They would either walk or ride out on horseback, since only footpaths connected the city to these villages. These experiences led George and Hat to develop a deep love for the local people. In fact, both of them independently committed their lives to return as missionaries to Vietnam while studying at Dalat School. He then attended Nyack Missionary Institute now Nyack College and completed his training to become a missionary and return to French Indochina.
As George prepared to move back overseas in , Pearl Harbor was bombed. All travel plans for civilians going anywhere were halted, and George had to focus instead on a military career.
A year later, she entered Nyack Missionary Institute to prepare for missionary service. During her first year at Nyack, she received a letter from her old school-mate George Irwin.
The last time she had seen George was at Dalat School seven years earlier, and this letter flattered her. Together, in , they returned to the people and place they both loved so dearly — this time with a brand-new daughter, Marilyn. One summer became particularly boring for six adventuresome little girls. The number was limited to six because these girls all came from the same general area of the South West of England.
The knowledge that they were going to attempt to run away from school gradually seeped out among the children. Plans were carefully and seriously made, what devious little minds children do have. I must admit that I wished that I was one of them, but coming from the East there was no way I could be part of the expedition.
All that I could contribute towards the success of the venture was a tube of toothpaste and a penny with a hole in it, which was a keepsake and had not been handed in at the beginning of term with the rest of my pocket money. Each evening, before bedtime we lined up for a snack, a beef dripping sandwich — and on the night before the big day these sandwiches sacrificed by some of us were collected up and hidden away in a locker to sustain the girls between London and Newport.
Here we helped the girls to remove their badges from their blazers, and hat bands and badges from their panama hats. Wearing their blouses over instead of under their tunics we were convinced that their disguise was a foolproof as we could make it. With thumping hearts, dry throats and crossed fingers the girls went out through the little private gate used only by the school nurse and the matron.
They were on their way. An assembly which included everybody in the school, girls, boys and all the teachers … we knew something big was in the wind, and had the distinct feeling that it was not good. When everybody was seated and all the whispering and conjecturing was silenced, all eyes were turned towards the Head Mistress and Head Master up on the stage.
Suddenly the side door opened and out onto the stage trooped the six bedraggled little girls. What a blow … everything had gone well for them until they were on Euston station in London where they walked smack into a teacher from school who of course recognised every one of them … what luck ….
It sounds such an old fashioned word now, but was in common use in England, in boarding schools at that time. Two long tables were set up in the common room and after school we were allowed to purchase our sweets. The tuck list was made up in the classroom during the day … usually on a Monday. We were allowed to spend up to sixpence a week.
We had three children in our family so had to spend more frugally, and it was a really good week when we could afford tuppence-tuppence. The tuck shop is where I was introduced to pomegranates and it was quite common to see a group of girls with heads down, busily picking out pomegranate seeds with a pin and popping them in their mouths, a fascinating way to spend a quiet half an hour.
Life was not all gloomy though … we soon learned to take advantage of every situation. It was our responsibility to see they were tidy and mend the holes in their stockings. We would charge the poor little unsuspecting tots a piece of candy for each hole — the bigger the hole, the bigger the candy.
This was done to us when we were tiny, so considered it our right to collect our dues when we attained this exalted status. There were several such minor tyrannical practices carried out by older students, as there has been all over the world, and these were endured and accepted as a part of growing up.
I must say, though, that these are the verses that I remember. I remember the day so clearly — standing in the living room with my Mother, listening to a special message on the wireless, and learning to our horror that we were at war with Germany. I of course could not grasp the full significance of the announcement, but she knew all too well the meaning of war. Our father had served in the army in WWI, in Ypres, France, and been gassed and wounded, and of course her thoughts flew to her son Keith, who she knew would be called on to serve.
Our hands shook as we made a cup of tea and thought of uncles and friends who would have to join up and be sent who knows where. Gas masks became a part of ourselves, hanging from our shoulders whenever we left the house.
We awoke one night to the sound of the air raid siren … the very first time, and the first of so many times … Of course we were absolutely terrified, threw on our dressing gowns and put on our gas masks, the only time I think that we ever wore them — ran downstairs and huddled under the stairs in the pantry. This, we had been told, was the safest place in the house. Our hands shook so much that the candles went out, but we held hands and prayed that if a bomb did drop on us that we would all go together.
