Hi Frances! I will talk to my Mom today about her days of schooling. I began binge-reading your autobiography late into the evening and am up early to continue. What a life you have led! You have such strength (or shall we say, "a stiff upper lip"?) I cracked up reading the expression of "nosey Parker"! OMG! My Mom used that expression throughout my (our) growing up! She minds her own business and taught us to do so as well. Myself; I like not knowing the business of others.....I tend to like people better; I really don't want to know their business and try to follow along with their family trees which tend to go sideways and other directions. My family tree is straight and I can't/nor want to fathom complicated relationships. I choose to live alone surrounded by fields and woods and I read. I have 5 cats and a little dog...all rescued; They are loved and keep me company. I am a widow with a grown daughter and consider my life as blessed. I really hope you recover. Reading your post about your illness prompted me to take some Castor oil for my own recent constipation. I've always thought of writing my own autobiography and my Mom has told me I should. I am a black sheep rebellious "type" that adventured on my own the minute I turned 18. I consider myself fortunate and don't want to live any more lives when this one is done. I was born in 1957 and my childhood was a good (yet restictive) one. I'm going to return to reading about your life! Be well! And God Bless You!
Your life has been a roller-coaster of most interesting events. Unlike you, I never wanted to get married or have children. I was very "controlled" by my parents and didn't want anyone telling me what to do i.e. husband/society etc. And the idea of a big fat baby coming out of my vj still makes me cringe today. I cannot watch or read about birth. I lived it up travelling/hitch-hiking/bicycling across the U.S. AU; NZ and UK; lived a year in W.Samoa with my first Peace Corp bf. Then bought and lived on a sailboat in New England (where I'm from). Been to AU 4 times; NZ-3; UK 2. I did get married at 31 to a big 6'4 big-hearted man and had a baby. (by request for a C-Section). I made sure that the man I married loved me and would protect and provide (which is what my Dad was like). Loyal AF too! He was insanely in love with me and wanted a "good" girl to settle him down. (he was a biker from Pennsylvania). I met him working a nuclear plant during an outage in Connecticut. He died of a heart attack in 2009. You inspire me to write my own auto-biography. I had/have a wonderful life doing my own thing to this day.
Nobody as wise as yourself could not have experienced some form of suffering. I haven't met anyone yet who's wise, but lived a completely sheltered life since birth, not saying it can't happen, but it's probably very unlikely.
Great story! In many ways Miss Bubbers reminds me of my own headmistress at Junior School who was so intimidating to all us kids. She must surely have had a softer side too but we never got to see it.
I told her about you and the school's headmistress. She didn't know of the school but commented that if there was a headmistress, it was private. She didn't remember the color of her school uniform. I'm going to talk to her again today. I believe her schooling ended at age 16. She went to work in London as a shorthand-typist. Her maternal grandparent's last name was Simmins (?) and they owned a bakery/tea-room in London. I'll get more details today. I really loved your auto-biography. The last part about your beloved pets made me cry. I don't cry too much about humans/death but when it comes to the animals, I love them more; something my Grandad noticed in my early years. He said to my Mom, "She loves animals more than people." which my Mom replied, "Do you blame her?" I would give my life in exchange for saving all of our beautiful creatures on Earth, but shit doesn't work like that.
What an amazing person you are, I want to make a film about you, if only I had the tiniest whisper of a bit of financing, and the first clue about how to make one!!!
I'm imagining the story and can see you as a kid and her with her beautiful nightie...
LOVELY.
Have you thought about finding a publisher for your life story? You seem to have enough posts about it to assemble it for a book...
Yes, I DO know you've published on Substack, of course. I've read quite a few of those posts. I was thinking of a BOOK, because books can never be shut down, and it's not on a screen... I just love books. And not that many people seem to know about Substack... I could be wrong about that, of course.
I wasn't trying to imply that you "value money" in some sleazy way... Perhaps I should just refrain from being too exuberant. I meant no offense, quite the opposite.
Just forget what I said. I just really enjoy books, paper, something tangible, that I can take with me anywhere. It doesn't mean I DON'T like video or musical recordings or whatever... It was a spontaneous burst of pleasure on my part, which often includes a desire to read things in my favorite place and time: bedtime! It's a tradition of mine; that said, I like all sorts of media, and I certainly would never presume to tell you or anyone else what to do... I just really loved that story, it was so vividly told and I had the whole "movie" running in my head. xo
It is lovely that you feel so strongly about my story. My real life friends are mostly dead now, which is why I was prompted to write it - it is about immortalising them as much as me really. The music matters so much and was an aide memoire for me while writing. Just by playing the music I was back there and some details would not have emerged without it.
I'm kind of overwhelmed with Dad care right now... Short on sleep, and trying to figure out ways to get this brilliant guy to keep hygienic... A commonality among folks with his affliction... I got my old, desktop, better computer fixed, which is GREAT, but I still have to set it up. Anyway... Trying to keep my head above water, and your post was just a treat, sincerely. xo Hope you are feeling much better now...
Ever heard of D-Mannose? Don't know if it would help you at all, but it's a partner along with the unsweetened cranberry juice for UTI... I think maybe that's not related to your troubles, but I thought of it in relation to the cranberry. I know when I ever have trouble with defacation, aloe vera juice is helpful... ?? Just trying to rack my brain, I really am probably quite useless in this area... I want to go to a good school for this, actually. I'd love to be an holistic nutritionist, because I love cooking and food, and the magical healing food can give...
That was a lovely little read, Frances. It was made a little more tangible by knowing where Harold Wood is - and having been there comparatively recently (picking up something from the trading estate next to the Railway Station). I also dropped into to the Williams bakery for a snack where I saw someone who could have been a relative of my mother or aunt, the similarity was so striking. What is curious here is that their step-father's last name was Williams. I have been meaning to go back and investigate. I chickened out of asking anything at the time, and anyway had someone with me, but there's very likely yet another thing I been lied to about.
