Reflections of Havergal: 1994-2019

Appendices

New Girls Ludemus , 1904 By G.L. VI. b.

First impressions are always hard to define; but at Havergal the bareness of everything, corridors, cubicles and classrooms, impressed me more than anything else. Very few girls had arrived as yet and I felt so small and lost, but certainly I felt ever so much more lost when the girls began to troop in. I wondered despairingly if ever I would feel as much at home as they looked. And the bells! Surely those bells were the bane of every new girl’s existence. What did they mean? That was the question. You found out sooner or later and were duly thankful. When the first “devotion bell” rang we were all in the corridor; no one said a word and each disappeared into her door like mice into their holes. It left me gasping. The cubicles were another source of wonder and woe. Picture the astonishment of a girl used to a large room and a double bed, when she is told she must live for the next eight months in a cubicle! A cubicle to her seems like a bed, a chair, a bureau and a washstand, with a wall around them. The first night after tea, we danced in the Assembly Hall. It really was exciting, and then everybody kissed everybody else good night! You might never have seen them before but that made no difference. New girl, will you ever forget that first night? Were you not in agony for fear you would not hear the bell in the morning, and how many times did you ask the girl next door to be sure to wake you up? And the breakfast! Were you unfortunate enough to take a glass of water and a cup of coffee? I am sure you finished all your butter without having to be told. And were you ever so tempted to talk as when you were “leading out” of the dining room? But your woes were soon ended for you could really look your neighbor in the face and know her name—then, indeed, you felt a thrill of pride and joy. In a few days, however, you felt it a duty to acquire an air of self- possession which would even deceive an Old Girl and cause the surprised query to come from a new one: “Is that really a new girl? I thought she was at least a two-year-old.” And school life began to look brighter.

BACK TO PAGE 160

236  HAVERGAL COLLEGE