April 1957

April 1957

Alice seems to be busy during April 1957 as there is only one letter to her parents lodged in the Bedford Physical Education Archive for that month.  The letter is sent from The Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick where she is at a Christian Conference and appears to be part of the Executive Committee as she is attending a meeting which is going to last all day.

She is very taken with the Anglican Evangelist Rev. Dick Rees who is one of the speakers and also a Mr Aldis and Major Batt whom she says are ‘both very helpful, inspiring Christian men’

On a lighter note there seems to be evening entertainment where some of the groups have put on skits, Bedford College of Physical Education have dressed in shorts and gone barefoot  ‘and took the mickey out of various people who had tried to do the same to us’  

April 1957 seems to have been a very cold month and Alice is pleased she had taken her winter clothes with her but has still managed to get a cold.  Although she has obviously enjoyed her stay she is tired and is suffering from ‘spiritual indigestion’ but feels it has been a lovely preparation for Easter.

 

Programme from 1957 Rally

Spring is in the air, 1957

It is March in Bedford and amidst dashing out to pick some primroses Alice seems busier than ever.

The students have a series of exams at the end of the Spring Term and Alice has a heavy timetable as lessons continue with revision built-in. She still has to travel to Cambridge for the 'dissection' classes (Anatomy and Physiology was a key part of the curriculum) despite an impending English exam the following day, but she doesn't seem bothered by that at all. She talks about her hopes for subject choices in her final year and is enthusiastic to take a variety of options...except for Ballroom dance.
The games fixtures also continue and this week has proved very successful with wins in hockey and lacrosse and a draw in netball; Alice thought the Anstey students were really 'nice people' and enjoyed playing to win in glorious sunshine!

 Alice also had fun attending the Dramatic Society's production of 'Jonah and the Whale', although her asides (scribbled on the programme), suggest she and her friends were not a little distracted by the thespian students and that the humour in their observations clearly helped them to let off a little tension and steam.

Wry comments noted while watching the play

Second year timetable: Spring 1957

February 1957: busy in college and beyond

It is near the end of February and Alice seems busier than ever with a healthy mix of work and play. Her first mention is of an entertainment which appears to have had a sea theme involving a heavily decorated gymnasium and even incorporating a pirate cavern. In a previous letter she had asked for a green dress to be sent and it appears that this had been a successful choice - adapting is the order of the day as she makes reference to the addition of net to make it fit to the theme.

Her thoughts are also tending towards a visit home and she is quite excited by the appointment there of a new curate. She encloses a songbook from the Bible rally she has attended and hopes that her Dad will contact the pastor  using details on the back cover.

Despite enjoying her extracurricular activities and looking forward to visiting home, Alice is also trying to make a decision regarding her academic subject choices in her 3rd (and final) year. She is disappointed with Miss Middleton apparently talking about her to other students, but feels vindicated and happier when she later receives an apology and is able to discuss her wish to continue; she recognises that life in an all female college can sometimes be fraught with 'the tension of relationships'. 

She closes with happy thoughts of the impending visit home and is already formalising day and time to meet up with Mum: roll on Half Term!

 

Start of Spring Term 1957

It’s January 1957 and Alice is back at Bedford College of Physical Education following the Christmas holidays – minus her trunk - thus forcing her to borrow bits and pieces of clothing for Modern Dance and Games for a few days.  As usual she and her fellow students have the usual start-of-term inspection to check that they have all the required books on their reading list.

A new dining hall is under construction but in the meantime meals are taken in one of several houses which form part of the Lansdowne Road campus.  As with many other aspects of College life, the regime surrounding meals is strict and non-attendance is frowned upon by staff.  Hence Alice and her friends conceal the absence of a fellow student from a Sunday breakfast even though the student would appear to have a reasonable excuse – arriving at College at 11.45pm the previous evening following a lacrosse match in Exeter.

 
Alice is also shocked at the price of a cloth badge for her blazer – 8s/6d (8 shillings and 6 pence) – equivalent to £9.24 today which does seem very expensive.

 

Dining Room at 37 Lansdowne Road (c.1919-1920)

Teaching Practice and Christmas 1956

Alice is very busy with her teaching practice at the moment but hoping to get home for just one night to watch the original film of Oliver Twist which was first released in 1948 and produced by David Lean with Alec Guinness portraying Fagin.

Alice is working at a local village school in Harrold which she clearly loves, although not so happy about teaching P.E. in the snow. The social history is portrayed wonderfully with her astonishment that 8 children in one class still had to use a well to get their water.

It is apparent that Alice and her supervisor do not always get on, which must have made the teaching practice difficult at times.  She also mentions a new teacher who also doesn’t seem to fit in at the school who Alice feels sorry for.

Alice is looking forward to the Christmas Carol Service and there is a programme showing the Procession of Carols which would have been sung during the service.  She is then going on for coffee with her colleagues and music tutor, Mr  Thackray (who incidentally was appointed as the College’s first male lecturer in 1954) which she is looking forward to. The Christmas plays and pantomime are being rehearsed and seem to be coming on well with plenty of useful evidence for her teaching practice file.

Some aspects of student life don’t change; Alice has to ask her Dad for some money to pay her expenses and to buy some items she needs.

 

 

Drawing water from the well in the garden

Teaching training and petrol shortages

Alice is getting ready to start her teaching practice tomorrow and is apprehensive.  She says the atmosphere is a “trifle strained” between the second and first year students, as the second  years have just finished their teaching practice and the first years are just about to start.  Alice draws a lovely little picture in this letter, illustrating what she will look like waiting at the bus stop in the morning to go to teach with all the equipment she has to take with her!

Students at the Bedford College of Physical Education undertook teaching placements with secondary children, which Alice is about to start, and also short placements with primary children. The photograph included in this post was taken by a fellow student of Alice’s, Mary Spokes in 1955.

Alice is continuing to do very well at lacrosse; in this letter she recounts the matches against Dartford.  In other letters which Alice sends home in November she is delighted to share the news that she has been selected to play lacrosse for the South of England reserves team, where she will be the wing defence. Moreover, there are in total 10 students from Bedford College of Physical Education that have been selected to play for their territorial team.

Sadly, in the autumn of 1956 there was a petrol shortage, which Alice has been affected by as a planned trip to Slimbridge has to be cancelled. Petrol was in short supply across Europe due to the Suez Canal crisis.  When petrol was available in November, when Alice writes, it caused huge queues at petrol stations and led to the government taking the decision to ration petrol from December for four months.  Ration books were reintroduced during this period, similar to the ones used in the Second World War.

On a brighter note, Alice is thinking ahead to Christmas and requests a permanent whistle as a present. She also mentions that she needs to get her eyes tested in the Christmas holidays as well referring to the holiday job that she will have at a grocers near to her home.  However, she must get through her teaching practice first!

 

 



Teaching practice 1955