WHSU Newsletter 2022

WHSU Newsletter

2022

Message from the WHSU committee We hope that the last year has been an easier one for you all.

Two years ago I would not have believed that the disruption caused by Covid would last so long but hopefully we seem to be through the worst. Unable to meet in 2020, the WHSU committee managed to meet twice in 2021. We are pleased to say that we are very hopeful that our WHSU lunch on Saturday 14th May this year will go ahead and we have already had a number of acceptances. We sent out a large number of Christmas cards and have had some lovely letters and calls in response. We also send flowers or plants to old girls in certain circumstances. Please let us know about former students or staff who may like a card or flowers. We will be happy to help. Sue has also made some visits which have been a great success. Undoubtedly, the last two years have been a lonely time for some and we know that many members have appreciated a visitor.

We had a positive response to the newsletter last year with many telling us how much they enjoyed hearing the news of Old Girls from all over the world. Please do get in touch if you have memories about your time at school or a story to tell about your life; it is so interesting to others.

We have also put some alumnae back in contact with each other after decades apart. If you would like to reconnect

WHSU Committee Sarah Mitchell, Class of 1978 147 Burwood Road, Hersham, Surrey KT12 4AR 01932 240928. drawingrooms@btinternet.com

with someone from schooldays we may be able to help, so please let us know.

We are aware that several year groups now meet regularly on video calls and, in fact, I now speak weekly to a group of 1978 leavers.

We reunited 40 FIELDERS, WIMBLEDON years after leaving school in 2018 and it has been so nice to be back in touch with them.

We were sorry to see that Fielders shop is closing down after more than 90 years. Fielders is a name that is pretty much known to every girl that attended the school and we walked past Fielders every day on our way to the station popping in frequently to browse or buy stationary, books and cards. We get many letters from Old Girls mentioning Fielders when talking about their memories of the school and Wimbledon.

HELEN MILLS AND FEBRUARY 2022

SARAH MITCHELL

Fiona Gunn, Class of 1978 fionagunn239@btinternet.com

I am lucky enough to live near to Helen Mills who attended WHS from 1934 until 1942 when she left to join the WAAF. During a recent visit she gave me some notes about her life and we chatted at length about her time at WHS. It was absolutely fascinating and despite being there during the war years there seems to have been much fun and laughter. The girls and their teachers seemed close probably due to their experiences and the extraordinary times they lived through. Helen’s story (so far) is in this magazine and please do read it.

Her role as a plotter in the operations room of the Fighter command Station at Hornchurch was recorded from the Battle of Britain Bunker Museum and broadcast on ITV.

Mandy Miller, Class of 1976 mandy.miller75@gmail.com

Best wishes to you all, Sarah Mitchell and all the WHSU committee.

Sue Davidson, Class of 1972 9 Cross Lane, Faversham, Kent ME13 8PN 01795 532800/07940850099 Alison Raffan, Class of 1982 2 Erridge Road, Merton Park, London SW19 3JB 0208 540 1755/07865 547826. araffan@googlemail.com Anthea Richardson (née Fry), Class of 1962 antheafry@icloud.com

News Helen Mills (née Handescombe) Class of 1942 I was born in Walton-on-Thames on 5th June 1924. My father was a Civil Servant with the Inland Revenue and I had an older sister Betty who also attended WHS. I joined the school in 1934, travelling by train and throughout the war years with Lucy, Bridget and Mary Chetwynd-Stapylton, local sisters who also went to the school.

F UNIFORM

School days were happy, though HELEN IN HER WAA I never felt particularly academically inclined. Miss Lewis was Headmistress when I joined; she was retiring in 1939 but stayed on for an extra year as war started and Miss Littlewood took over in 1940. The number of students halved as some were sent to parts of the country deemed safer and some went to other Trust schools. Many went to schools in Portsmouth, Southampton and Liverpool which were later bombed themselves. The exodus led to a feeling of camaraderie between the “remainers”, which is what the students and staff who stayed were called.

The bombing of Wimbledon began in 1940 and I remember walking up Wimbledon Hill from the station one morning and there was glass everywhere. The shop windows were all being boarded up and there was lots of bomb damage to the town centre. The school was damaged, though not too badly. One bomb had dropped on top of the shed where chemicals were kept. We wished that we had seen it - how colourful that explosion must have been. One bomb had landed outside the block where the physics laboratory was (now the Rutherford Theatre) and all the windows were smashed. We put on our science overalls and put dusters on our heads and joined the staff with cleaning up the school which brought the staff and students closer together. When we were 16, we did fire watching at night: we would stay overnight in the caretaker’s flat sleeping on camp beds and, when on watch, would go onto the roof. Sometimes fires were almost as scary as the bombing and we learnt practical things such as how to use stirrup pumps and how to escape from a fire if you were not on the ground floor.