As soon as possible after war was declared work began on building air-raid shelters. We had one put in the middle of our back garden. It was two thirds below ground and covered with about a foot of soil in which planted geraniums and rock plants, which when blooming looked quite pretty … strange but pretty. The first few nights of the war … nights, weeks, months I should say, we spent each night getting in and out of bed and trooping out to the shelter each time the siren blew.
This of course left us dead tired in the morning. Our poor little neighbour was almost crippled with arthritis and it took her so long to reach the shelter that she invariably heard the all clear before she was inside it and would then turn around and start the slow treck back into the house. We all shared the same shelter at that time and would sit on wooden benches on each side, clutching our gas masks and everything else that we considered too precious to leave in the house.
Bombs started dropping, guns firing, so I stood up and opened the shelter door and in one leap — my brother, followed by the cat, landed in the middle of the shelter. Ha … he said that he made it from the bedroom to the garden in three strides …. One night a fighter plane German was not detected until it was over the city and we awoke to the sounds of the crash warning, a serious of loud hoots, which meant immediate danger.
We leapt out of bed, ran downstairs and dove under the dining table. Lights danced all over the walls, reflected from fires and search lights.
The house shook so badly that the dining room light fell down, plus all of the plaster from our ceilings. We decided to run out to the shelter one at a time. I was the first to go and ran like a hare. I sat in the shelter and waited and waited but nobody else made it out, because the bombing and noise went from bad to worse. When the raid was over we stood outside and we could see flames in every direction all over the city.
Bombers had come in after the fighter made its appearance, so it was quite a night, we all knew our lovely city was really in trouble. In the morning we found machine gun bullets in the garden path and were very thankful to be alive and knew we had been much luckier than a lot of people. It seems surprising to me now that so many of the incidents I remember about the war are so humorous. You found your way sometimes only because the route was familiar.
I crossed the road — they crossed. I stopped to tie my shoelace — they stopped. I quickened my steps and they quickened. By that time I was really in a panic, and started running at full pelt. They even followed me up to the back door of my house … I was so scared I could hardly think. He was behind me almost breathing down my neck. Luckily he dodged my purse as I swung at him. One morning I was walking between the Norwich electricity plant and the river, the air-raid siren blowing and was hurrying along to the shelter.
I waved to an old man who was standing looking up the river. Headquarters, to which she had been assigned, was in a lovely old private home taken over by the government for the duration of the war, and it was located just around the corner from where we lived. Her job was to chart and keep track of fire fighting equipment, so that they could tell in an instant what was available and what was in use.
Sometimes she worked long hours at a stretch and often spent the night there. One morning she came home with a large bump on her forehead because she forgot that that she was sleeping in the upper bunk. During one period of prolonged bombing Mother had been working for about thirty six hours off and on, and when she finally did come home and walked into the house, we took one look at her and burst into laughter.
What a picture … we could see how completely exhausted she was, her hair was an absolute mess, her face smudged with dirt and smoke, and her tin hat sideways on her head. Her gas mask over her shoulder and her haversack down her back, both appearing to weigh a ton at that stage.
As she needed both hands to hold on to the dispatch rider she just had to hang on and hope that he knew what he was doing. The Second World War was certainly not all fought in the trenches or in the skies.
So much was done by just ordinary people, like my Mother, and my Uncle Fred, marching and drilling with his friends in the home guard, ready, at the beginning of the war, to fight with gardening tools and nothing but courage for ammunition.
I remember riding my bicycle one morning and passing what was left of a row of houses which had been completely destroyed during the night, and looking at the last house on the road, miraculously left undamaged, and seeing a little woman on her knees scrubbing her front door steps. Nothing was going to interfere with her daily routine, especially old Hitler. My brother, in his office who, when he heard the crash warning stuck his head inside the office safe, figuring it offered good solid protection.
He must have missed death by inches when the safe was blown right out of the office, and he was left kneeling, unhurt. All of the personnel were sent home after the raid, and Keith caught a bus, but when he discovered that he had left his money at the office, the conductor put him off, and he was forced to walk the long three miles home, filthy dirty, badly shaken, but nevertheless glad to be alive. All of these people, and millions of others, carried on their daily lives the best way they knew how, able to joke about the hardships they had to put up with.
