When the Second World War broke out in September 1939 Miss de la Mare took most of the boarders to Shropshire to join a school there called Ryton Hall. Miss Guilbert and Miss Kathleen stayed in Folkestone to run the school until they were obliged to close on 22 May 1940 when the Government evacuated all children from the town. They joined their sister in Shropshire, accompanied by some of the day girls who became boarders. Needing larger premises, they rented part of a big house at Dorrington near Shrewsbury. This was Netley Hall and the owner, Mrs Coldwell and her daughter Claire Hope-Edwardes, remained in residence. The de la Mares took in some local day girls and reopened St Margaret's. Meanwhile 35-37 Earl's Avenue was taken over by the military.

Netley Hall had extensive grounds including a shrubbery which provided kindling wood and logs for the school's fires.

Hanna Cohn's years at the school, 1939-45, matched those of the war period, and her memories of that time are clear and detailed :  "Many calls were made upon Miss de la Mare's culinary skills at Netley hall during the war-time evacuation. While Miss Guilbert expertly carved the meat and cut the bread for breakfast and tea with vehement precision, Miss de la Mare, sometimes aided by a helper from the village, did the cooking. Dried eggs were reconstituted and scrambled, carrots sliced, cooked and served on toast for breakfast - good for seeing in the dark, we were told. Herbs and scraps of bacon transformed suet stodge into a 'savoury pudding', or so it was claimed.

Once the whole school, protected by stout gloves, went on a nettle-picking expedition. 'Pick the tender ones and they will taste like spinach', promised Miss de la Mare. To my unsophisticated palate they bore a marked resemblance to boiled blankets.

On Saturdays some of us had the opportunity to cook under Miss de la Mare's guidance. Late on Friday night the duty rota would go up in Miss Guilbert' assertive hand: Cook, Kitchen Helpers, Cleaners. The cook's main task was making the pastry for the fruit pies. Mine, to Miss de la Mare's irritation, generally achieved the appearance and consistency of a bath mat. Somebody - Jackie Tremlett? Barbara Benson? - exuberantly tossed her ball of dough into the air and had to scrape it off the kitchen ceiling. Most demanding was gravy-making on the hot range when the rest of the meal was ready. The burnt-on juices in the meat tin had to be diluted and agitated with a long-handled spoon. Flour was shaken from a dredger. Inevitably there were lumps. Jill, a day-girl, earned Miss de la Mare's approval by managing to produce something unlumpy but she, alas, was not available on Saturdays.

Kitchen helpers peeled masses of potatoes for the black long-handled saucepan that one person alone could not shift. They also washed up after lunch. Slivers of worn-down kitchen soap were trapped in a metal soap-saver and swished to and fro in the hot water. Cleaners, under Miss Guilbert's supervision, swept and dusted classrooms, bedrooms, corridors. The vacuum cleaner must have been invented by then but I don't remember ever seeing one at Netley. Brooms and brushes, hard and soft, raised clouds of dust and fluff.

On Sundays we walked in 'crocodile' to matins. Stapleton Church was the favourite. Its rector taught Scripture at Netley Hall and his wife played Mother Superior in one of our plays.

 Sometimes we walked through the village to Dorrington Church. The vicar there had the disconcerting habit of rolling his eyes while preaching until only the whites were visible. We used to try to emulate this trick when we weren't busy trying to faint. Somebody spread the rumour that this was best achieved by putting wet blotting-paper in our shoes.

There was relaxation, of course, walks in the fields, vaulting over the gates, learning to identify wild flowers and trees: learning, with some embarrassment, the facts of a stallion's life. What an emancipation after crocodile walks in Folkestone up and down the Leas.

Best of all were the bicycle picnics. Miss de la Mare would lead the way in 'The Sparrow', the Austin Seven she had won in a raffle. It was a temperamental car and we all became adept at wielding the starting handle when necessary. On our bicycles, some borrowed from kind folk in the village, we followed the car with its cargo of meat paste and jam sandwiches. We pedalled along the country lanes and free-wheeled blissfully down-hill, almost colliding with the Sparrow as we rounded a bend and found Miss de la Mare halted at the cross-roads in case we missed our way to Lawley or Caradoc or Stiperstones.

Night-time provided the usual boarding school diversions: midnight feasts with whatever we had managed to purloin from the pantry, forbidden books read by torch-light ('Tess of the d'Urbervilles' was a favourite), going up on the roof. Many of the rooms had internal wooden shutters behind which bats used to nest. We could hear them squeaking and, convinced they would become entangled in our long hair, went to sleep with pyjama cases on our heads.

Resolution was a quality the de la Mare sisters must have needed at that time. Domestic staff was virtually unobtainable, teaching staff came and went. Sometimes the weather conditions were appalling. One beginning of term, Madame Trébini, the French teacher with whom we had to make polite conversation at meal times, was fetched from the station in the butcher's van and got stuck in the snow along the front drive. Much worse, Miss Kathleen fell ill with cancer and GB and Delhi spent Saturdays visiting her in hospital in Oxford. Those sad long journeys in the black-out must have drained them. When Miss Kathleen died Miss Guilbert gave each girl an Easter book-mark in her memory."

Miss Kathleen's death was in 1942. Despite their grief, Miss de la Mare and Miss Guilbert struggled on. Miss de la Mare was now Headmistress, Matron and Cook, usually wearing a white overall, cotton apron and old felt hat. Miss Guilbert did the accounts, organised and supervised the teaching, doing much of it herself including gym and games, with one resident mistress and some part-time local staff.


UNIFORMS 1939-1945