The staff were strict but kind. All the teachers were single.

If they married they had to leave. During the war years the staff put on a Pantomime for the students. They made fun of themselves and of some of the girls as well and we thought it was so comical.

Bridget (Chetwynd-Stapylton) and I joined the Women’s Junior Air Corp and after school every day we cycled to their base in Walton where we trained. We wore

HELEN (2ND LEFT) WITH MA RY, LUCY AND BRIDGET CHETWYND-ST APYLTON

grey women’s junior air force uniforms and had lectures about the war and we learnt Morse Code and aircraft recognition. When we were in Lower 6th, Bridget and I decided to join the WAAF (The Women’s Auxiliary Air Force). The war was not going that well for Britain at this time and I wanted to do more. I did not ask my parents.

I just told them what I intended to do and they did not try to stop or even dissuade me.

On joining the WAAF, I was kitted up in Bridgenorth and then moved to Morecambe where we did our basic training. As a volunteer I was able to choose my trade within the WAAF and chose to be a plotter within the Operations Room, mostly becoming a RDF (Radio Direction Finding) plotter. We were billeted in the old airman’s married quarters on the camp and bussed from Romford to the Operations Room, a requisitioned Masonic Hall. Rules were very strict, we even had to learn how to make our beds properly.

In late 1943, I was posted to Uxbridge. Here the Ops room was 60 feet underground reached by 76 concrete steps.

Again plotting, but I also did duty service in a special Ops Room in which we monitored high-flying long distance reconnaissance aircraft. After VE Day I was posted to Innsworth near Gloucester where we were employed in the RAF records office demobbing personnel.

After I was demobbed, I received a grant and did a three-year Froebel Teacher Training Course at Streatham College. I then taught in the Juniors at Croydon High School. I married Geoffrey, an ex-Fleet Air Arm Petty Officer who worked with his father in his Accountancy business after the war, on 29th July 1950. My three children Bridget, Judith and Alan were born in the fifties and I have six grandchildren. Geoff died in 1978 but I continued working until 1984, when I took early retirement. After that, I worked with my Teachers Association for 12 years, helping with teachers’ problems.

Dr Joanna Latimer, Class of 1972 Having left WHS, Joanna studied English Literature as an undergraduate and then trained, worked and wrote as a nurse for ten years. Now, she is Emerita Professor at University of York’s Sociology department and chair of London Arts and Health. She retired from her University roles in December 2020, the most recent of which was Professor of Sociology, Science & Technology at the University of York. During her tenure there she became Director of SATSU, York’s world-renowned Science & Technology Studies Unit.

Joanna loves teaching and supervising students and health professionals across every level. Her research is always collaborative, working with different practitioners and connecting diverse disciplines. Her approach is ethnographic, focusing on the cultural, social and experiential dimensions of how healthcare, medicine and science are practiced. She particularly cares about making ordinary processes of inclusion and exclusion visible, including attending to the experiences of those who are easily marginalized. Her underlying aim is to critique the conditions of possibility that underpin hierarchical relations, including promoting creative and aesthetic as well as scientific methodologies for health and care.

Mary Rowswell (née Greenway) Class of 1966 I was a scholarship pupil, so I did not know much about the school before I joined.

After the interview, the next event was a visit to Kinch and Lack’s for the uniform. I think my mother was more excited than I was!

There was quite a ’railway gang’ in our year of girls MARY ROWSWELL rushing down the hill at 4pm to the station, hats and bags flying. If we were not in a hurry, we would look in the shop windows, including the Danish furniture showroom and its highly colourful ‘lava lamps’, fashionable in the 1960s.

In the summer of 1960, Miss Burke planned a Summer Fete for fundraising and my father bravely joined the organising Committee with other parents and staff. It was opened by Christopher Trace, one of the early ‘Blue Peter’ presenters – a VIP! There were also annual Prizegiving evenings at Wimbledon Town Hall, where GDST patron, the Countess of Harewood, once presented the prizes.

Publishing many articles, special issues and books, winner of the 2014 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness annual book prize, she unpacks the worlds people make together and the politics they are entangled in across different institutions.

Her recent research DR JOANNA LATIMER investigates ageing and contemporary developments in dementia science.

