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1950 - 1959 Leavers' Reunion
A Reunion was held on Friday 16 June 2006 for all St Catherine's 1950 to 1959 Leavers.
Click on either of the photos to see more photos from the Reunion

The names of people who came:
Ashworth, Patricia (Moss)
Atkinson, Sheila (Barnes)
Ayton, Carol (Hooper)
Azis, Angela (Greenall)
Bomford, Gillian (Reynolds)
Brown, Mary (Horton)
Brown, Susan (Davies)
Buer, Wendy (Lyon)
Bunker, Elizabeth (Gabriel)
Cartwright, Janet
Cates, Barbara
Charman, Jane (Clarke)
Christophers, Rosemary (Munn)
Clements, Mary (Cropp)
Codrington, Lorraine (Wells)
Cook, Elizabeth (Gooding)
Covey-Crump, Janet (Cleeve)
Crawford, Jane (Stotter)
Curtis, Ann
Davis, Gillian (Harmston)
Donato, Shirley (Jones)
Douglas, Vicky (Gabriel)
Faulkner, Wendy (Henshaw)
Firth, Moira (Macphail)
Friend, Anne (Thomson)
Gerrard-Wright, Susan (Young)
Gill, Audrey, (Meihuizen)
Girvan, Anne (Boyd)
Grayson, Jennifer (Fry)
Greenway, Miranda (Johnston)
Groves, Ann (Young)
Hall, Janette (Irving)
Hall, Joyce (Meihuizen
Hampshire, Jane (Griffith)
Hawkins, Elizabeth (Sinclair)
Ide, Marion (Barter)
Ing, Ann (Hart)
James, Patricia (Tannock)
Joyner, Pamela (Hewitt)
Kariuki, Sue (Peters)
Kemp, Susan (Walls)
Kirwan-Taylor, Deidre
Knox, Judy (Gordon)
Kohler, Diana (Carr)
Kyffin, Margaret (Isaac)
Lee-French, Penelope-Anne (Dakin)
McCrum. Lois (Grenside)
Metson, Ann (Eaden)
Morris, Marion (Sinclair)
Murray, Diana (Danziger)
Nicholson, Susan (Lomax)
Oakley, Ula (Brett)
Parkman, Elisabeth (Munro)
Parry, Margaret (Umpleby)
Pegg, Mary (Foulsham)
Poldervaart, Deidre (Harris)
Pymble, Judith (Adamthwaite)
Rawkins,Beryl (Harrison)
Reed, Elisabeth (Newnham)
Richards, Diana (Robinson)
Robson, Barbara (Moss)
Robson, Brenda (Croysdill)
Rudd, Gillian (Burch)
Shannon, Carolyn (Carter)
Shawcross, Jacqueline (Bayley)
Sherborne, Josephine (Sleath)
Smith, Lesley (Hill)
Stancer, Gill, (Hemmings)
Standley, Judy (Willis)
Stansfield, Brenda (Barnes)
Swinnerton, Olivia (Swinnerton)
Tanqueray, Wendy (Johnston)
Tilbury, Barbara Isobel (Hutton)
Tilling-Stevens, Sally (Lovegrove)
Upton, Marian Jane (Mackay)
Waldram, Jane (Draco)
Williams, Caroline
Woodcock, Rosemary (Walford)
Former staff: Miss Jane Barnett and Mrs Phyliis Webb (Mrs Cook from 1965)
Lunch in the 50s

Believe it or not, meals at St Catherine’s were not always self-service, waitress-service, or any other sort of service. When I was at St Cats there was a particularly character-building system. Those of us who were there remember it well - it was THE TICKETS for the dining room, a ticket system to end all ticket systems, a regimented scheme to prevent you sitting where you wanted to sit, to mix everyone up together. For those of you who missed the life-enhancing skills that this system produced, this is what happened, at every lunch time.
The school dining room was in what is now the library. There were long tables right across the room, together with a raised top table by the long window, where Miss Stoner sat. Twenty girls sat at each table and a member of staff or a prefect sat at either end. Each table had a letter, A to about M, (I forget exactly, except that the whole school fitted in, apart from those who were lucky enough to go to “French Lunch”, where you only spoke French) and the top table was T. Each seat had a number, starting in the top left hand corner, so there could be B14, T1, G8, and so on, and these were all written on the tickets, reddish-brown circles of rough plastic. They were turned upside down on a tray, just in case anyone peeked or cheated, and it was then up to us to choose one of these and stand behind the appropriate seat, waiting for grace.

Everyone lined up, while a form at a time proceeded down the corridor to the dining room. It was best if you were first as you had a larger choice of tickets (which maybe, if you were lucky, had not been thoroughly mixed), and not so much fun it you were last, selecting from few tickets, and having to squeeze your way to your appointed place, in regimented silence. If you were in early, you might be very lucky (rarely) and be able to swop places so that you were near a friend, but I remember often standing there with a sinking heart, thinking I would have to endure a meal alongside lots of “big girls”, who would ignore me, talk across me, laugh at me, or even, on one notable occasion, discuss the Suez crisis, though international politics were not a frequent topic of conversation. Worst of all was sitting next to a prefect or a teacher, and sometimes even Miss Stoner. I still quake to remember the Fridays we were bussed to Charterhouse to swim (the memory of those half-doors on the changing cubicles!), before there was a St Catherine’s swimming pool, returning, starving hungry, for cold boiled fish salad lunch (yuk!) - no choice. Surely today I won’t have to sit next to Miss Stoner as I push the food around my plate, pretending to eat it? No left overs, please! No, Miss Stoner.

When I visit St Catherine’s now I am delighted to find that the corridors no longer smell of custard and boiled cabbage. It was the job of the “orderlies” (changed weekly) to put the hot food on the tables in battered aluminium dishes - sad boiled potatoes, overcooked cabbage and carrots, precooked anonymous sliced meat with gravy, sloppy shepherd’s pie, greasy sausages, grey stew, boiled fish salad (sorry, but no vegetarians allowed and school chips weren’t invented), spotted dick, tapioca, yummy gypsy tart - but by the time everyone had taken a ticket for lunch, the food was cold. And the smell lingered, for ever.

The creation of such a thoughtless and cruel system must have, over the years, been genetically modified in some way into a few cloud cuckoo ideas pedalled around in the name of “education”. But when I think about the ticket system and its legacy for me, I know that it has given me a life-long ability to talk to anyone in any situation. It’s very easy to approach a stranger and start up a conversation. No one phases me. Nothing will ever be as callous and chilling as the ticket system and that sinking feeling. Was I equally frightening when I was a “big girl” (many apologies if I was)? However, as well as that legacy I am also very easy to buy Christmas presents for as I love and use any cookery book. Anything rather than custard, boiled cabbage and cold fish salad. But at what price?!

Vivien Canning (nee White 1956-62)

(I am married with two daughters and two grandchildren. I have worked in industry, Universities and schools, but although I am now retired from primary school teaching, I have yet to decide what to do when I grow up)
Exeat Picnics
Mary Cropp sent this photograph and comments." My parents used to visit for exeats and take a group of us out for the most wonderful picnics. This is a photo of one of these occasions and, amazingly, I can remember all the names. "

From left to right going round the circle they are: Pam Hewitt, Carolyn Allen, Susan Munro, Alison Elford, Alison McHamish, Mary Aspinall, Mary Cropp, Jane Draco and Valerie Carlisle.

Mary Cropp (now Clements) 1957 Leaver.