Changing schools and moving to a new town was exactly what Hilary MacDonald didn’t want to do. Aged 12, she had a large number of friends and one special friend, Petra, from whom she was inseparable. She had just moved to Secondary School, loved the uniform, was excited by the range of different subjects she had on her timetable and was in a class where, although some of the boys were not very well behaved, she felt she was learning lots of useful stuff that was going to get her good exam results in four years’ time. She liked school, she liked the house where she lived with both her parents and her older brother and she liked being busy. She went to a dance class, a rounders club, she was learning to play the piano and she had just started attending computer club at school.
And then one day towards the end of Year 7, her Mum sat her down and told her that they were moving to a new town one hundred miles away.
“Dad’s got a new job and Michael’s just finished his “A” levels so this is a perfect time to move,” her Mum explained.
“It’s not perfect for me”
“We couldn’t move while Michael was still at school.”
“I’m still at school”
“Year 7 isn’t as important is it? You know that. Michael’s been studying hard and he’s off to University next year. It’s a perfect time to move.”
Silence from Hilary.
“I know it’s a lot to get used to but Weyford Wells is a lovely town, right in the middle of Kent which is a beautiful county.”
“It’s lovely round here.”
“I imagine that’s how you may feel Hilary, but North London isn’t exactly lovely, is it?”
“I think so.”
“What about my friends?”
“You’ll make new friends at your new school.”
“I don’t want to go to a new school where I don’t know anybody. I like my friends. I don’t want to live in a new house. I don’t want to live in Bayford Bells.”
“Weyford Wells”
“Whatever.”
Hilary folded her arms and carried on looking at Countdown. She loved Countdown; she quite liked the word rounds but she loved the numbers game and she adored Carol Vorderman. Her Mum went to make her tea.
Two hours later her Dad came in from work. Hilary could hear her Mum and Dad discussing her in the kitchen.
“Hello Hilary, darling.”
“Hello Dad. Can I just say that…”
“No Hilary, you can’t. Your mother’s told me that you’re not happy about the move and I’m sorry about that. I realise that you can’t see the bigger picture. I’m not sure I could if I was your age. But you have to understand that we are your Mum and Dad and we love you very much. It’s our responsibility to do what’s best for our family. From your point of view, you have the security of things you know and taking a step into the unknown is scary. I understand that. But this move IS going to happen. I’ve got a much better job. I’ll be paid more, so we can afford nicer things and better holidays. I will have less travelling so I’ll be able to spend more time with you and your Mum. The school you’ll be going to is a much better school. Excellent exam results, very good reputation and best of all, no boys.”
“What?”
“It’s a single sex school. Just girls. None of those pesky boys interfering with your education.”
“Michael went to a school with girls.”
“Yes but that’s different, he’s a boy. He’s naturally clever. We know you’re good at lessons darling, but you know as well as we do, that you need to work hard to get good results.”
Silence.
“Anyway, the matter’s settled. We’ve bought the house, I’ve resigned from my job and at the end of term, we’ll be moving to a lovely new house.”
“But…”
“No ‘buts’ Hilary. The decision is final”
So that was that.
Nineteen years later Hilary looked at me with a very focussed look in her eyes.
“I really hated that school. Weyford Wells school for Girls. What a terrible place. Educational theory gone mad. The idea that girls can contribute to class discussions without boys making fun of them. What nonsense. When I was teaching, boys and girls made equal contributions in my lessons. I never once heard any boy poke fun at a girl for saying something wrong. Or something right. Or anything. It just never happened.”
“Yes, but you taught in a Sixth Form College. All the students wanted to be there – they wanted to learn.” I never could resist playing devil’s advocate.
“Rubbish!” Hilary was getting animated. Her sixth month old baby started to wriggle in her arms so she put her down and laid her in the Baby Grow Bed.
“That’s such a misconception. Lots of students go to Sixth Form College to avoid having to make a decision about what they want to do. Lots of them take Maths because their parents want them to. Behaviour in my lessons was good because I was a good teacher. I inspired them. Not like the rubbish teachers we had at ‘WeWe’.”
I looked at the baby to see if there had been an accident.
“WeWe. Weyford Wells School For Girls. That’s what we called it. The Head liked to call it ‘Weyford Wells School for the Advancement and Betterment of Young Ladies.’ Seriously, she did. Every assembly. Crazy. Ridiculous. This wasn’t Miss Jean Brodie in the 30’s – it was only thirty years ago.”
“Surely you got a good education there? You got good exam results and a good degree. You trained to be a teacher. Made yourself into a good teacher. Isn’t that what schools are for? To give you a start in life?”