Currently, she is developing interspecies approaches to exploring the affective and ecological dimensions of biomedicine and care at the beginnings and ends of life.

Joanna has been on the advisory boards of research programs and esteemed institutions worldwide, holding visiting chairs at Sidney University, University of California San Francisco, the Humanistic University, Utrecht, and Fiocruz, Brazil. Additionally, she was a longstanding member of the editorial board of The Sociological Review, and co-editor of Sociology of Health and Illness.

Once we got into the routine of the school, there was the challenge of new subjects. Academic work occupied much of our lives, but there was also music (piano lessons for me), sport and art. Out of school I was involved with the Girls’ Brigade and the Duke of Edinburgh award. It was generally a happy time, with an emphasis on high aspirations and achievements and little interference from outside influences.

In the Sixth Form, there were colourful and noisy Chemistry experiments and our residential Geography and Geology field trips. In 1965, we visited Shropshire with Miss Bloss (‘Blossie’) and Miss Darby. In 1966, we visited the North York Moors and Scarborough. I studied Geography, Geology and Chemistry for A Levels. For S Level, the school engaged a male Ph.D. student to tutor me for a few hours: I’m not sure if my classmates envied me or pitied me!

By the time we reached the Sixth Form, the custom of inviting King’s College boys to join after-school ballroom dancing classes had finished. I never learnt to dance properly until I was retired! There were no Yearbooks or leaving ‘Prom’ ceremonies in those days.

I went on to gain BSc (Hons) in Geology at Exeter University and later an MSc at Birmingham. My education at WHS was the foundation for these studies which led to my career as a teacher and lecturer. I will always be grateful for the independence of thought and confidence I learned there.

News Miriam Dobrin,

the summer of 1939 and all three girls spent the following school year at school in Bognor Regis, returning to WHS in Autumn 1940. Miriam applied herself diligently to her schoolwork and passed her London University General School Examination in 1944. Along with most others in her year, she was exempted from Matriculation. Miriam would have loved to study medicine, but the question of cost meant that she went into nursing instead and even won a prestigious medal while training at St Mary’s. She trained as a midwife, worked as a nursing sister at Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield and later trained as a health visitor, work that she enjoyed immensely.

Class of 1945 By 1939 there were several girls at WHS whose families had arrived locally as refugees from Central Europe, but, as far as we know, Miriam Dobrin was the only girl who travelled on her own, on the Kindertransport. In April 1939, her parents saw off the twelve-year-old, their only child, from the Grunewald Station in Berlin, never to see her again.

Miriam had enjoyed a happy childhood, but on Kristallnacht, 9-10 November 1938, all her family’s businesses and the Synagogue were destroyed. Miriam’s uncle and aunt were deported to Theresienstadt in 1942, only her uncle surviving the ordeal and eventually escaping to England where his son Max Dobrin was working as a chocolatier.

Miriam’s parents were transported to Auschwitz in January 1943, leaving from the Grunewald Station, from where they had seen off their daughter in 1939.

Miriam was enrolled at WHS on the 3rd May 1939, having left Berlin in April. As a refugee she was exempt from tuition fees. She was ‘fostered’ by the family of Major Walters. Ruth and Clare Walters, both a little older than Miriam, were already at the school. Worries about the approaching war led to many children and families leaving Wimbledon in

In 1963 she married Norbert Cohn. He had also grown up in Grunewald in Berlin, but had come to London with his whole family in 1938. Miriam and Norbert had three children and the whole family were very active members of the Belsize Square Synagogue in north London. Their children learnt to speak German with Norbert’s parents.

After Miriam died in 2004, her son Jeremy, a resident of Jerusalem for many years, contacted the school, offering to set up an award in her name, the Miriam Award.

Kelly Jones, WHS Archivist

Juliet Jones (née Phillips) Class of 1969 I only attended WHS for the last three years of my schooling; prior to that my family lived in Cheshire but my father’s job with ICI had transferred him to the head office in London. However, just before my final year he was transferred back up north. I spent that last year as a lodger with a nice family in Wimbledon and, perhaps due to the lack of parental supervision, did not apply myself to my A levels as I should have done. Consequently I did not get into university and instead attended what was then called Holborn College to do a trilingual secretarial course.

Secretarial work turned out not to be for me. So, after responding to an advertisement in the paper, three friends from Holborn and I took jobs in Madrid teaching English at a language school. I ended up staying in Spain for nearly 25 years. During that time I married a Spaniard, had two children and went back to college to become an occupational therapist. Taking that course entirely in Spanish, and doing well in the exams, is one of the things I am most proud of in my life.

