and an older sister who had just got into RADA, the Royal Academy for Dramatic Art. These descriptions of this exoctic life left Charlotte feeling quite inadequate to be this girl's friend. Yet Rose seemed to have chosen her for some strange bizarre reason.

Many years later when she was discussing this with the two girls who had in latter years become her best friends, after Rose had dropped her for another exoctic character, they had come to the conclusion that Rose had picked on her that first day because she was not going to be a threat to her. In fact when they were analysing things, they had decided that in fact Rose had been very insecure. Her home life was nowhere near as glamorous as she had made out. Yes, her mother was a model but not for Vogue, a much lesser known magazine and she was divorced from Rose's father , living indeed in Kensington, but in a very small flat. Things definitely were not as rosy as Rose had made out. Though interestingly, Rose herself had done quite well, becoming a barrister but with a chequered marital history. Sadly her sister had died at a young age from breast cancer.

Charlotte herself had done extremely well for herself. She had married an older man, 20 years older who had done very well in the engineering world. They had one child, a daughter, who was a principal of a prestigious girl's school. While Charlotte herself was an author. She mostly wrote children's books which had published well but had just started writing a murder mystery series which was now being televised. How the ugly duckling has turned into a swan she thought to herself as she was waiting to be introduced on the stage of a West End Theatre to talk about her murder mystery series.

Yet in that first week at boarding school she definitely felt like an ugly duckling. The other girls all seemed so much more sophisticated . They were talking about things she had never heard of, TV shows she didn't know about as they didn't have a television at home. The only show she really knew was “Robin Hood” because she and her brother watched it on the neighbours TV. Her clothes that she changed into after the school day was finished seemed so old fashioned compared to Rose's and some of the other girls. Remembering the day she had gone up to London with her mother to the great department store, “Peter Jones” to buy her uniform and then some “Mufti” as home clothes were called, she had been so thrilled with the dresses they had bought. Now she felt embarrassed changing into them. Her hair was boring, she didn't have as much pocket money as most of the other girls. In fact she felt completely out of place.

If it hadn't been for Rose championing her she didn't know what she would have done. However gradually she settled in and the next term, her second, she was looking forward to going back to boarding school. When she arrived she found that she was in the same dormitory again, also with Rose. She breathed a sigh of relief about that. All the girls in the dorm were familiar, except for one, Bridget, a very posh girl, with long blonde hair, not exactly pretty but attractive in a vaguely compelling way and extremely sure of herself. In fact in Charlotte's eyes she was a bit scary.

During those first few weeks of term Charlotte noticed that Rose was very taken with Bridget and as their beds were next to each other they were often giggling together after lights out. Then one terrible night after the silence bell had gone, she felt someone tap her on the back. Turning over she found Rose kneeling by her bedside saying “Charlotte I am sorry but I don't want to be your best friend any more , Bridget and I are now best friends.” Having said her piece she then returned to her bed and Charlotte heard her whispering to Bridget. She buried her head into her pillow, sobbing quietly, until eventually she must have drifted off to sleep. What a rude awakening in the morning for Charlotte realised she had no-one to walk down to breakfast with. This was an unwritten precept among the girls that it was very important to walk down stairs with someone. Once again unfamiliarity stared her in the face. She thought she had found familiarity only for the unfamiliar to be thrust upon her again.