Btw, you sound like an absolute sweetheart child. :)
No I wasn't! I was a cockney street fighting urchin from central London and I only cleaned up my act when I was ordered to become a 'Young Lady" by Miss Bubbers. I had a strong anti-bully instinct and had pulled some daring stunts, fighting all comers until I was tamed by that wonderful lady! See some of my comments, particularly in reply to ValkrieScot in this thread.
I've been reading them! :) Maybe even building up to the autobiography. I haven't followed the link yet.
I think it was the enthusiasm for life and learning that struck me. You seem to already have had a much better grasp of what we were here for than I did. Actually I dare not look back and discover quite how little I did know for how long. I could find it quite embarrassing.
When I was under school age I had a habit of hiding under those long drapey tablecloths that our grannies used to have. You remember them, they were a thick velvety material with long fringes. I would settle under the table in the front parlour at my gran's house, still and silent in the dark. I would see people's feet as they came and sat around the table and I would earwig while my gran read the cards.
One of her regulars was Mrs Kray. My dad was a printer.... he worked day and night.... I hardly ever saw him and my mum worked full time too.
Suddenly we had a lot of money and were able to move out of our half bombed out house to a semi-detached 1930s Romford home with a garden and everything.
I was enthusiastic for life because I saw so much death. Remember I played in bomb craters? My imagination would run wild, as I stared at the broken bits and pieces all around me. Was it imagination? Or was it psychic impressions attached to the destruction? I had visions.......... I wrote apocalyptic poems and I drew images that nobody could understand. So a psychiatrist was shown them. They did IQ tests and found out I was strangely gifted. This was not considered such a good thing by my gran.... she knew I had the 'second sight' as she called it. She didn't want 'them' to break it or over-ride it with their fakery and false faiths. She taught me how to value and preserve my psychic abilities. She taught me to read the cards, palms and faces.
Life is a fighter. It has a mission that only it understands. It will go on and we are part of it, so it is our duty to fight hard to stay alive, to procreate and then keep our progeny alive. There is a reason that the survival instinct is so fierce. We don't need to know the reason - just have faith that LIFE ITSELF is on a mission, going somewhere truly important on a level that is way beyond our understanding.
I knew all this before I could find words to express it. I called it gisming.... and it answers my needs. That is the best way for me to put this profundity into words but, as Lao Tzu said "The Tao cannot be spoken, it is beyond words."
Will come back to this. I have to nip out to do a shop (but mainly for cigs, papers and vape). Just get the addictions sorted out first and then I can start thinking about buying food! LOL. :) xx
It's still fucking dark outside. What? Sunrise isn't for another half hour. Wow! I'm really an adventurer. ;) (Or someone who's going to have to write an ode to nicotine in the same way as Lou Reed did for heroin.) :)
My doc listened to my lungs yesterday and said "still smoking?" and I said "Yeah, more than ever since all this shit hit the fan" and he grimaced.
The news is saying that London and the east is getting half drowned in rain.... we have had unrelenting rain for days, but yesterday was apocalyptic while I was sitting in the doctor's surgery getting examined.
Utterly breathtaking, Frances. So beautifully and lovingly expressed. And wait! Yoko Ono taught you TM? Here's to 2024 and more of your 'anecdotal tales'. To more of your incredibly well-researched and studied reports. To your insanely wild memories of what appears to me to be a life well-lived! I'm so glad I found you!
Yep! Yoko Ono was sitting under a camera tripod in a meditative trance while we were recording Hey Jude and you know how loud that gets with all the 'Na na na nananana!'s - she was totally gone! During tea break I went and asked her what she was doing. I didn't know who she was then. I didn't realise she was with John until he came over and hugged her!
Anyway, she recommended that I bought a particular book to learn how to do it and John said it would 'expand my mind' - so, of course, I went straight to the biggest London bookstore at the time, Foyles, and got a copy. Best thing I ever did for myself. That is how I went through 7 hours of labour without feeling a thing 4 years later! The nurses were freaking out and shaking me to come back to consciousness. If they had left me alone I would have given birth entirely painlessly! But, of course, nobody in the NHS knew what TM was in 1972!!
It was a very small, short paperback which fell apart with overuse. I think it was simply titled Transcendental Meditation and was written by a famous Guru - that one who the Beatles went to visit in India back in the 60s. Sorry to be so vague, it was ages ago!
Frances, that is absolutely beautiful! What a wonderful memory to share. We could all benefit from meeting a Miss Bubbers in our lives. Thanks so much for sharing this. It made a change in my inbox from the normal doomsday info and I never realised how much I needed to read this until I was.. :)
Miss Bubbers was astoundingly powerful. The first time I saw her was when I was only 10 years old sitting cross-legged in a row of newbies, all dressed in brand new uniforms (which were mostly too big for us!) We were right up the front, close to the school stage in the main hall. She was up above us, staring down and dressed in this flowing black cloak that caught the slightest breeze. She glared through her pince nez glasses and she gave the same speech on the first day of each new year. It began.
"THIS is a school for YOUNG LADIES." and we instantly quivered with fright! She went on about being clean at all times, keeping our nails tidy, our necks uplifted and our chins aloft. Skirts had to be no more than 4 inches from the floor when we knelt down and they would be checked regularly. Our socks were always knee length and pure white. Our shoes polished. Our hair had to be tied up off our collars and prevented from flying around like wild foxes tails.
We were expected to always wear either a beret in winter or a straw boater in summer WHENEVER we were off school grounds and in the public eye. We were NOT allowed to talk to boys for any reason whatsoever while wearing a school uniform.
I got busted for that last one so many times until I was called to see Miss Bubbers herself. She was furious "You were SEEN on a bus with a crowd of Secondary Modern Schoolboys, MORE than once, Frances!" she said sternly. I said, "Yes, Miss Bubbers, that is my brother and our neighbours. They catch the same bus home as I do! It would be very rude to ignore them!"