“Single sex schools have their own agenda. You know, I never talked to a boy from the age of 12 until I got to University. Did that give me a start in life? I was awkward and nervous around boys for years until I met Luke. I had a string of unsuccessful relationships – none of them lasted more than six months.”
“Six months is half a year and one hundred and eighty two and a half days,” claimed Pete, Hilary’s ten year old as he charged into Hilary’s tiny front room.
“Very clever Pete,” replied Hilary. “Where are Maggie and Kenny?”
“They’re playing on the BrainTrain. They’re OK”
“It’s the latest toy,” Hilary explained to me. “It takes them on a virtual 3D ride to another galaxy while making sure their spelling and tables are up to scratch.”
“It sounds like Back To The Future,” I mumbled.
After one month at her new school, Hilary had no friends. She spent every break and lunchtime sat on a bench in the playground and was completely ignored by everyone except for Zena Walker who was also a new girl. Hilary knew that she shouldn’t judge people by their looks but Zena was seriously ugly: spotty face, long hair that looked as if it had never seen a brush, horrible glasses and fat. Apart from that, she had a lot going for her. Oh yes, and she talked non-stop about her life on the Navy Base in Malta where she had grown up where everything was ‘perfect’. Oh yes, and she always complained and was very rude about the other girls. And also, not to put too fine a point on it, she was thick. Hilary also knew that she shouldn’t call other girls ‘thick’; she shouldn’t even think it but Zena Walker was seriously challenged on the intellectual front. For some reason that Hilary couldn’t work out but she was extremely grateful for, neither girl was bullied. Maybe they just looked too pathetic for other girls to bother with. Hilary thought she may have detected a couple of the girls smiling sympathetically at her from time to time but there seemed no way to extricate herself from Zena Walker and so she simply smiled back and shrugged her shoulders as if to say ‘Help Me.’ But nobody ever did.
When Hilary started at her new school, her Maths teacher was a man. Mr Henson. Her teacher’s gender wasn’t of any particular interest to Hilary but it seemed to be a point of discussion for everybody else. After one of her tortuous conversations with Zena, she understood.
“Every other teacher here is a woman,” Zena explained. “They’re not used to blokes here. In my school on the base there’s exactly 50% of each. Male and female. It’s brilliant. I can’t wait to go back”
Go back now, please and spare me from this boredom and then maybe, just maybe, I might make some new friends. Please. Go. Now.
“Ah, yes. I see now”
One day Hilary was scared she would actually say out loud what she was thinking and then she’d be in real trouble.
Whilst Hilary was attending to the baby I said “So your schooldays were terrible. Do you still see Zena Walker?”
“God, No. She went back to Malta after two months.”
“So were you always lonely?”
“Lonely? At WeWe?”
“It doesn’t sound like you were made very welcome by the other girls.”
“Oh no, it was great. Well the other girls were brilliant. I still see Lauren, Dawn, Deanna and Leah. We get together every six months. No, once Greener Zena left, it was heaven.”
“So single sex schools weren’t all that bad then?”
Hilary’s look pierced into my very soul and shattered my humanity in an instant. Well, it would have done if it could. She carried on talking about her Maths teacher from 1994.
“He was hopeless,” Hilary explained to me. “He thought he was God’s gift to women. He wore tight shirts and flowery ties. He was always chatting up other members of staff and he was really creepy with the girls.”
Who was he supposed to talk to if all the other members of staff were women? The angry look on Hilary’s face stopped me saying this, just in time.
“One day he gave us a worksheet to fill in during class. It was factorising quadratic equations. I know lots of people will shriek in horror at the very idea but I loved it. I loved algebra. I loved the certainty, the exactness, the fact that it was either right or wrong. I was quite happy working away at it. And then he called me up to his desk to get my work marked. Well, I tugged my skirt down to my knees because I wasn’t happy standing that close to him. He looked at my first three answers and marked them all wrong. It’s funny because I know I’ve just said that algebra is either right or wrong but if a quadratic expression has a common factor, there will always be more than one way to factorise it.”
She obviously read the look on my face.
“Don’t worry. All I’m saying is that you can write down an answer that looks wrong but is actually correct. If you’re any sort of halfway decent mathematician, you’ll know this. But this was Old Pa Henson. He had no idea. He had his answers in front of him and they were different to mine so he marked them wrong. He told me to go back and do them again. I started to argue. And then it happened. Then he said it. I’ve never forgotten what he said to me. It was so unfair. Really unfair. And wrong. I vowed from that day on, I would prove him wrong. It really upset me at the time but if there was one thing that spurred me on, drove me to get grade A at GCSE Maths, grade A at both my Maths A levels and my First Class Degree at Bristol, this was it.”
