Wandering down memory lane last week and remembering the school in Melbourne I had loved so much that I begged to be sent back to it set me to thinking about our teachers, and two in particular, the first of whom I credit with fostering my love of drawing, and the second with lighting the small flame of thespian aspiration that still burns brightly in my heart.
I desperately wanted to sing in the choir, but after a few weeks of rehearsals the choir mistress took me aside and informed me with a saccharine smile that “I think you’ll be happier in the sketching club, dear”. I was a fairly biddable child and duly went off to the art rooms, where Frau Roth, the (originally German) art mistress, raised her eyebrows and said “but zere iss no sketchink club”, followed by the suggestion that I would be welcome to draw in the art studios at lunchtimes whenever I wished, so long as I left the space tidy and wasn’t late to other classes. This made me very happy, though for years afterward I was convinced I could not sing.
I was a small brown creature, all arms and legs and long braids. It wasn’t until someone in my family was looking at the photos in the school year book some time later and pointed out that mine would have been the only dark face in the crowd of otherwise angelic cherubs that it dawned on me that maybe my voice might not be to blame after all. But I loved my winter of solitary lunchtime drawing.
The teacher I truly adored, though, was Mrs Williams, who taught us English and History and Drama, all with a rich Scots burr. She had flaming chestnut hair, towered over us and walked with a cane, having suffered polio earlier in life and would test us in drama class by offering someone her walking stick (generally someone who wasn’t paying attention) and asking them to walk like her. It was rare that someone got it right, which triggered a brief lecture on the importance of observation in theatre, and how being attentive to the world around you would be the key to becoming a good actor.
There was a small dais at one end of the classroom, and I felt I could literally see Stephen and Matilda fighting over England as she told us about them, so vivid were her descriptions.
One day in the autumn of 1970 she came into the classroom and asked us to take notes about the Scottish national animal, the Haggis, drawing complicated diagrams on the blackboard featuring the haggis with its two short legs on one side and two long ones on the other, allegedly only able to walk around hills in one direction, so all the burly Scotsman in his kilt need do was sit and wait for yon wee Haggis to totter past. We dutifully drew and coloured and wrote, utterly fascinated until the bell rang for the end of the lesson.
Whereupon Mrs Williams smiled beatifically at us, thanked us for our efforts and dismissed us with the words “thank you ladies, and I’ll draw your attention to the date”. It was April 1.
a rare siting of Haggis, running wild and free in Fair Isle in October 2022
+post script+
Years later I was in Adelaide, attending a lecture on historical quilts or some such thing, when I noticed that a person sitting in the row behind me had tucked their cane under my chair. At the conclusion of the evening I rose and picked up the cane to hand it to its owner, murmuring with astonishment as I did so “It’s never Mrs Williams!” whereupon she looked up at me, with a twinkle that grew with recognition saying “goodness me, Indi! You were such a little thing!”
Ah, the curse of the little brown child. I so much wanted to attend school choir in primary school but only my tall, lanky, and very blonde friend who could not sing to save her life was welcomed. I had to get to university to be appreciated for my contralto (which was sought after in many choirs).
My art's teacher in primary school, though, was not very inspiring. He was the one who gave my a '6' (which was a fail) on my rainbow as out first assignment when I was a tender 6 years old. My spirit was saved by my brother who loved my rainbow and offered me his Bowie knife and said, if the teacher was mean to me again, I should just stab him with the knife. No, not the lesson a little child should learn and I never took his knife with me in school but it boosted my self-confidence a little bit to know that my brother got my back.
The sad thing is not much has changed over all these decades. There are still a few teachers who can build up knowledge and self-confidence in children like your wonderful Mrs. Williams. And then there are the majority who either lost interest and are just going through the motions or who never wanted to become teachers in the first place and took just an opportunity for a rather secure job.
Thanks for bringing the story to life! Let that thespian light burn brightly😍