The only way I could avoid daily punishment for this heinous crime was to go to the library and do my homework, ensuring that I caught a much later bus home and avoided the local 'riffraff' as Miss Bubbers referred to them. Some of the rules seemed crazy to me at the time but preserving the dignity of the school was paramount and I soon learned how to duck and dive by persuading my father to buy me a bike for my birthday and taking a back street route to and from school in the early years. This resulted in me making new friends in an even rougher part of town!
Effectively, the serious strictness not only taught me to behave elegantly but also how to be very very devious INDEED! 🤣😂
Such memories need to be cherished indeed. I went to a tiny village school in the Scottish HIghlands (Brora) but we had a uniform too and I also remember it being way too big for us. I'm convinced that was deliberate so we'd grow into them and save money from buying new uniforms each year. When the school abolished the rule of wearing uniforms, it took something away from us, I think. The girls who were always first in the fashion stakes became more popular, those of us on tigher budgets or with parents who didn't care if what we wore was the in thing or not were pushed aside in favour of these It girls, lol.
I wasn't really happy at school, being the shortest and quietest meant I inevitably got bullied. I did learn to stand up for myself but there were some tough times.
Now, I look back on those days and there are times I wish I could rewind, whilst keeping the knowledge I have of now. I'd live life differently.
Our Headmaster was nicknamed Dracula, because he looked like Chris Lee. He kept an umbrella stand full of canes of different thicknesses, as well as a tawse (split leather belt) for doling out punishment. When I got caught smoking in the bike sheds that's where I was sent, and I remember still the feel of the whip thin cane across my palm.
Ironically perhaps, it was a badge of honour amongst us pupils. We learned to keep our hands on the radiators, it seemed to ease the pain. :)
After that I made sure to never get caught too. :)
I'm with you on uniforms and losing something without them. It's not egalitarian or liberal-minded to get rid of them, in any form. It's like dinner suit (black tie). You can wear one of those to 20 odd occasions across a year (not that I do any these days) and they become quite a good value item of clothing. You are also all dressed the same, with very few distinguishing features except your natural elegance. Get rid of them (as the cretinous, and probably insane, Gordon Brown did) and everyone has to either wear a £1000 suit or go and buy one to keep up with the richest there. It makes everyones life worse and more expensive, while also taking away from the sense of occasion. This is so typically Leftist - everything they do unfailingly makes things worse while they smugly think they've made things fairer.
Agreed! The sad fact is, as a species we do judge on appearance. I missed the anonymity and equality my uniform gave me, drowned in it's folds as I was!
Wonderful memories! Dracula?? Wow, that is hilarious! I remember kids getting the cane at junior school in London. Infants got the ruler!
The first time I saw a five year old child get rulered across the palms was for colouring in his Os and Ds in his workbook! I asked to go to the toilet and I picked up my coat and hat and walked home. When my mum got home from work, she found me sitting on the doorstep. "What happened?" she said in shock. I stammered out that the teacher was a very, very WICKED woman and I was not going back to that place! 🤣😂 Obviously, she made me go back and apologise to the teacher but my future was set from that day on.
I made a point of befriending anyone who got into trouble and I would fight any bully. I did not care how big, ugly or old they were. I would sock 'em hard in the chops! By the time I was 6 I had a fearsome reputation and nobody would dare to cross me or any of my friends on the streets.
When I was 7 we moved out of London to Romford in Essex and I was expected to behave better. Nope. That did not happen! 🤣😂
On the very first day at our new school we were all standing in line waiting to file into the dinner hall when I spotted a big boy with lots of curly hair push my younger brother out of the queue and flat on his bum! I marched straight up to this big boy and uppercut him to the jaw so hard that he flew through the air and landed very hard. I picked up my grizzling brother and stood with him in the queue, scowling at the big boy.
After dinner, the big boy turned out to be in the same class as me! He said that he wanted me to be his GIRLFRIEND. I told him where to stick himself, but he persisted. That boy was Terry, my first boyfriend and he stayed my boyfriend from age 7 until I was 13 years old and I would only remain his girlfriend provided that he stopped bullying people!
Now comes the sad part of this saga....
Terry and his friends would like to meet me over the park after school. We had a big climbing frame, called the Monkey Bars. It had been raining a lot that day and Terry was pretending to be a monkey while he waited with his friends for me. I had to get out of my school uniform so I was always later than them.
When I arrived, he had fallen from the top of the Monkey Bars and was dead. He had broken his neck. There was no soft landing pads in those days.... just concrete.
I barely remember the following couple of weeks. I did not go to school or go out to play with my friends. We were all seriously traumatised. I was not allowed to go to the funeral. My parents would not allow it.
I went back to school in a daze and did not find another boyfriend until I turned 16 years old and even then, I was very half-hearted about it.
Towards the end of my 17th year, I met six homeless Glaswegians on Clacton seafront I was super shocked by one of them. He looked exactly like my Terry and he turned out to be a vicious, dangerous fighter. The rest of this story is at the start of my autobiography which you can find linked and pinned at the top of comments on this post.....
Put it this way.... I had to tame 6 rough Glaswegians and I couldn't do it by fighting them. I had to find a better way to deal with bullies!
It wasn't my first time, Christian. I saw a lot - my family were linked to the Krays. But the least said about that, the better. I am sure you understand.
There was also a time when I was about 7 years old climbing down the cliffs while on holiday at Durdle Door in Dorset, quite close to where I now live. I watched a man get tangled in the kelp fields and slowly drown, face up while his son struggled to swim back to shore. I stayed frozen on the cliff face watching his pale body bobbing about no more than a foot from the surface of the water..... eventually the son and the wife managed to get an alert sent out and a helicopter came, about 3 hours later..... I remained unobserved sitting on a rocky ledge about 25 feet above sea level.
I was able to direct them to where the body was. When they got a diver down to him and a rope around him, they pulled him up. The helicopter rose and rose, the man's body dragged at least 100 yards of kelp out of the sea with him.
