I CANNOT FILL HER SHOES

an additional anecdotal tale to add to my autobiography

I had a very close friendship with the headmistress of my school by the time I became Head Girl in the Upper Sixth Form (I don't know what that year is called nowadays, but it was the final year of A level General Certificate of Education in 1969).

Ever since I had run away from home at thirteen years of age, I had been helped by Miss Bubbers in a very official and generous way. She had arranged for me to take lodgings at my best friend’s parent’s public house in Harold Wood. She had provided me with items of uniform which had been donated to the school, or so she said. However, these items were top quality and looked and smelled brand new. I was very grateful for them.

I worked as an early morning cleaner at the pub to pay for my keep. I worked Saturdays in Woolworths of Romford and on Sundays I ran a service wash in the local laundrette. During school holidays I worked full time in Woolworths and I became the record department’s junior assistant, which I loved. I was only 15 but I knew every 45rpm record in the Top Twenty Hit Parade and I would play them in the store to attract purchases. I could sing along to them all too!

I absolutely adored school. I loved to stay late and immerse myself in the library. I loved to smash the ice on the outdoor swimming pool in the mornings and race up and down freezing myself into exhilaration before assembly. My steaming swimsuit and towel would barely be dry at lunchtime when I would dive into the frozen pool again and train to represent my school at galas.

When Miss Bubbers realised that I was always going to fail maths, she suggested that, instead of attending maths classes, I might better use the time training in the school pool. I could not believe my luck! Swimming and meditation go hand in hand….. At 16 I had sung with the Beatles while recording a promo for ‘Hey Jude’ and I met Yoko Ono who had shown me how to meditate transcendentally. Miss Bubbers had seen me in the BBC programme, Top of the Pops, on her black and white television, the only time that recording was ever aired.

Later, when I had been earning extra income by creating original dresses and trouser suits for my friends, Miss Bubbers asked me if I would like to try my hand at upholstery. I was up for learning any useful skill, so I immediately said that would be wonderful. The needlecraft teacher gave me some extra-curricular pointers and I proceeded to re-upholster all the tatty chairs in the staff room. I was paid very well for the contract and was delighted with the end results. The staff room looked brighter and more modern. It was the late 1960s and colour was so Carnaby Street, so hip during the era of the mini-skirt!

In the last term of my last year at school, I had to run to Miss Bubbers’ cottage at the foot of the school grounds, one stormy day. The secretary had given me a bundle of papers which needed approval or signature. I had stuffed them into my satchel and putting on my raincoat, I had pelted across the vast length of the rain soaked lawns at the rear of the school. I knocked at the cottage breathlessly.

Miss Bubbers opened the door with her thigh length hair hanging loose over a delicate broderie anglais white cotton nightdress which buttoned up to the throat. She had a soft woollen shawl around her shoulders and a lace edged handkerchief held to her nose. She had been commanded to stay at home by her doctor due to a bad cold or flu.

The first thing I blurted out was, "Oh Miss Bubbers! You are beautiful!" She pulled me into the cottage, so that she could quickly close the door and avoid the cold wet weather. We went through to her lounge where there was a crackling open fire and a gorgeous antique walnut roll top desk. She sat at that desk, signing her papers and glowing in the firelight, her hair was every natural colour imaginable and only the roots and top six inches or so were iron grey, streaked with white.

Normally we schoolgirls only ever saw Miss Bubbers with her hair tightly tied in a bun on the top of her head or at the nape of her neck. She always wore a floor length flowing black robe and solid clumpy flat leather shoes. She was a severe and bespectacled harridan of strict disapproval in the school. She was feared.

But I saw a totally different woman that day. I saw a beautiful, dedicated goddess.
A matriarch.

When she handed back the sheaf of papers and I carefully inserted them into my leather satchel. I said, "Is there anything else I can do for you, Ma'am?" She sat back in her chair and, for the first time, she allowed herself to grin widely at me. I had seen her twitch, controlling a smile many times before, but this was a full natural unrestrained smile.

Once again, she admonished me as she always did, but this time it was conveyed with a look of genuine affection. "You have always been such a precocious child, Frances! You will go far in this world, I am sure of that! What do you want to do when you leave school?" I was a bit taken aback by the question and hesitated to answer, knowing that she would not approve or understand my honest answer.

I took hold of my courage, "I want to be a mother, Miss Bubbers!" I stated with determination and her eyes flew open in surprise, "I beg your pardon?" She said, "You have worked very hard for so many years to gain the best education that this school can provide! Surely you intend to go to University?" I knew she wanted me to continue to study languages for which I had a natural ability.

"No, Miss Bubbers!" I said quite firmly. Her disappointment and incredulity were palpable. "No, I want my own house, lots of children and pets! I can go to University later, when they are all grown up and then, Miss Bubbers, I want to be just like YOU!"

She stared at me in amazement and I grinned widely at her as she was, for the first time that I ever saw, utterly flummoxed. She gently told me about her own youth…. how she had once fallen madly in love, but her man had gone to war and was presumed to be buried somewhere in a muddy field in France. She mentioned the suffragettes and Frances Beardsley who had given this wonderful estate to become a school ‘for young ladies’.

Image from: https://www.francisfrith.com/romford/miss-bubbers_memory-140001

Then she glanced at the big clock above the fireplace and rising, she ushered me out into the freezing, thunderous day. “We will discuss this another day, Frances! You must get back for class!” she declared and I took to my heels, clutching the precious cargo of papers to my chest.

From that day onwards, she and I had a special bond. I waved to her as she passed me in her little Morris Minor car and she would gesture for me to put my beret on..... I have never forgotten her and her gorgeous hair. She was my best, most influential mentor.

We never did discuss my ambition to become a mother again. I think she understood that coming from a broken home, I was desperate to create my own family and become the kind of wife and mother that she had longed to be, but life and war had led her down a different, maybe lonelier path.

I went back to visit that school after she retired and I heard that she had gone on a driving holiday to Europe. I added that ambition to my unspoken bucket list, just to be certain that I would indeed, become just like her much later on in life.

I have read memoirs from other students who greatly feared Miss Bubbers and her strict adherence to the rules of decorum. I remember us singing to her at the annual end of year pageant: “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you!” and how she clapped our efforts with good grace.

But in my heart, I always saw Miss Dorothea Bubbers in that beautiful white nightgown, with her hair loose and wavy, glossy brown with golden highlights and the way it fell down her back to rest upon the seat behind her. I saw the twinkle in her eye when she called me a precocious child. I saw the mother that had never birthed a single soul, but had loved generations of unruly young girls until they became young ladies, going out into the world with values, strong ambitions and, above all, the confidence and the will to succeed.