Farewell to Mrs Wyatt
Junior School Staff 1988 Left to Right: Mr T Maxfield, Br K. Moore, Mr C. Stilwell, Mrs A. Gleeson, Mr P. Rlchards, Mr R. Kelly, Mr J. Lamborn, Mr H. Valentine, Mrs E. Lane, Mrs J. Wyatt, Mr M. Hales (Head of Junior School), Mr K Hannah, Miss M. Synon, Miss R. Yaxley, Mr G. Dean.
In December 2014 Trinity College said farewell to Mrs Janine Wyatt who had been the Junior School Librarian for the past 27 years. Mrs Wyatt created a magical wonderland in the Junior Library and anyone who had snuggled up to hear her read a story will know how she truly made the characters come to life and leap off the page. Many farewell events were held by the College and Mrs Wyatt will be greatly missed. Below is an excerpt from the speech made by Thomas Maxfield (’13) at the Junior School Farewell Assembly. The day that Dad (Mr Tony Maxfield 5W) came to me to ask if I would like to write this speech I have to say I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to speak about such a dedicated and passionate woman. The funny thing is, that as each day passed since Dad first came to me, I was reminded one by one of my own memories in the Junior School. As the memories came flooding back I recall that Mrs Wyatt’s presence in the Junior School library is a presence that both my brother Wesley and I thought would never end, after all Mrs Wyatt had resided in the Junior School library right throughout my Trinity College journey just like many other Trinity College students, both in my year group or years before me. Just a few statistics because every good speech needs a few good statistics. Mrs Wyatt in her 27 years of teaching at the College has
taught around 6,400 students and providing that each student borrowed one or two books each week from the library, she has processed almost 230,400 if not 460,800 books over her teaching career! Providing that each boy did read the books and each book was on average around 100 pages then 23,040,000 pages would have been read in total. That probably is enough of the statistics, but I think you understand just how much Mrs Wyatt has done for the College from a statistical point of view. My first memories stretched back simply to the manner in which Mrs Wyatt read her selected book of the day. Now I have to tell you, I have been read a lot of books by quite a large amount of people over my short life, but I don’t think you could have found an individual as passionate and enthusiastic as Mrs. Wyatt when it comes to reading stories. Every character had their own unique voice and expression, every pause brought about by either a comma, or a full stop, was emphasized to build the right amount of drama and suspense. And in the unlikely circumstance of encountering an exclamation mark, both teachers and students alike residing in the rowing shed on the other side of the College could hear Mrs Wyatt’s enthusiasm! It didn’t matter what Mrs Wyatt was reading it could have been a local extract from the Sunday Times or Matt Preston’s new 111