I got into loads of trouble from my dad for disappearing for so long. Every moment of that event is like a film etched into my memory and I have always been afraid of seaweed since that day.
I think I must have planned to be unexposed to death. I was well into my thirties for the first deaths in the "close" circle, and that was my paternal grandparents, dying days apart and in their nineties. The only death since then is my father, who hadn't quite hit 90.
Quite a number of my contemporaries at Marlborough have died- really a curiously high number, to the point I don't have all the stories. Quite a few are people I liked but none I'd have described as a close. By contrast nearly every teacher I had, bar one, was still going strong 10 years ago. I've not checked in the last five years but I did hear my housemaster was still knocking around a couple of years ago.
Of course, the complexion of this changed a couple of years ago, with quite a few down who were a lot closer.
Now I have to read all of this! You were brave, "taking on" Glaswegians! I'm from the Highlands and even though we're both Scots, Highlanders and Glaswegians alike, other Scots have a healthy respect for Glaswegians born entirely out of that toughness and abrasive brashness. :)
I am sorry about Terry though...and I remember older playgrounds well, and there being not even rudimentary nods towards safety.
Mostly, myself and my friends (I didn't have many though) played on the beach at Brora, or in the woods or, to the horror of our parents, on the old rope swing bridge crossing the River Brora, trying to see just how *much* we could make it swing. We invented Indiana Jones before he came into being. :D
You have a beautiful way with words, Frances, and are a wonderful writer. It's a joy to read what you pen/type/write.
Looking back on those six Glaswegians, I had an unfair advantage over them. I helped them get off the street and they loved me for it. I stopped them fighting amongst themselves so many times and each time they would put their fists into their eyes, yelling at me to get out of their way but I would not budge. I loved them so much..... you will see..... it is all in my autobio.
Only one of them is still alive now. I loved them all their lives and they loved me. It was something beyond words. On this matter I am not such a wonderful writer..... we are soul bonded forever is the best way I can describe it.
Such a beautiful gift from the Universe Miss Bubbers was to you! xx
“One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.” - Carl Jung
Carl Jung was a major influence on me too! He helped me to turn away from psychology and focus keenly on Taoist literature, when I was looking for the influences which may have been taught along the Old Silk Road. That, in turn, led me into traditional Chinese herbal medicine and a career in healing. Jung wrote a foreword for the I Ching which stretched my mind quite painfully at first and then, later became the most profound piece of literature I have ever studied. I can't say that I fully understand it even yet.... 50 years later! Confucius said during his final days, that he would like another 50 years to study the I Ching. I now know exactly what he meant!
My Mother grew up in Romford. She lived on Straight Rd. She just turned 90. Would she have attended that same school? She came to America in 1955 to marry my Dad whom she met while he was stationed over in England post WWII. She has vivid memories of the bombings and blackouts during the war.
She may well have! It was one of three very good schools for girls in the area. There was the Frances Beardsley College (aka Romford High School), the Ursuline Catholic Girls School and Heath Park Girls school in Gidea Park.
We wore dark green uniforms at Frances Beardsley. The Ursuline wore dark brown and gold. The Heath Park girls wore navy blue. Ask her about her uniform which will help you pin down which school she went to! Let me know what she says, please! xx
My theory is we create as adults less what we have experienced, and more what we wished to know. Adopting and mothering, providing and forgiving, fighting and indulging - these are the luxuries of life. I had a Sister Mary Anastasia, beacon of kindness in tough school situation who, many decades ago, said to me: “Forgive me my trespasses and remember my loving days.” Thank you for igniting memories of youthful kindness... time to carry the torch!
Sister Mary Anastasia was given a beautiful name! It sounds as though she did it proud in her lifetime!
When I was 54 I eventually became an English teacher at a very prestigious private school in Madrid. I totally loved to teach! Not the subject of English particularly, because that is so illogical and annoying for phonetical speakers like the Spanish. I loved the interaction with the children! I told them to correct my Spanish if I made a mistake, and they enthusiastically took up the challenge. They also taught me HOW to teach engagingly which later resulted in me having the confidence to open my own evening school in a tiny mountain village called Madrigal de la Vera, where I was nicknamed Pocohontas because I always had two dogs and a cat following me everywhere I went! At that school I taught from 5pm until 9pm, 4 hourly classes for students from age 6 to 66. That was tremendous fun, hard work but so rewarding! I had a small fruit farm off grid and a lot of the younger students loved to visit me at the weekends to play with my dogs. They loved to practice their English with the dogs, who were also loving all the additional love and attention they received - everyone got something out of learning another language!
So you see, Miss Bubbers got her dream. I did eventually use my language skills after all!
All the parts of my autobiography are being assembled for reference here:
https://francesleader.substack.com/p/my-autobiography
Hi Frances! I will talk to my Mom today about her days of schooling. I began binge-reading your autobiography late into the evening and am up early to continue. What a life you have led! You have such strength (or shall we say, "a stiff upper lip"?) I cracked up reading the expression of "nosey Parker"! OMG! My Mom used that expression throughout my (our) growing up! She minds her own business and taught us to do so as well. Myself; I like not knowing the business of others.....I tend to like people better; I really don't want to know their business and try to follow along with their family trees which tend to go sideways and other directions. My family tree is straight and I can't/nor want to fathom complicated relationships. I choose to live alone surrounded by fields and woods and I read. I have 5 cats and a little dog...all rescued; They are loved and keep me company. I am a widow with a grown daughter and consider my life as blessed. I really hope you recover. Reading your post about your illness prompted me to take some Castor oil for my own recent constipation. I've always thought of writing my own autobiography and my Mom has told me I should. I am a black sheep rebellious "type" that adventured on my own the minute I turned 18. I consider myself fortunate and don't want to live any more lives when this one is done. I was born in 1957 and my childhood was a good (yet restictive) one. I'm going to return to reading about your life! Be well! And God Bless You!
What did your mum have to say about her schooldays?
