One Young Fool in Dorset (11 page)

The Shell
House

The Shell House was unique. It was created and
proudly tended by the owner, George Howard, who began building it
in 1948, after his son, Michael, died at the tender age of 14 from
meningitis.

Working meticulously with seashells gathered locally
or collected from the time when he sailed the seven seas as a
mariner, he lovingly decorated the front garden of his home. He
created a statue of St George and the Dragon, a wishing well,
windmill, church, birds, animals and figures, all from mosaics of
seashells. Rumour had it that there were some valuable William
Morris and William de Morgan art nouveau tiles pressed into the
cement. Apparently, there was also coral plundered from the Red
Sea, quartz from South Africa, rocks from Majorca and giant clams
from the South Pacific.

The resulting work of art attracted tourists from
far and wide, and the Shell House became the subject of postcards.
Over the years, even after George Howard’s death in 1986, the Shell
House raised thousands of pounds for various charities.

Does the Shell House still stand? I’m afraid not,
though I remember it as clearly as though I saw it yesterday. In
2003, it was demolished to make way for development. A very
ordinary block of flats now stands on the site. However, a little
British Pathé film clip still exists, made in 1965, showing the
Shell House exactly as I would have seen it as a child.

This link will take you there:
British Pathe Video

Apart from church, there was another dull Sunday
chore we had to endure. It was the letter to our parents. We had to
write home once a week and Matron checked and censored every letter
before it was mailed. I discovered this the hard way. This was the
original letter that I wrote:

Dear M and D,

We haven’t really learnt anything at school this
week. The buns are lovley but we had horrible Marmite Sqish twice
this week and you know how I hate that. Snort is in BIG trouble
because she made a noise in church. Matron is going to have words
with her and she might be expeled. If she is I’m going on strike.
Mrs Driver has a chawawa dog but it isn’t a nice one it’s called
Brandy but Matron says it should be called Randy because it keeps
jumping on everything even our satchels. I wish the food was nice
here but we have tapioca which is like frogspawn and fish eyes.
Soon we will go in the woods and do nelson’s eye and so this may be
the last letter you ever get from me because I might be dead.

yours sincerley your middle daughter,

Victoria

My letter was passed to Matron, who used a
thick-nibbed pen loaded with black ink to cross out the parts she
didn’t approve of. The letter my parents received looked rather
different from the one I had composed.

Dear M and D,

The buns are lovley. Snort made a noise in church.
Mrs Driver has a chawawa dog called Brandy. We have tapioca. Soon
we will go in the woods.

yours sincerley your middle daughter,

Victoria

We were just finishing writing our letters when
Carrot came in. Carrot’s real name was Julia, but we called her
Carrot because her parents owned a market gardening business.

“Matron wants you and Dusty to go to her room
right away
,” said Carrot, enjoying being the bearer of bad
news. “She’s in a real fizz. I bet it’s because of the noise you
were making in church.”

Snort pulled a face, but I knew she was worried. So
was I.

We tapped on Matron’s door.

“Come in.”

Snort and I shuffled in and stood side by side.

“You gels know exactly why you are here,” began
Matron. “We are all ambassadors of TH, and we must behave perfectly
in public at all times.”

“Yes, Matron.”

“Your behaviour today in church was shocking. Helen,
I want you write three hundred lines,
I must not make a noise in
church
.”

“Yes, Matron.”

“And I have had a talk with Mrs Driver. We both
agree that, until you both learn how to behave like polite, decent
gels in church, and sit correctly, you two will sit away from the
main congregation.”

“Yes, Matron.”

“Yes, Matron.”

Back in the Common Room, we exhaled.

“Whew! Just three hundred lines! I thought I was
going to be suspended!”

“And we’re going to be moved. Wonder where to?”

It was a couple of weeks before we found out where
we would be seated for future services. It was on the far side of
the church, well away from the main congregation in the middle,
behind a particularly thick column. Above the dark wooden pews
there was an arched, stained-glass window. When the sun shone,
different coloured patches of light played on us. If Snort
wriggled, nobody would really notice. It was perfect.

I wish I could say that Snort behaved from then on,
but of course she didn’t. Using the pin on her Shackleton house
badge, she began to scrape and carve the word ‘Snort’ in the pew.
Nobody noticed. It took her weeks and when it was finally finished,
Matron called us back into her room. I was full of dread. I was
positive that her graffiti had been discovered, but I was
wrong.

“Well done, you two gels,” said Matron. “You’ve been
so quiet and good, Mrs Driver and I think you’ve earned the
privilege of sitting with the others again.”

We weren’t pleased. No longer could I carry a novel
in my pocket to read during the service, and Snort’s carving days
were over. I often wonder if anybody noticed her name carved into
the wood, and wonder if it is still there today. And I wonder if
the people who see the single word ‘Snort’ are baffled as to what
it might mean.

Punishments usually took the form of writing lines
which was boring and inconvenient, but not too ghastly. However, if
a girl was
really
naughty, there were other punishments.

Sometimes we had to learn passages from Shakespeare
and recite them in the prefects’ room.

But perhaps the worst punishment was not being
allowed home on an exeat weekend. And if anybody was caught talking
after lights-out three times, she was told to strip her bed and go
to the top floor, opposite Mrs Driver’s suite of rooms. On the
other side of the hallway was a door that led to a narrow corridor,
with tiny rooms opening either side of it. These must have been
servant rooms long ago, but were now occupied by prefects.

Except for one room.