Back at school we watched as large shelters were built between the playground and the hockey fields, and air raid drills were carried out regularly. These drills soon became unnecessary when the raids occurred more frequently. Looking towards London the sky appeared to be full of barrage balloons just hanging there, waiting to ensnare enemy planes trying to get through to the cities.
Towards the end of one summer term, when the bombings all over England had been really severe, the Head Mistress sent for me. Concerned about our safety she said that she thought that Molly and I would be much safer at school during the summer holidays, than in Norwich, and that she had written to our Mother to suggest this to her. What did I care about bombings?
I wanted to go home. When I told Molly, she of course burst into tears. I promised her that I would try to think of something and not to give up hope. Of course our Head Mistress was only doing what she thought was best, but having to stay at school right through until Christmas was to us utterly unbearable. Only two weeks until the end of term — and I still had no idea what to do. I was looking through the things in my locker one day and found a postcard.
I looked at the stamp and it was like new — it had come through the mail untouched as sometimes happens. I knew straight away what I was going to do. I glued a piece of white paper over the used message part and rewrote the address and then begged Mother to send our fare. That night, after everybody was asleep — I hoped — I got out of bed very quietly and put on my dressing gown and slippers. In fact, I could see through the big French doors in her living room as I crept by.
As soon as I had the gate open I dashed across the road to the letter box, and my card was on its way. I threw all caution to the wind on the way back. I hardly remember getting back into bed, but I knew I was shaking so hard that I thought my bed would creak. Molly and I had been allowed to have our beds side by side so that we could be together during the air raids, so in the morning I whispered to her not to worry, that our fares would come, I was sure.
Upon returning home, they probably had plenty more chores to do. Homework may have been done with only a candle or a kerosene lamp to read by because many homes did not yet have electricity.
And electricity and kerosene were expensive. Many textile workers across the South lived in mill villages near the factories. The companies often owned the mill houses, and mill owners sometimes contributed to teacher pay and schoolhouse construction. In North Carolina, such support for education by plant owners varied. One company that did provide school support was in Cliffside, Rutherford County. Charles H. Haynes, son of the textile executive R.
It remains in use in Before the s, children of textile workers in North Carolina often quit school at an early age to work in the mills, earning money for their families. By , though, all of the southern states had laws against employing children under 14 and against hiring those under 16 for night work.
Enforcement of the laws was difficult, and younger children still worked for wages in some mills. Despite all of the problems, inequalities, and challenges, Tar Heels made much progress in education during the difficult s. More students attended school, and many schools improved. More teachers held college degrees. Compared to a lot of other states, North Carolina had plenty to celebrate.
Today that work continues. Alarka School, Swain County, N. Built as a project of the WPA. Image courtesy of Western Carolina University. I am interested in finding out more information, possibly yearbook pictures or actual yearbooks for the Candler School that was in Candler, NC.
Thank you for your comment. I would suggest contacting the schools if they still exist to see if they can help and if they no longer exist, suggest contacting a local history museum. You may have better luck in this series of articles about education in North Carolina. Is there any info available on Sand Hill Elementary School during the early s? I was born and reared in Asheville and would like any info you can provide.
Thank you, Ken Gaddy. Thank you for visiting NCpedia and asking a question. I am forwarding your request to our reference team. If anyone know of a place please let me know,. The link at the end of the citation is to the item in WorldCat. WorldCat is an online catalog that searches holdings of libraries.
I see that one library, Lynchburg Public Library, appears to have it. You may be able to have your local library obtain it through interlibrary loan. Compton, Lucius B. The mountaineer evangelist, Rev.
Lucius B. Compton, founder and director of the Eliada Orphanage and Faith Cottage Rescue Work, makes a plea for the destitute of the Appalachians. Did this kind of school exist at the time? What was it called? Is it plausible for it to have had a hockey team?
Religious affiliations would be fine. If you also have time and inclination to tell me anything you happen to know about the everyday life of students in schools like this during that period, I would be very grateful.
Search terms used: interwar s Britain England UK girls' female education schooling independent schools boarding schools types of schools lists of schools. I've also read lots of Enid Blyton and Angela Brazil, and though those have been great for providing a general feel, I'd like the boarding school my protagonist attends to be more old-fashioned and upper-class than those schools seemed to be.
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