Thanks so much for reading my autobiography! I hope I didn't shock you too much! xx
Your life has been a roller-coaster of most interesting events. Unlike you, I never wanted to get married or have children. I was very "controlled" by my parents and didn't want anyone telling me what to do i.e. husband/society etc. And the idea of a big fat baby coming out of my vj still makes me cringe today. I cannot watch or read about birth. I lived it up travelling/hitch-hiking/bicycling across the U.S. AU; NZ and UK; lived a year in W.Samoa with my first Peace Corp bf. Then bought and lived on a sailboat in New England (where I'm from). Been to AU 4 times; NZ-3; UK 2. I did get married at 31 to a big 6'4 big-hearted man and had a baby. (by request for a C-Section). I made sure that the man I married loved me and would protect and provide (which is what my Dad was like). Loyal AF too! He was insanely in love with me and wanted a "good" girl to settle him down. (he was a biker from Pennsylvania). I met him working a nuclear plant during an outage in Connecticut. He died of a heart attack in 2009. You inspire me to write my own auto-biography. I had/have a wonderful life doing my own thing to this day.
What wonderful memories Miss Bubbers gifted you with that is a blessing. Your remembranceis a gift. Thank you!!
Thank you. Emailed to my inbox to read through later.
Be prepared Pauline! My life story is not all plain sailing! There are some gut wrenching lows to deal with in there.... believe me! xx
Nobody as wise as yourself could not have experienced some form of suffering. I haven't met anyone yet who's wise, but lived a completely sheltered life since birth, not saying it can't happen, but it's probably very unlikely.
Have a good day.
lovely read and drew me in so easily, the sign of a good storyteller/ writer for sure. Respect & X 2 All
Aw, Dave! Your appreciation is always so humbling! 💚
Great story! In many ways Miss Bubbers reminds me of my own headmistress at Junior School who was so intimidating to all us kids. She must surely have had a softer side too but we never got to see it.
I told her about you and the school's headmistress. She didn't know of the school but commented that if there was a headmistress, it was private. She didn't remember the color of her school uniform. I'm going to talk to her again today. I believe her schooling ended at age 16. She went to work in London as a shorthand-typist. Her maternal grandparent's last name was Simmins (?) and they owned a bakery/tea-room in London. I'll get more details today. I really loved your auto-biography. The last part about your beloved pets made me cry. I don't cry too much about humans/death but when it comes to the animals, I love them more; something my Grandad noticed in my early years. He said to my Mom, "She loves animals more than people." which my Mom replied, "Do you blame her?" I would give my life in exchange for saving all of our beautiful creatures on Earth, but shit doesn't work like that.
That was a beatiful little story, thank you for sharing.
a delightful read.
Oh, I LOVE this, Franita...
What an amazing person you are, I want to make a film about you, if only I had the tiniest whisper of a bit of financing, and the first clue about how to make one!!!
I'm imagining the story and can see you as a kid and her with her beautiful nightie...
LOVELY.
Have you thought about finding a publisher for your life story? You seem to have enough posts about it to assemble it for a book...
xo xo
I find this really amusing!
Don't you realise that my life story is already published? I am just filling in some of the details now, as I remember them.
That is what this Substack account is for!
I don't value money! My story is free for the entire world. All they have to do is read it and learn from my mistakes, learn to love themselves.
THAT WOULD BE THE GREATEST REWARD I COULD EVER RECEIVE.
Yes, I DO know you've published on Substack, of course. I've read quite a few of those posts. I was thinking of a BOOK, because books can never be shut down, and it's not on a screen... I just love books. And not that many people seem to know about Substack... I could be wrong about that, of course.
I wasn't trying to imply that you "value money" in some sleazy way... Perhaps I should just refrain from being too exuberant. I meant no offense, quite the opposite.
But the music links are important! No book can convey their atmosphere!
Of course they are.
Just forget what I said. I just really enjoy books, paper, something tangible, that I can take with me anywhere. It doesn't mean I DON'T like video or musical recordings or whatever... It was a spontaneous burst of pleasure on my part, which often includes a desire to read things in my favorite place and time: bedtime! It's a tradition of mine; that said, I like all sorts of media, and I certainly would never presume to tell you or anyone else what to do... I just really loved that story, it was so vividly told and I had the whole "movie" running in my head. xo
It is lovely that you feel so strongly about my story. My real life friends are mostly dead now, which is why I was prompted to write it - it is about immortalising them as much as me really. The music matters so much and was an aide memoire for me while writing. Just by playing the music I was back there and some details would not have emerged without it.
I continue to learn.
I'm kind of overwhelmed with Dad care right now... Short on sleep, and trying to figure out ways to get this brilliant guy to keep hygienic... A commonality among folks with his affliction... I got my old, desktop, better computer fixed, which is GREAT, but I still have to set it up. Anyway... Trying to keep my head above water, and your post was just a treat, sincerely. xo Hope you are feeling much better now...
Ever heard of D-Mannose? Don't know if it would help you at all, but it's a partner along with the unsweetened cranberry juice for UTI... I think maybe that's not related to your troubles, but I thought of it in relation to the cranberry. I know when I ever have trouble with defacation, aloe vera juice is helpful... ?? Just trying to rack my brain, I really am probably quite useless in this area... I want to go to a good school for this, actually. I'd love to be an holistic nutritionist, because I love cooking and food, and the magical healing food can give...
Okay, I'm OM-ing you big time, hope it helps.
Beautiful, thank you so much.
That was a lovely little read, Frances. It was made a little more tangible by knowing where Harold Wood is - and having been there comparatively recently (picking up something from the trading estate next to the Railway Station). I also dropped into to the Williams bakery for a snack where I saw someone who could have been a relative of my mother or aunt, the similarity was so striking. What is curious here is that their step-father's last name was Williams. I have been meaning to go back and investigate. I chickened out of asking anything at the time, and anyway had someone with me, but there's very likely yet another thing I been lied to about.
