This Much Is True

Our teachers were from the generation who could have lost their boyfriends in the war. We speculated endlessly about their lives outside the school gates. Miss Davis (History) was mimsy and prim and wore white, ill-fitting blouses and a skirt. To our great delight, she had the habit of storing her hankies in her knickers — we kept an eye out for their swift retrieval when she had a cold. She was the epitome of a spinster. Her passion was Charles the First. She described his execution so vividly that we saw his shirt blowing in the breeze as he ascended the gallows outside Whitehall. When she evoked this scene, all her juices flowed and she sparkled. I think it’s because of Miss Davis that I’ve always been a royalist, even though my broader politics tend in the other direction. She made me see kings and queens as real people, as flawed, interesting characters and not as the representation of privilege and repression.

Our music teacher, Mrs Archer, was a burly, formidable woman, one of the school’s few married teachers. Her husband ran a profitable removal firm, Archer Cowley, so she didn’t need the money, but taught for the sheer joy of it. Every morning, she would oversee hymn practice. I have always been tone-deaf, which Mrs Archer spotted. I was told firmly to mime during hymn practice. Despite that, Mrs Archer liked me — I think she appreciated my wildness and saw me as a free spirit.

English was always my favourite subject. Our first English teacher was Miss Bartholomew. She loved Shakespeare so much that little beads of spittle formed into froth at the corners of her mouth when she read the plays aloud. She taught Dame Maggie Smith, who remembers her well. When she left Oxford High School she became headmistress of Norwich High School for Girls. I was in touch with her until she died, a most splendid woman.

Joan Gummer succeeded her — tough shoes to fill, but she was also an excellent teacher. In different times in her life, she had been both a nun and an actress. She still looked like a nun, with a pale face, an ethereal expression and light blue eyes. She had studied at RADA, had a keen sense of drama and she directed the school play. I had a rapport with her, I think because she could sense that I was a performer and not just a show-off. Miss Gummer had a big influence on my attitude to the theatre, because she loved it too, although being deeply religious she had renounced it. She was a devout Catholic and truly believed in its dogma and its strictures, but her single-mindedness, her focus, is what I will always remember. She talked with flair and joy about Keats and the Romantics and we inherited her enthusiasm. She had a curious custom: when she quoted poetry or read from a play, she would turn her head and expose her noble profile to us, gazing into the middle distance. We would giggle, because it was a self-conscious gesture that must have come from her time as an actress. Perhaps somebody once told her, ‘Goodness, you’ve got a sensational profile.’ It was a dramatic thing to do, though I don’t know if it would work in church. She was inspirational.

I once described myself as ‘extremely unintelligent’, but I no longer think it’s sensible for me to say that I’m extremely unintelligent. I can’t do intelligence tests and I’m completely innumerate, for example, but I can remember telephone numbers easily, so perhaps a more accurate self-assessment would be that I am a little bit thick. I did have some talents, though. Liz says that they all knew that if there was a public speaking competition, our house at school (East) would win because of me. I loved public speaking. And I always wanted to win — desperately. One year my speech was about Deirdre — the Jacob Epstein bronze torso that stood above the pool in the courtyard outside the staff room. I thought my speech had been very poor and I was in a paroxysm of despair, but we still won the cup. Apparently, I did it almost without notes and that was how I first realised that I could entertain by talking, and that was pleasing.

In the sixth form, there were often soirées at Liz’s house. Even the teachers would come to the Hodgkins’ parties and do charades. I have a strong memory of Miss Jackson saying, ‘I don’t mind being a camel.’ But charades made me nervous. I felt that a spotlight was shining on me because I was supposed to be good at acting, and the expectation spoilt it for me.

The school plays were, of course, my chance to shine. My school friends now tell me that I was always a brilliant actress, and that even then they knew that everything was going to work out. The pleasure of making people laugh was exquisite and intense. And school provided my audience from the beginning to the end.