Read Online Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue by Lynn Knight - Free Book Online

Ethel) said she was not allowed to soil her hands in any way. Annie was not to wash a single pot, peel a potato or lift a sweeping brush, but to sit with her school books or her sewing. At a time when girls like Ethel had one sibling on their hip, others at their heels and a long list of chores to complete, my grandma was having crochet lessons, learning the piano and perfecting her embroidery. Dick and Betsy greatly regretted their own poor schooling and wanted her to have an education in all the things they lacked, and as many extras as they could afford. Dick’s income was reasonably stable, with a foreman’s wage, and the shop was beginning to pay its way. Their own needs were relatively minimal. And unlike the majority of their neighbours, my great-grandparents had only one child to pro vide for. They could not afford to raise a lady of leisure – Annie would have towork until she married – but the better her education, the more chances she would have. Her hands would be smooth, unlike theirs.
    It was probably Dick and Betsy’s friendship with the publican that helped determine my great-grandma’s schooling. Zoe Graham was a paying pupil at the Netherthorpe Grammar School, Staveley (tradesmen’s daughters were often fee-paying pupils). In 1907, Annie joined her. She had to pass an entrance exam in Reading, Writing and the First Four Rules of Arithmetic, but with that achieved, was accepted. School fees were £1 13s 4d a term; dinner in the School House a further 9d a day – most pupils came from too far away to return home at lunchtime (though, this being the north of England, no one ate ‘lunch’). Students were required to provide their own books and stationery; there was also a sports fee of 2s 6d a term, although my great-grandparents could have spared themselves that cost: it paid for the hockey lessons Annie hated. My grandma could think of nothing worse than pounding up and down a muddy field.
    Staveley Netherthorpe Grammar School had a long pedigree stretching back to the sixteenth century and had recently resisted attempts to deprive it of its grammar-school status. Shortly before my grandma became a pupil, the school had sixty-six day boys, one boarder, and forty-one girls. Over the next few years, an influx of those wishing to train as elementary school teachers at its newly established Pupil-Teacher Centre further increased student numbers. As befitted a co-educational establishment, the staff was mixed, its female members inspirational New Women in college gowns, teaching their young charges to think for themselves, a lesson my grandma absorbed.
    The school syllabus included Latin, Euclid, Trigonometry and Science. Pupils were encouraged to perform their own experiments in the chemistry and physics’ labs and to ‘attack problems with confidence’. Additionally, girls were taught housewifery, dressmaking and cookery; and boys woodwork, to introduce ‘ideas of economy, thrift and careful attention to detail’. Annie’s favourite subjects were English and History – she relished Dickens and Longfellow and devoured Walter Scott; the Kings and Queens of England; the little Princes in the Tower; Alfred burning the Cakes. Aside from the dreaded hockey, my grandma loved her Nether-thorpe years.
    There were more new friends to make at the grammar school, boys as well as girls, who were just as interested in reading Shakespeare as she was: Maurice Unwin, who had views on most subjects; and a quietly spoken boy, George Walter Hardcastle, who kept his opinions to himself, but generally had something interesting to say. There was slim, fair-haired Gwennie Peat, and, of course, Zoe was a classmate too. Just as Ethel had defended my grandma, now Annie stuck up for Zoe. Whereas Annie had needed a champion to fight with slaps and fists, Zoe was a diffident pupil. Words did not frighten Annie; she knew and enjoyed their power, and spoke up for Zoe whenever