Btw, you sound like an absolute sweetheart child. :)
No I wasn't! I was a cockney street fighting urchin from central London and I only cleaned up my act when I was ordered to become a 'Young Lady" by Miss Bubbers. I had a strong anti-bully instinct and had pulled some daring stunts, fighting all comers until I was tamed by that wonderful lady! See some of my comments, particularly in reply to ValkrieScot in this thread.
I've been reading them! :) Maybe even building up to the autobiography. I haven't followed the link yet.
I think it was the enthusiasm for life and learning that struck me. You seem to already have had a much better grasp of what we were here for than I did. Actually I dare not look back and discover quite how little I did know for how long. I could find it quite embarrassing.
When I was under school age I had a habit of hiding under those long drapey tablecloths that our grannies used to have. You remember them, they were a thick velvety material with long fringes. I would settle under the table in the front parlour at my gran's house, still and silent in the dark. I would see people's feet as they came and sat around the table and I would earwig while my gran read the cards.
One of her regulars was Mrs Kray. My dad was a printer.... he worked day and night.... I hardly ever saw him and my mum worked full time too.
Suddenly we had a lot of money and were able to move out of our half bombed out house to a semi-detached 1930s Romford home with a garden and everything.
I was enthusiastic for life because I saw so much death. Remember I played in bomb craters? My imagination would run wild, as I stared at the broken bits and pieces all around me. Was it imagination? Or was it psychic impressions attached to the destruction? I had visions.......... I wrote apocalyptic poems and I drew images that nobody could understand. So a psychiatrist was shown them. They did IQ tests and found out I was strangely gifted. This was not considered such a good thing by my gran.... she knew I had the 'second sight' as she called it. She didn't want 'them' to break it or over-ride it with their fakery and false faiths. She taught me how to value and preserve my psychic abilities. She taught me to read the cards, palms and faces.
Life is a fighter. It has a mission that only it understands. It will go on and we are part of it, so it is our duty to fight hard to stay alive, to procreate and then keep our progeny alive. There is a reason that the survival instinct is so fierce. We don't need to know the reason - just have faith that LIFE ITSELF is on a mission, going somewhere truly important on a level that is way beyond our understanding.
I knew all this before I could find words to express it. I called it gisming.... and it answers my needs. That is the best way for me to put this profundity into words but, as Lao Tzu said "The Tao cannot be spoken, it is beyond words."
Will come back to this. I have to nip out to do a shop (but mainly for cigs, papers and vape). Just get the addictions sorted out first and then I can start thinking about buying food! LOL. :) xx
It's still fucking dark outside. What? Sunrise isn't for another half hour. Wow! I'm really an adventurer. ;) (Or someone who's going to have to write an ode to nicotine in the same way as Lou Reed did for heroin.) :)
My doc listened to my lungs yesterday and said "still smoking?" and I said "Yeah, more than ever since all this shit hit the fan" and he grimaced.
The news is saying that London and the east is getting half drowned in rain.... we have had unrelenting rain for days, but yesterday was apocalyptic while I was sitting in the doctor's surgery getting examined.
I was there for over 3 hours and it exhausted me.
I am giving into this narcolepsy now....Zzzz
Beautiful.
A wonderful story. Your life and history is most singular and amazing. I’m enriched by your sharing of it.
Is it? I thought I was pretty ordinary actually!! 😃
To me it is extraordinary.
Utterly breathtaking, Frances. So beautifully and lovingly expressed. And wait! Yoko Ono taught you TM? Here's to 2024 and more of your 'anecdotal tales'. To more of your incredibly well-researched and studied reports. To your insanely wild memories of what appears to me to be a life well-lived! I'm so glad I found you!
Yep! Yoko Ono was sitting under a camera tripod in a meditative trance while we were recording Hey Jude and you know how loud that gets with all the 'Na na na nananana!'s - she was totally gone! During tea break I went and asked her what she was doing. I didn't know who she was then. I didn't realise she was with John until he came over and hugged her!
Anyway, she recommended that I bought a particular book to learn how to do it and John said it would 'expand my mind' - so, of course, I went straight to the biggest London bookstore at the time, Foyles, and got a copy. Best thing I ever did for myself. That is how I went through 7 hours of labour without feeling a thing 4 years later! The nurses were freaking out and shaking me to come back to consciousness. If they had left me alone I would have given birth entirely painlessly! But, of course, nobody in the NHS knew what TM was in 1972!!
I'd love to know what the book was! xo
It was a very small, short paperback which fell apart with overuse. I think it was simply titled Transcendental Meditation and was written by a famous Guru - that one who the Beatles went to visit in India back in the 60s. Sorry to be so vague, it was ages ago!
That you could describe it after all this time is impressive! ;) Maharishi Mahesh Yogi or something like that.
Maybe Internet Archive has it! Well done, Frances. I don't know about you, but when I remember even a sliver of my past I celebrate. xoxo
IA has a number of his guides. I will try to send you a link to the page and see if you recognize which one it is. Would you mind?
Frances, that is absolutely beautiful! What a wonderful memory to share. We could all benefit from meeting a Miss Bubbers in our lives. Thanks so much for sharing this. It made a change in my inbox from the normal doomsday info and I never realised how much I needed to read this until I was.. :)
Miss Bubbers was astoundingly powerful. The first time I saw her was when I was only 10 years old sitting cross-legged in a row of newbies, all dressed in brand new uniforms (which were mostly too big for us!) We were right up the front, close to the school stage in the main hall. She was up above us, staring down and dressed in this flowing black cloak that caught the slightest breeze. She glared through her pince nez glasses and she gave the same speech on the first day of each new year. It began.
"THIS is a school for YOUNG LADIES." and we instantly quivered with fright! She went on about being clean at all times, keeping our nails tidy, our necks uplifted and our chins aloft. Skirts had to be no more than 4 inches from the floor when we knelt down and they would be checked regularly. Our socks were always knee length and pure white. Our shoes polished. Our hair had to be tied up off our collars and prevented from flying around like wild foxes tails.
