As I have often said, I was painfully shy as a child. In an attempt to help my confidence my mother sent me for elocution lessons with the wonderfully-named Kate Kolinsky.
The lessons were held in her front room and there were a group of us, and that's all I can remember. I imagine her front room was much like the front of the music teacher I also went to as a child, the sort of front room you would associate with elderly spinsters in the 1950s, with antimacassars and dark furniture.
I'm thinking Miss Ball for my music teacher but I'm not sure of that. I didn't keep music lessons up for long because I could never be bothered to practise. I regret that now. I would love to be able to play the piano.
The reason I am reminiscing is that yesterday I was looking after GrandSon2 who is still suffering the effects of long Covid, and he wanted to know what I looked like as a little girl. I dug out my photos and found this with them.
4 comments:
I went to a grammar school, which had been posh back when they were a private school before the 1944 Ed Act forced them to deal with eleven plus.
They were horrified when the top scorers were working class girls (gels). So they taught elocution to try to crush our beautiful Yorkshire speech. The language of Chaucer and Shakespeare. Dated back to before the eighteenth century invented speech, now considered correct. BBC stuff. They didn't succeed, just put our backs up mainly.
I don't think they'd try it now!
Your hated elocution lessons paid off in the long run -- you are that rare author who reads her own works beautifully!
Back even further, Boud, they tried to stop school children speaking Welsh by making them the Welsh Knot, a piece of wood on string, around their neck, and punishing the one who at the end of the day was wearing it.
Thank you, Debra!
Gosh! I never knew your Maiden name and see it's a very Welsh name - like my Maiden name is Jones! Apparently according to my DNA, I'm 48% Welsh! How is your Welsh language study coming along?
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