Chap6

Chapter 6
1966 - 1967
The final years

After Dudley Hasson died, and with Mrs Kathleen Whiteside as acting Principal, the Governors sought a full-time replacement. The choice was Miss Christine Anne May BSc(Hons) FRGS, Head of the Geography Department at Hornchurch Grammar School and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. She accepted the appointment, attended Senior Speech Day in July, and took up her post in September 1966. She resigned the following spring owing to the illness of her father, and was succeeded by the school secretary, Mrs Rosemary Watson. Mrs Whiteside continued as Deputy Headmistress.

During this last year, 1967, the number of girls, which had once reached 300, had dwindled to 170, of whom 80 were boarders. The school was no longer financially viable, and the bank was not willing to support it any more. It would also have had difficulty in conforming to the new fire regulations. There was no alternative but to close the school. In December 1967 the grand old lady, St Margaret’s Folkestone, with all the dignity she could muster, bade a final farewell to her girls and closed her doors. To most parents the letter from the Educational Trust announcing the closure came as a complete surprise. The girls who went home for the Christmas holidays had never imagined that they would not be returning.

It does not take much to imagine the emotions of the two de la Mare sisters, then in their mid-eighties. The idea of a memorial in Holy Trinity Church was received with enthusiasm as a most fitting way to mark not only the school’s closure but its long connection with that church, where the girls had attended services and been confirmed. The Vicar, the Rev A L Evan Hopkins, welcomed the proposal, explaining that the church still needed two replacement stained glass windows for the north aisle, and offered one as the site for the memorial.

Mr Frederick Cole of Nonnington, a stained glass artist whose works are known in many countries, was asked to submit a design, and the de la Mares started collecting donations from their Old Girls. As it was an expensive project, contributions were also invited from Mrs Kathleen Whiteside and the Old Girls from the Hasson era, to which they readily agreed.

The inscription reads:

To commemorate
the close association
of this Church with
Saint Margaret’s School
from its foundation
1890 1967

In the left panel stands St Margaret and in the right is illustrated the double front facade of the main school building, 35-37 Earls Avenue. Above these are six famous women: Elizabeth Fry, Mary Slessor, Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavell, Mother Teresa and Gladys Aylward.

The orange shape beneath the picture of the school building is the heraldic 'maunch' or 'sleeve' from the the de la Mare coat of arms.

Mr Cole exhibited a cartoon of the design to a gathering in the home of Johanna Lack in September 1968. The funds were raised to cover the cost, approximately £600, the window made and installed, and dedicated at a service of thanksgiving on Saturday 24 May 1969 by the Dean of Canterbury, the Very Rev. I.H. White-Thomson, husband of Wendy Woolliams. Afterwards a tea party was held in the church hall at which Miss Marguerite de la Mare and Mrs Kathleen Whiteside cut a cake decorated with white icing and a blue inscription "St Margaret’s". A great effort was made to keep the mood of both the service and the tea party a positive and cheerful one.

The contents of all the school buildings were sold in a three day auction in February 1968, organised by the auctioneers Messrs Geo. Milne & Co of 107 Sandgate Road, Folkestone. Thanks to the timely intervention of Johanna Lack and others, a number of souvenirs were rescued including Lot 98: the school shield which had hung above the stage in the assembly hall, and the school Honours Board. It is heart-breaking to read through the catalogue of items being sold: unused exercise books, jars of marmalade, piles of sheet music, pillows, desks, test tubes, silver trophies, hockey sticks and pantomime costumes: the paraphernalia of a splendid school.

The de la Mare sisters lived on for another three years. In 1970 both developed cancer. Miss Marguerite, aged 93, died on 16 April 1971 and Miss Guilbert, aged 90, on 23 June 1971. At the closure, 35-37 Earl’s Avenue and the games field had reverted to the de la Mares, who had retained ownership throughout the Hasson era. After their death the school building was sold and demolished, partly by fire, in 1972. Suzanne Farran, who had been a pupil in the 1920s, watched it happen. A block of twenty-four maisonettes was erected in its place.

The fate of the games field was fought over for several years. The Kent County Council, with some support from local residents, had wanted to preserve it as an open space, but in the end it was sold for development as housing and work began in the Spring of 1972.

The Dedication of St Margaret's Window
"This is a unique occasion. It is the commemoration of a school that has made its distinctive mark on the town and parish as an educational inspiration for generations of girls from 1890, when Miss de la Mare, Head of Kent College, was asked to start a school for the daughters of certain celebraties of that time, to 1967, when the inevitable pressure of economics suddenly made it no longer possible to continue. The regret we all felt about this was very deep, but it would have been wrong if that had been allowed to overshadow the record of a good and gay school community that had done so splendid a job for nearly 80 years.

So it came about that those who felt like this began to think of a way in which thanksgiving (thanks to God) could be expressed in more permanent form, and they generously hit on the idea of making a presentation to the Church with which the School had had such close association, from which they had gained help and to which they had made no small contributions down the years.

Hence the gift by the Old Girls and friends, of this quite lovely window by Mr F.Cole, as exciting in its subject as it is exquisite in its design and colouring. It will be an inspiration to succeeding generations of worshippers and a permanent enrichment of our beloved Church.

It is a joy that some are still with us who were in at the foundatioin of St Margaret's, especially the Misses de la Mare to whom, with their Aunt before them, the School owed its origin and early beginnings.

As years went by and wars brought dislocation, changes and new developments took place as a number here can recall --- uimportant changes that any photograph of the early days makes apparent in the school-girl fashions, and more signifant changes in pupil-teacher relationships. But all along, Girls were glad of what they gained from the School, and for the most part looked back with gratitude to their time at St Margaret's as some of the happiest days of their lives.

So we come to this day, with one regret that the obvious person to conduct this Ceremony of Dedication and who gladly had accepted, the Dean of Canterbury, cannot be present. We are glad that his wife, an Old Girl, has been able to come."