We were expected to always wear either a beret in winter or a straw boater in summer WHENEVER we were off school grounds and in the public eye. We were NOT allowed to talk to boys for any reason whatsoever while wearing a school uniform.
I got busted for that last one so many times until I was called to see Miss Bubbers herself. She was furious "You were SEEN on a bus with a crowd of Secondary Modern Schoolboys, MORE than once, Frances!" she said sternly. I said, "Yes, Miss Bubbers, that is my brother and our neighbours. They catch the same bus home as I do! It would be very rude to ignore them!"
The only way I could avoid daily punishment for this heinous crime was to go to the library and do my homework, ensuring that I caught a much later bus home and avoided the local 'riffraff' as Miss Bubbers referred to them. Some of the rules seemed crazy to me at the time but preserving the dignity of the school was paramount and I soon learned how to duck and dive by persuading my father to buy me a bike for my birthday and taking a back street route to and from school in the early years. This resulted in me making new friends in an even rougher part of town!
Effectively, the serious strictness not only taught me to behave elegantly but also how to be very very devious INDEED! 🤣😂
Such memories need to be cherished indeed. I went to a tiny village school in the Scottish HIghlands (Brora) but we had a uniform too and I also remember it being way too big for us. I'm convinced that was deliberate so we'd grow into them and save money from buying new uniforms each year. When the school abolished the rule of wearing uniforms, it took something away from us, I think. The girls who were always first in the fashion stakes became more popular, those of us on tigher budgets or with parents who didn't care if what we wore was the in thing or not were pushed aside in favour of these It girls, lol.
I wasn't really happy at school, being the shortest and quietest meant I inevitably got bullied. I did learn to stand up for myself but there were some tough times.
Now, I look back on those days and there are times I wish I could rewind, whilst keeping the knowledge I have of now. I'd live life differently.
Our Headmaster was nicknamed Dracula, because he looked like Chris Lee. He kept an umbrella stand full of canes of different thicknesses, as well as a tawse (split leather belt) for doling out punishment. When I got caught smoking in the bike sheds that's where I was sent, and I remember still the feel of the whip thin cane across my palm.
Ironically perhaps, it was a badge of honour amongst us pupils. We learned to keep our hands on the radiators, it seemed to ease the pain. :)
After that I made sure to never get caught too. :)
I'm with you on uniforms and losing something without them. It's not egalitarian or liberal-minded to get rid of them, in any form. It's like dinner suit (black tie). You can wear one of those to 20 odd occasions across a year (not that I do any these days) and they become quite a good value item of clothing. You are also all dressed the same, with very few distinguishing features except your natural elegance. Get rid of them (as the cretinous, and probably insane, Gordon Brown did) and everyone has to either wear a £1000 suit or go and buy one to keep up with the richest there. It makes everyones life worse and more expensive, while also taking away from the sense of occasion. This is so typically Leftist - everything they do unfailingly makes things worse while they smugly think they've made things fairer.
Agreed! The sad fact is, as a species we do judge on appearance. I missed the anonymity and equality my uniform gave me, drowned in it's folds as I was!
Wonderful memories! Dracula?? Wow, that is hilarious! I remember kids getting the cane at junior school in London. Infants got the ruler!
The first time I saw a five year old child get rulered across the palms was for colouring in his Os and Ds in his workbook! I asked to go to the toilet and I picked up my coat and hat and walked home. When my mum got home from work, she found me sitting on the doorstep. "What happened?" she said in shock. I stammered out that the teacher was a very, very WICKED woman and I was not going back to that place! 🤣😂 Obviously, she made me go back and apologise to the teacher but my future was set from that day on.
I made a point of befriending anyone who got into trouble and I would fight any bully. I did not care how big, ugly or old they were. I would sock 'em hard in the chops! By the time I was 6 I had a fearsome reputation and nobody would dare to cross me or any of my friends on the streets.
When I was 7 we moved out of London to Romford in Essex and I was expected to behave better. Nope. That did not happen! 🤣😂
On the very first day at our new school we were all standing in line waiting to file into the dinner hall when I spotted a big boy with lots of curly hair push my younger brother out of the queue and flat on his bum! I marched straight up to this big boy and uppercut him to the jaw so hard that he flew through the air and landed very hard. I picked up my grizzling brother and stood with him in the queue, scowling at the big boy.
After dinner, the big boy turned out to be in the same class as me! He said that he wanted me to be his GIRLFRIEND. I told him where to stick himself, but he persisted. That boy was Terry, my first boyfriend and he stayed my boyfriend from age 7 until I was 13 years old and I would only remain his girlfriend provided that he stopped bullying people!
Now comes the sad part of this saga....
Terry and his friends would like to meet me over the park after school. We had a big climbing frame, called the Monkey Bars. It had been raining a lot that day and Terry was pretending to be a monkey while he waited with his friends for me. I had to get out of my school uniform so I was always later than them.
When I arrived, he had fallen from the top of the Monkey Bars and was dead. He had broken his neck. There was no soft landing pads in those days.... just concrete.
I barely remember the following couple of weeks. I did not go to school or go out to play with my friends. We were all seriously traumatised. I was not allowed to go to the funeral. My parents would not allow it.
I went back to school in a daze and did not find another boyfriend until I turned 16 years old and even then, I was very half-hearted about it.
Towards the end of my 17th year, I met six homeless Glaswegians on Clacton seafront I was super shocked by one of them. He looked exactly like my Terry and he turned out to be a vicious, dangerous fighter. The rest of this story is at the start of my autobiography which you can find linked and pinned at the top of comments on this post.....
Put it this way.... I had to tame 6 rough Glaswegians and I couldn't do it by fighting them. I had to find a better way to deal with bullies!
OMG! That is rather too early to be introduced to death.
It wasn't my first time, Christian. I saw a lot - my family were linked to the Krays. But the least said about that, the better. I am sure you understand.
