Memories of Kathleen Purver
Memories of Kathleen Purver
Barbara Howard
I was there from 1947 to 1953 – Barbara Manfield then – and I distinctly remember Miss Purver teaching history.
Ellen Jenkinson
I do have a memory of Kitty Purver as we disrespectfully called her amongst we ‘naughty girls’. She was very kind to me when I was sent to her to be reprimanded, she said that I had been such a naughty girl that I would make a good prefect as I would understand all the other younger reprobates!!
She also smoked like a chimney and was a bit nicotine stained
David Meadows
Delighted to receive your note. Miss Purver never taught me, so I am useless re anecdotes. I remember she chain smoked and that is about it.
Don Stacey
I remember Miss Purver as the History Mistress and Deputy Head. In each of her lessons she would teach details of the reigns of each of our Kings and Queens. The following week she would question us on all details of the previous week. The first question was always “What were the dates of the reign of ?? We were all assured of at least one mark as we were able to put the dates down before the lesson even started. A lovely person as was Mr Wigfield (The Head). (1944 to 1949 I think)
Janet Thorpe (née Feehan)
Miss Purver did not teach me, but I do remember she ran an alternative service for us few Roman Catholics during assembly and lent us books on the lives of Saints to study during RK lessons.
I think she also liaised with Guildford College and quite a few of us went on to do a secretarial course with the Day Commercial teachers.
I found her very easy to get on with.
Bill Stephenson
I was a pupil from 1953 – 1955 and was taught English by a lady whom I really bonded with. I do not remember her name but I do not remember the name Purver. I think the teacher might have been Scottish.
John Queen
I was in the class that started in 1947 at Godalming and was taught History by Miss Purver. I enjoyed her classes very much but ended up in the Sciences in the sixth form. Unfortunately, I have no photos from those days but many happy memories.
Josie Clarke
Thank you for your letter about Miss Purver, her office was on the left as you go in the front door. I remember her as Head Mistress for the girls, and she took us for history one year. I attended the school from 1955 to 1960. Sorry I do not have any photos.
Jeremy Nicklin 1952-1960
I remember her clearly. Called Kitty. If you have any school photographs of that period, she is in all of them. I have mine from 1956. The photographer used a mechanical-powered camera which swung around to
encompass all the pupils and staff. People came out OK but the camera gave the school a rounded facade. As the camera travelled slowly you could stand on the end of one row and run to the other to be in the photo twice!
Janice Taylor
I had Miss Purver as my history teacher for my first year (and her last year) at Godalming. She was a wonderful teacher and her enthusiasm for history was evident. She had a very gentle approach which was gratefully received by us all. I don’t recall she ever had to raise her voice or had a problem with discipline and the way she taught history made it all very real and very interesting. I absolutely loved her classes, her personality as a warm and caring person seemed (for me) to create an oasis in this new and rather impersonal (and masculine) environment. The obvious fact that she really knew and loved her subject impressed me as did her quiet authority. I took that impression of ability and achievement (remember women were still not seen in the same light then as now) with me as a gold standard within reach.
Joan Palmer
I believe Kathleen Purver also taught Latin. I am pretty sure she taught me (or tried to!!) the correct Latin pronunciation for the Bach Gounod Ave Maria when I went back to sing at Mr Wigfield’s retirement event. I also sang at her retirement and Mr Johnson’s.
Janet Betham (née Thomas)
Yes, I definitely remember Miss Purver and thought she was a very sweet lady. She taught us history and in my first year there I loved her methods as she just got us to copy out passages from the text book, gave us red ticks for each paragraph, added them up and gave us a bonus if we did a drawing, so I did quite well! My memory was hopeless for history (in fact I failed O Level the first time but got it next time with extra private tuition from a male teacher) so it made it more interesting for me. She was keen on the Greeks and Romans, not modern history, I think.
I might even have my old exercise books in the attic so I will try to find them, and I’ve seen her on the photos of that time, sitting next to Mr. Wigfield who was the Head then.
Happy Days!
Rosemary Elliott (1949-56)
Kathleen Purver was a very respected Deputy Headmistress during my time at the school. She taught history to me in the Sixth form and dealt carefully and kindly with the many problems in the lives of pupils that disrupted their learning. She actually shaped my whole life – it happened that I was very unclear about my future choice of career, and my mother went to see her about it. My mother came home and told me Miss Purver had advised that I should take a secretarial course in a London college which would open up further opportunities in the future. I was quite happy about it and my father arranged it – it cost him £100 per term for one year, but the State paid for my railway fare from Woking to Kensington and back. I enjoyed the course, learning to type on an ancient ‘sit up and beg’ machine and pressing the keys in time with the Radetzky March! We giggled a lot about that. The shorthand was a challenge, especially as I am lefthanded, which makes it a bit more difficult to get up to speed. However, I achieved better than the stipulated speeds for typing and shorthand that we had to reach to ‘graduate’ at the end of my year.
