Rickmansworth Reminiscing
So you ask what’s new this week. Well, Zanthe was told by Miss Pringle, our English that she needs elocution lessons and that Denham Hall was never intended to be an exclusive private college of higher education for circus performer’s daughters, but for daughters of families of substance, old money families, whatever that might mean. Poor Zanthe. I like Zanthe so I have put her on my Facebook friends list; that’s driven my total up to four. I did have five friends but I discovered to my astonishment that one of my friends was a Bed and Breakfast place somewhere in Spain, could have been Benidorm, so I have un-friended them. Not sure what happened there.
Tamsin is very popular she has six Facebook friends. I will check with Zanthe later and see if she has any brothers or sisters, as if Tamsin has not already thought of that without telling me.
It was bath night for the girls of Boadicea Dorm. There were ten girls in a dorm, 6 baths in the bathroom, so five baths had two girls in each bath, one at each end. The rest of the week the girls took showers. It was a directive that came from…. well from somewhere, probably Miss Sefton the Head Mistress. She is always complaining about the girls wasting water. It is not as if she was paying the bill once a month.
I became conscious of the thrust of the conversation when I heard heated words being exchanged about underarm hair and stuff between Tamsin and Phaedra.
I missed the first words but as Tamsin stood up to get out of the bath she put her hands on her hips and haughtily retorted “There is no need to get personal Phaedra. If we are discussing underarm hair I do not have an over-abundance of male chromosomes coursing through MY system thank you very much”.
Phaedra inquired “don’t you mean testosterone?”
Tamsin answered irritably “yes and that”.
From my viewpoint at the opposite end of the bath to Tamsin I had to agree with her about her ‘personal hair’, but I preferred to make no comment …….er at this point.
Nurse Mayo, the duty matron, sat on chair knitting. Her job was to keep an eye on the girls and to keep some sort of order. After Tamsin’s outburst, she looked over her glasses and interrupted “alright, alright girls keep the noise down”.
Tamsin and I were staying in the college for the weekend or we would have waited and had a bath on arriving home.
Anyways it's strange how things stick in your mind. The next day, Saturday, Rebecca’s mother and father had arrived at the College for an interview with the headmistress Miss Sefton and while the interview was taking place Rebecca’s brother Gavin waited in the main hall. As a male specimen of the opposite species, the girls seem to be intensely interested in Gavin and found any excuse to travel via the concert hall and the locker room to catch a glimpse of him. Poor Gavin, he must have felt somewhat like a hunted animal.
Tamsin, like no show without Punch, also took an interest in Gavin and asked Rebecca if she could arrange a one on one meeting, which she did. Anyways later that afternoon when Rebecca’s parents were about to leave Gavin said to Tamsin he found her quite attractive and that perhaps they might meet again sometime. I think at this point Tamsin thought some sort of date might have been in the offing. Gavin then asked Tamsin if she could arrange a date for him with Charlotte.
Well, this is a story Tamsin told me. She was very rude to Gavin, no I tell a lie she was livid. There were no formal goodbyes as such, she just got up and left. Poor Gavin, you don’t mess with Tamsin. Anyways the last we heard Gavin was going out with a girl from the St Joan of Arc Catholic Girls School in Rickmansworth. Tamsin would say that’s his loss.
It was Saturday and those boarders returning home over the weekend had notified the front office so the kitchen staff could organize the number of meals required. This was arranged on Friday. Another important, hang on I almost wrote ‘law’, rule was those boarders venturing beyond the town center also had to notify the office of their plans and if they did not possess a mobile phone were temporarily issued with one and it HAD to be turned on. Saturday evening I was not returning home.
A crowd of us were going ice skating but it meant going to Hemel Hempstead so instead, we decided to go to the folk club in the high street. There were six of us, Tamsin, Candice, Rebecca, Phaedra, Charlotte and me. Rhonda couldn’t come, which was just as well as the last time Rhonda came she got up on the stage to sing and some drunken idiot kept blowing raspberries at her before he was removed from the club. You would not want to experience that twice.
Oh, I nearly forgot Elspeth was also with us and Tiffany was coming later. That more or less emptied out Boadicea dorm except for the two Welsh girls Blodwyn and Myfanwy; they are identical twins actually. There was a rumour they were born as siamese twins. I am not sure who started that rumour, probably Chloe Higgins again.
At the folk club, Nathan was being his usual annoying self. He had finally realized his close friendship with Tamsin was only in his mind and the possibility of his friendship developing into more of a ‘liaison dangeroux’ was never on the cards. I had a feeling Elspeth might be his next victim but with her lisp, Nathan might have trouble understanding her but as Elspeth confided to me when referring to Nathan - quote ‘I am not that thupid’.
The evening at the folk club was uneventful, not much to report really. The only highlight that I remember was heated words by Phaedra accusing Charlotte of sneezing in her coffee twice, while her attention was distracted. Charlotte apologized and said it was an accident.
Now I may have previously used the expression of ‘bold suggestions’ and it was one of these bold suggestions I write of that was telegraphed by Nathan to Tamsin that ended that little tête-à-tête, thank you very much. Anyways it was getting very silly.
Nathan’s band has changed their name again from ‘Melody Five’ to the ‘The Sheriff’s Men’
I ask you, ‘Sheriff’s Men’ in Rickmansworth? He lives in a dream world.
On second thoughts maybe we should have gone skating at ‘Planet Ice’ in Hemel Hempstead. I remember the last time we went it was Rebecca’s first time skating. She wisely held grimly onto the rail most of the evening but an hour or so later with a little bravado she tried letting go of the sanctuary of the rail and was picked up like a fish snared by a bait getting in the path of a passing skater and found herself totally out of control, with no brakes hurtling towards the center of the rink bringing down a half a dozen skaters in the process like a ball in a bowling alley. It hasn’t put her off though.
I should make mention Pastor Dickie wants us all to attend chapel tomorrow morning being Remembrance Day. Well, that about wraps up this week. Next week I am going home.