There was also a time when I was about 7 years old climbing down the cliffs while on holiday at Durdle Door in Dorset, quite close to where I now live. I watched a man get tangled in the kelp fields and slowly drown, face up while his son struggled to swim back to shore. I stayed frozen on the cliff face watching his pale body bobbing about no more than a foot from the surface of the water..... eventually the son and the wife managed to get an alert sent out and a helicopter came, about 3 hours later..... I remained unobserved sitting on a rocky ledge about 25 feet above sea level.
I was able to direct them to where the body was. When they got a diver down to him and a rope around him, they pulled him up. The helicopter rose and rose, the man's body dragged at least 100 yards of kelp out of the sea with him.
I got into loads of trouble from my dad for disappearing for so long. Every moment of that event is like a film etched into my memory and I have always been afraid of seaweed since that day.
Oh, yikes! LOL. :)
I think I must have planned to be unexposed to death. I was well into my thirties for the first deaths in the "close" circle, and that was my paternal grandparents, dying days apart and in their nineties. The only death since then is my father, who hadn't quite hit 90.
Quite a number of my contemporaries at Marlborough have died- really a curiously high number, to the point I don't have all the stories. Quite a few are people I liked but none I'd have described as a close. By contrast nearly every teacher I had, bar one, was still going strong 10 years ago. I've not checked in the last five years but I did hear my housemaster was still knocking around a couple of years ago.
Of course, the complexion of this changed a couple of years ago, with quite a few down who were a lot closer.
Now I have to read all of this! You were brave, "taking on" Glaswegians! I'm from the Highlands and even though we're both Scots, Highlanders and Glaswegians alike, other Scots have a healthy respect for Glaswegians born entirely out of that toughness and abrasive brashness. :)
I am sorry about Terry though...and I remember older playgrounds well, and there being not even rudimentary nods towards safety.
Mostly, myself and my friends (I didn't have many though) played on the beach at Brora, or in the woods or, to the horror of our parents, on the old rope swing bridge crossing the River Brora, trying to see just how *much* we could make it swing. We invented Indiana Jones before he came into being. :D
You have a beautiful way with words, Frances, and are a wonderful writer. It's a joy to read what you pen/type/write.
Looking back on those six Glaswegians, I had an unfair advantage over them. I helped them get off the street and they loved me for it. I stopped them fighting amongst themselves so many times and each time they would put their fists into their eyes, yelling at me to get out of their way but I would not budge. I loved them so much..... you will see..... it is all in my autobio.
Only one of them is still alive now. I loved them all their lives and they loved me. It was something beyond words. On this matter I am not such a wonderful writer..... we are soul bonded forever is the best way I can describe it.
I don't miss them now..... they are in my heart.
You do them justice, Frances, believe me.
((((hug)))))
Truly, and me too, What you said!
Oh my!
Such a beautiful gift from the Universe Miss Bubbers was to you! xx
“One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.” - Carl Jung
Carl Jung was a major influence on me too! He helped me to turn away from psychology and focus keenly on Taoist literature, when I was looking for the influences which may have been taught along the Old Silk Road. That, in turn, led me into traditional Chinese herbal medicine and a career in healing. Jung wrote a foreword for the I Ching which stretched my mind quite painfully at first and then, later became the most profound piece of literature I have ever studied. I can't say that I fully understand it even yet.... 50 years later! Confucius said during his final days, that he would like another 50 years to study the I Ching. I now know exactly what he meant!
So interesting the I Ching !
I don't fully understand it either. Have not dug back in the material.
I was introduced to the piece by a wonderful, gifted biochemist named Dr Chiang from China
back in 1985. Thought it was interesting how his last name had most of the I Ching letters!
He said "This is the gift to ALL humanity. Cherish it always"!
You must be the big sister I never had :-) xx
That would be an honour, Dr Deborah! xx
My Mother grew up in
My Mother grew up in Romford. She lived on Straight Rd. She just turned 90. Would she have attended that same school? She came to America in 1955 to marry my Dad whom she met while he was stationed over in England post WWII. She has vivid memories of the bombings and blackouts during the war.
She may well have! It was one of three very good schools for girls in the area. There was the Frances Beardsley College (aka Romford High School), the Ursuline Catholic Girls School and Heath Park Girls school in Gidea Park.
We wore dark green uniforms at Frances Beardsley. The Ursuline wore dark brown and gold. The Heath Park girls wore navy blue. Ask her about her uniform which will help you pin down which school she went to! Let me know what she says, please! xx
My theory is we create as adults less what we have experienced, and more what we wished to know. Adopting and mothering, providing and forgiving, fighting and indulging - these are the luxuries of life. I had a Sister Mary Anastasia, beacon of kindness in tough school situation who, many decades ago, said to me: “Forgive me my trespasses and remember my loving days.” Thank you for igniting memories of youthful kindness... time to carry the torch!
Sister Mary Anastasia was given a beautiful name! It sounds as though she did it proud in her lifetime!
When I was 54 I eventually became an English teacher at a very prestigious private school in Madrid. I totally loved to teach! Not the subject of English particularly, because that is so illogical and annoying for phonetical speakers like the Spanish. I loved the interaction with the children! I told them to correct my Spanish if I made a mistake, and they enthusiastically took up the challenge. They also taught me HOW to teach engagingly which later resulted in me having the confidence to open my own evening school in a tiny mountain village called Madrigal de la Vera, where I was nicknamed Pocohontas because I always had two dogs and a cat following me everywhere I went! At that school I taught from 5pm until 9pm, 4 hourly classes for students from age 6 to 66. That was tremendous fun, hard work but so rewarding! I had a small fruit farm off grid and a lot of the younger students loved to visit me at the weekends to play with my dogs. They loved to practice their English with the dogs, who were also loving all the additional love and attention they received - everyone got something out of learning another language!
So you see, Miss Bubbers got her dream. I did eventually use my language skills after all!