“What did he say?”
“You’ll never be any good at Maths, will you Hilary.”
And then one day towards the end of Year 7, her Mum sat her down and told her that they were moving to a new town one hundred miles away.
“Dad’s got a new job and Michael’s just finished his “A” levels so this is a perfect time to move,” her Mum explained.
“It’s not perfect for me”
“We couldn’t move while Michael was still at school.”
“I’m still at school”
“Year 7 isn’t as important is it? You know that. Michael’s been studying hard and he’s off to University next year. It’s a perfect time to move.”
Silence from Hilary.
“I know it’s a lot to get used to but Weyford Wells is a lovely town, right in the middle of Kent which is a beautiful county.”
“It’s lovely round here.”
“I imagine that’s how you may feel Hilary, but North London isn’t exactly lovely, is it?”
“I think so.”
“What about my friends?”
“You’ll make new friends at your new school.”
“I don’t want to go to a new school where I don’t know anybody. I like my friends. I don’t want to live in a new house. I don’t want to live in Bayford Bells.”
“Weyford Wells”
“Whatever.”
Hilary folded her arms and carried on looking at Countdown. She loved Countdown; she quite liked the word rounds but she loved the numbers game and she adored Carol Vorderman. Her Mum went to make her tea.
Two hours later her Dad came in from work. Hilary could hear her Mum and Dad discussing her in the kitchen.
“Hello Hilary, darling.”
“Hello Dad. Can I just say that…”
“No Hilary, you can’t. Your mother’s told me that you’re not happy about the move and I’m sorry about that. I realise that you can’t see the bigger picture. I’m not sure I could if I was your age. But you have to understand that we are your Mum and Dad and we love you very much. It’s our responsibility to do what’s best for our family. From your point of view, you have the security of things you know and taking a step into the unknown is scary. I understand that. But this move IS going to happen. I’ve got a much better job. I’ll be paid more, so we can afford nicer things and better holidays. I will have less travelling so I’ll be able to spend more time with you and your Mum. The school you’ll be going to is a much better school. Excellent exam results, very good reputation and best of all, no boys.”
“What?”
“It’s a single sex school. Just girls. None of those pesky boys interfering with your education.”
“Michael went to a school with girls.”
“Yes but that’s different, he’s a boy. He’s naturally clever. We know you’re good at lessons darling, but you know as well as we do, that you need to work hard to get good results.”
Silence.
“Anyway, the matter’s settled. We’ve bought the house, I’ve resigned from my job and at the end of term, we’ll be moving to a lovely new house.”
“But…”
“No ‘buts’ Hilary. The decision is final”
So that was that.
Nineteen years later Hilary looked at me with a very focussed look in her eyes.
“I really hated that school. Weyford Wells school for Girls. What a terrible place. Educational theory gone mad. The idea that girls can contribute to class discussions without boys making fun of them. What nonsense. When I was teaching, boys and girls made equal contributions in my lessons. I never once heard any boy poke fun at a girl for saying something wrong. Or something right. Or anything. It just never happened.”
“Yes, but you taught in a Sixth Form College. All the students wanted to be there – they wanted to learn.” I never could resist playing devil’s advocate.
“Rubbish!” Hilary was getting animated. Her sixth month old baby started to wriggle in her arms so she put her down and laid her in the Baby Grow Bed.
“That’s such a misconception. Lots of students go to Sixth Form College to avoid having to make a decision about what they want to do. Lots of them take Maths because their parents want them to. Behaviour in my lessons was good because I was a good teacher. I inspired them. Not like the rubbish teachers we had at ‘WeWe’.”
I looked at the baby to see if there had been an accident.
“WeWe. Weyford Wells School For Girls. That’s what we called it. The Head liked to call it ‘Weyford Wells School for the Advancement and Betterment of Young Ladies.’ Seriously, she did. Every assembly. Crazy. Ridiculous. This wasn’t Miss Jean Brodie in the 30’s – it was only thirty years ago.”
“Surely you got a good education there? You got good exam results and a good degree. You trained to be a teacher. Made yourself into a good teacher. Isn’t that what schools are for? To give you a start in life?”
“Single sex schools have their own agenda. You know, I never talked to a boy from the age of 12 until I got to University. Did that give me a start in life? I was awkward and nervous around boys for years until I met Luke. I had a string of unsuccessful relationships – none of them lasted more than six months.”