During a coffee break one morning towards the end of the course I studied a noticeboard for jobs on offer and discovered one for a job in Geneva. I duly applied and was accepted. I had done a French A level and to my amazement won a prize for it. The year ended at college and the following January I flew out on an early Comet to Geneva, to be met by my employer. The years in Geneva were very happy. I had a studio flat in an ancient building the Old Town and walked to the office in my boss’s family flat on the Quai du Mont Blanc, which looks out over the lake towards Mont Blanc. I worked there for about five years, then moved to a firm of stockbrokers in the Banking Quarter who needed an English secretary to communicate easily with their American HQ. During these years I sang in the choir at Holy Trinity Church and met my future husband. We celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary last year.
All of this happened because of Miss Purver’s advice (I also visited her again while home on holiday from Geneva, for more!). I am very grateful – I wasn’t a brilliant scholar, (learning many years later that I had suffered from thyroid inadequacy since my early teens, it wasn’t corrected until I was 50) but Miss Purver’s kindness set me on a perfect path for my future life, and I will always be grateful.
Elaine Robson
I was a pupil during 1941-45 (p.61) taking the train from Haslemere with about a quarter of the School’s intake, and returned to London after VE Day. My “buddy/mentor” at the Haslemere primary school was Janet Archer- although in different classes at GCS we stayed in touch for a long time. Those years remain a formative part of my life.
Miss Purver was our history teacher, probably in Year3 and I have interesting memories of her lessons. I don’t remember anything she actually taught (not the case with Roman history from Miss Sheldon in Year 1). But her good-natured presence and seamless authority was enough to promote quiet while we got on with our work: which was to read about the topic in hand, take notes or write paragraphs and add illustrations, go to her desk with questions and maybe take another book (we used a textbook plus). She must have outlined (say) the Tudor period or another, but I wanted overviews of history, British and other (my mother was French), guidance about real people and the dynamics of events. She marked our notebooks for presentation and I simply wasn’t on the right wavelength. Years later I used to say “I don’t know any history” and my old friend in Plymouth, a one-time historian, still agrees.
She must have been a very good administrator with many human skills, being Deputy Head when so much was required of those in authority. The School was host to St John’s and I believe the staff common room was shared. There was never a muddle over classrooms. The Deputy Head needed effortless strong shoulders, and she might have been very good at leading from behind. I wonder what her options were when she trained as a teacher. At the time I was there the School couldn’t have done without her. I have since picked up a few crumbs of history and enjoyed the hard work involved (e.g. a small topic in the history of science).
Short of looking for an ancient school reports book, buried among other papers, I can’t remember what subjects were offered or why we had Miss Purver’s history lessons only for a year. Perhaps history was an alternative to Geography (Mr Withers approach was interesting and I read memorable books from his library shelves). My view of Miss Purver as a teacher remains too critical to leave that impression for her family- which would be unkind- so I filled in with assumptions about her role in the school, and comments about staff whose approach and lessons I still remember. She didn’t address key questions “What is history about? What do historians do?” I filled in about her evidently beneficial role in the school for her family but came to a full stop- nothing to add. Pupils in the top 3 years of secondary school get to know their teachers as individuals (e.g. my contemporary William Weedon confirmed this) but I can’t comment on Miss Purver’s personal qualities except that she liked peace and quiet and would smile rather than laugh.
Linda Dixon (née Parker).
I attended Godalming Grammar School from 1958-1965. Mis Purver was then Head Mistress but she took out form for history. We were working from the book From “Ur to Rome” and she made our lessons really interesting with lots of stories and facts. I really enjoyed history and went on to take it at A level.
Keith Enever
I was at Godalming from 1955 (having moved there from Bedfordshire) to 1960 so I remember Miss Purver quite well. She knew I was interested in cricket and told me that, as a girl, she had been taken to the Oval and had seen WG Grace. Even then Grace seemed to be so far back in history that it really surprised me but, looking at it now, I see that he played his last match at the Oval in 1908 which certainly makes her memory possible. The other thing I remember was that she was very keen on the works of George Bernard Shaw and asked us if, to mark her retirement, we would present the trial scene from St Joan. I was in the cast and hope and believe we did it well for her. Janet Norman was wonderfully inspiring as Joan.