Matron would unlock the door to reveal a room with
nothing in it but a bed, a mattress and a pillow. The unfortunate
girl would have to make up the bed and spend the night in the room.
It wasn’t the solitary confinement that was the problem, it was the
ghost of Emily, the scullery maid.

The legend of Emily changed a little every year as
it was told to the new intake of girls and embroidered upon. In my
first year, when one of the older girls, Mops, told it, the story
ran like this:

More than a hundred years ago, Emily was a pretty
servant girl who worked in the kitchen. Emily was a hard worker,
much valued by Mrs Crittle, the cook.

But Emily’s mind was not completely on her work. She
had noticed Thomas, the young groom who helped take care of the
carriages and horses. When Thomas knocked on the kitchen door, she
made sure she was the one who answered. When Thomas ate with the
servants at the kitchen table, Emily was the one who served him and
smiled prettily when he thanked her.

Before long, Thomas was smitten. He couldn’t stop
staring at Emily. Emily felt the same and their eyes would meet
across the kitchen table. When their skin touched accidentally,
sparks flew.

Of course the lovers weren’t allowed to spend time
together, but somehow, they managed. They knew that if Mrs Crittle,
or Giles, the head groom, found out, there would be enormous
trouble, and they probably would lose their jobs. But the couple
was careful and snatched minutes together here and there and met in
secret, often at night.

Although Emily’s little room was on the top floor,
there was a fire escape, which she often skipped down into the arms
of her lover waiting below. Together they would melt into the woods
while the house slept.

All went well until one terrible night when somebody
spotted the couple in the woods together. They reported the
sighting to Giles, who summoned Thomas immediately.

“I’m giving you just one last chance,” said Giles,
wagging his finger in Thomas’s face. “I order you to stop meeting
the scullery maid or you will lose your job.”

“But, sir! I love Emily! We want to get
married!”

“It’s against the rules, you know that. If Mrs
Crittle finds out, Emily will lose her job, too.”

“But Emily is pregnant!” Thomas blurted out, then
clapped his hand over his mouth.

“What?” bellowed Giles. “Then you give me no choice,
young man! Collect your things and be gone. There is no job for you
here any longer.”

Thomas begged and pleaded, but his entreaties fell
on stony ears. His few personal possessions were thrown together
and he was taken away in a carriage into the night.

By now, Mrs Crittle had heard the news and steam was
coming out of her ears. Furiously, she threw open Emily’s door.

“Pack your belongings, girl! I can’t even bear to
look at you! I thought you were grateful for your job, but you’ve
been seeing that groom on the sly! He’s gone already, and good
riddance!”

“Thomas? Thomas has gone?” quavered Emily, the
colour draining from her face.

“Yes, you’ll never see him again.”

Emily’s eyes widened.

“Thomas!” she cried. “Wait for me! I’m coming!”

Before anybody could stop her, she ran barefoot past
Mrs Crittle and out onto the fire escape, still wearing her long,
flannel nightdress.

“Thomas! Thomas!”

Only owls answered her.

Nobody knows if Emily missed her footing on the fire
escape, or whether she jumped. As she lay in a crumpled heap below,
her nightdress slowly stained red. She was already dead when they
reached her.

They laid Emily the scullery maid out in the room on
the top floor which had been her bedroom. They placed a wooden
cross in her hands, hands that were whiter than the flour in the
kitchen.

But Emily never found peace. Her ghost can be seen
on the upper floor of the building, or climbing down the fire
escape in her long white nightgown, sobbing, looking for Thomas,
the father of her unborn child.

“Did you see the ghost of Emily the scullery maid?”
I asked Snort when she’d spent a night in the isolation room for
being caught talking after lights-out three times.

“Nah, of course not,” she said scornfully. “I went
to sleep straightaway, but I did dream about Nelson’s Eye. I wish
they’d hurry up and get it over with.”

Saturday mornings were taken up with compulsory
sport plus another Prep session, although the afternoon was largely
free. This was the day Snort and I disappeared into the woods that
comprised TH’s grounds. The woodland was well-established and
sturdy metal railings marked the boundary. However, we were never
permitted to walk right up to the boundary.

“When you gels go into the woods, you are not
allowed past the trees that have a white ring painted on them,”
Matron told us on our first day.

“Why not?” asked Snort.

“Never you mind,” said Matron. “That’s the rule,
beyond the white-ringed trees is out of bounds. And if I catch any
gels breaking that rule, they will be severely punished.”

It didn’t take long for us to find out why we
weren’t allowed past the white rings. Snort asked one of the older
girls.

“Flashers,” she replied without hesitation.

“Oh, I see,” said Snort, although she didn’t.

So I asked my older sister, who knew exactly what
they were.

“Flashers? You know, bad men who get their thingies
out and wave them about.”

“Oh!”

Snort and I looked at each other and dissolved into
giggles.

Unfortunately, it was true. As TH was a girls’
school, it was a mecca for flashers. Many were reported, but by the
time the police arrived, they had vanished.

One Saturday afternoon, Snort and I had changed into
our shorts and were carrying a blanket and a box of comics, heading
for the woods. It was a warm day and we didn’t feel like joining in
with the game of Tin Can Bosh that others in our dorm had been
planning around the area in the woods we called Pug’s Hole.
Instead, we headed in the opposite direction. Suddenly, a group of
older girls jumped out at us from behind some rhododendron
bushes.

“It’s time!” they said, grabbing our arms.

“Stop it! Let go!” we squeaked. “Time for what?”

But Snort and I both knew and our hearts were filled
with dread. It was time for Nelson’s Eye.

10 Nelson’s Eye

T
he rug and box we were carrying dropped to
the ground and the comics spilled out.