“Six months is half a year and one hundred and eighty two and a half days,” claimed Pete, Hilary’s ten year old as he charged into Hilary’s tiny front room.
“Very clever Pete,” replied Hilary. “Where are Maggie and Kenny?”
“They’re playing on the BrainTrain. They’re OK”
“It’s the latest toy,” Hilary explained to me. “It takes them on a virtual 3D ride to another galaxy while making sure their spelling and tables are up to scratch.”
“It sounds like Back To The Future,” I mumbled.
After one month at her new school, Hilary had no friends. She spent every break and lunchtime sat on a bench in the playground and was completely ignored by everyone except for Zena Walker who was also a new girl. Hilary knew that she shouldn’t judge people by their looks but Zena was seriously ugly: spotty face, long hair that looked as if it had never seen a brush, horrible glasses and fat. Apart from that, she had a lot going for her. Oh yes, and she talked non-stop about her life on the Navy Base in Malta where she had grown up where everything was ‘perfect’. Oh yes, and she always complained and was very rude about the other girls. And also, not to put too fine a point on it, she was thick. Hilary also knew that she shouldn’t call other girls ‘thick’; she shouldn’t even think it but Zena Walker was seriously challenged on the intellectual front. For some reason that Hilary couldn’t work out but she was extremely grateful for, neither girl was bullied. Maybe they just looked too pathetic for other girls to bother with. Hilary thought she may have detected a couple of the girls smiling sympathetically at her from time to time but there seemed no way to extricate herself from Zena Walker and so she simply smiled back and shrugged her shoulders as if to say ‘Help Me.’ But nobody ever did.
When Hilary started at her new school, her Maths teacher was a man. Mr Henson. Her teacher’s gender wasn’t of any particular interest to Hilary but it seemed to be a point of discussion for everybody else. After one of her tortuous conversations with Zena, she understood.
“Every other teacher here is a woman,” Zena explained. “They’re not used to blokes here. In my school on the base there’s exactly 50% of each. Male and female. It’s brilliant. I can’t wait to go back”
Go back now, please and spare me from this boredom and then maybe, just maybe, I might make some new friends. Please. Go. Now.
“Ah, yes. I see now”
One day Hilary was scared she would actually say out loud what she was thinking and then she’d be in real trouble.
Whilst Hilary was attending to the baby I said “So your schooldays were terrible. Do you still see Zena Walker?”
“God, No. She went back to Malta after two months.”
“So were you always lonely?”
“Lonely? At WeWe?”
“It doesn’t sound like you were made very welcome by the other girls.”
“Oh no, it was great. Well the other girls were brilliant. I still see Lauren, Dawn, Deanna and Leah. We get together every six months. No, once Greener Zena left, it was heaven.”
“So single sex schools weren’t all that bad then?”
Hilary’s look pierced into my very soul and shattered my humanity in an instant. Well, it would have done if it could. She carried on talking about her Maths teacher from 1994.
“He was hopeless,” Hilary explained to me. “He thought he was God’s gift to women. He wore tight shirts and flowery ties. He was always chatting up other members of staff and he was really creepy with the girls.”
Who was he supposed to talk to if all the other members of staff were women? The angry look on Hilary’s face stopped me saying this, just in time.
“One day he gave us a worksheet to fill in during class. It was factorising quadratic equations. I know lots of people will shriek in horror at the very idea but I loved it. I loved algebra. I loved the certainty, the exactness, the fact that it was either right or wrong. I was quite happy working away at it. And then he called me up to his desk to get my work marked. Well, I tugged my skirt down to my knees because I wasn’t happy standing that close to him. He looked at my first three answers and marked them all wrong. It’s funny because I know I’ve just said that algebra is either right or wrong but if a quadratic expression has a common factor, there will always be more than one way to factorise it.”
She obviously read the look on my face.
“Don’t worry. All I’m saying is that you can write down an answer that looks wrong but is actually correct. If you’re any sort of halfway decent mathematician, you’ll know this. But this was Old Pa Henson. He had no idea. He had his answers in front of him and they were different to mine so he marked them wrong. He told me to go back and do them again. I started to argue. And then it happened. Then he said it. I’ve never forgotten what he said to me. It was so unfair. Really unfair. And wrong. I vowed from that day on, I would prove him wrong. It really upset me at the time but if there was one thing that spurred me on, drove me to get grade A at GCSE Maths, grade A at both my Maths A levels and my First Class Degree at Bristol, this was it.”
“What did he say?”
“You’ll never be any good at Maths, will you Hilary.”