Fast forward to now and I am re-married, retired and living in Memphis, Tennessee. Do I miss England and Spain? Yes, I do. Now that I am 70 I am starting to look back more and more frequently at my schooldays and have been able to reconnect with several friends that I made while at school.

I had always been good at French and had taken French O Level a year earlier at my previous school. The French teacher at WHS, Mlle Briard, also taught Spanish and she encouraged me to do Spanish O Level, hence the trilingual course.

Agnes Headlam-Morley, Class of 1921 Agnes’ nephew has donated some historic documents to go in the WHS Archive, including school photographs, certificates, reports, magazines and a poetry book.

Agnes was the first woman to become a full Professor at the University of Oxford. She was a historian, academic and Professor of International Relations.

CKEY TEAM PHOTO

THE WHS 192O HO

COPIES OF THE 1919 SCHOO L MAGAZINE AND WHS POETRY BOOK

Kathleen Raffan (née Weston) Class of 1941 My mother, Kathleen Raffan, had a long connection with WHS, first as a pupil and later as a parent and volunteer, supply teaching in the Juniors, taking care of the Junior library and running the Second-hand Uniform Shop. Thus it was that ‘school’, as it was always referred to in our house, formed a vital and important part of her life and a way of keeping going through difficult personal times.

In September 1935, my mother arrived at the school with a full scholarship. Barbara Painter (née Nicholas) introduced herself and this led to a close friendship which would last until my mother’s death over 65 years later and I think is a measure of the type of friendship that many of us have formed at WHS over the years. In the coming weeks my mother formed two other lifelong friendships, with Daphne Emery and Yolande Morison (née Fenlon).

Once settled, my mother enjoyed her schooldays. One memory reflects the ways that proper behaviour and the image of the school were considered important. One summer’s afternoon they had been at Nursery Road playing tennis. Due to the heat, Barbara and my mother decided not to change back into their school stockings, but wear their tennis socks home. Unfortunately, they were spotted walking along Worple Road by a prefect and ordered to report to the games mistress the next morning. Miss Wilson was sympathetic and they escaped with a short lecture about the behaviour expected of a High School girl and a promise never to appear improperly dressed again.

Due to the wartime shortage of teachers, some teacher training colleges took students earlier and, as it was a reserved occupation, students and potential students could not be conscripted for war work. My mother wished to teach juniors so did not need a degree and thus left school to go to Whitelands College in 1941.

Dr Sheila Pearson MBE (née Kanani) Sheila studied Physics with Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. She then worked in Australia using the Parkes telescope to search for exoplanets at Jodrell Bank Observatory using pulsar astronomy and attended a Space Camp in Houston, Texas. She received her PhD while working with the Cassini spacecraft, analysing Saturn’s magnetosphere, also receiving a NASA Group Achievement Award.

After a brief period of teaching, she joined the Royal Astronomical Society in 2014 as Astronomer and Education, Outreach and Diversity Officer. In the same year, she won the Inspiring Women in Technology award.

She has always been interested in public engagement with astronomy and has become a regular face in the national discussion of science.

My mother kept up with the school by attending events and subscribing to the school magazine. She became active with the school when I enrolled as a pupil in 1969. We arrived at school one day to find that one of the teaching staff in the Juniors was unexpectedly absent and there was no cover.

My mother, a qualified teacher, offered to help and this was gratefully accepted. This soon led to her becoming a regular volunteer supply.

KATHLEEN RAFFAN

She also looked after the Junior library for many years and later offered occasional help to Mrs Lunau who ran the Second-hand Uniform Shop. By 1984, the supply teaching and library work had decreased and, when Mrs Lunau gave up running the second-hand shop, my mother took over. From that time until she decided to retire in 1997, my mother threw herself into the work and thoroughly enjoyed it. She became so well-known and popular that mothers would approach her whilst out shopping to make requests or thank her for her help.

As recompense my mother was granted a free copy of the school magazine every year. She was also given an ’apple pass’ which allowed her to park in the school grounds at any time.

Sadly, about a year after my mother retired she began developing dementia and eventually lost all her school memories and what WHS had meant to her. She died in 2005. I hope that this piece will be a fitting reminder of someone who gave much time and love to Wimbledon High School.

Alison Raffan – Kathleen’s daughter and WHS pupil 1969-1982.

Sheila is dedicated to improving the representation of girls and women in physics; in 2017 she wrote an astronomy guide with Elle Magazine. She identifies new ways to take astronomy and physics to underrepresented communities. Her children’s book ‘How To Be An Astronaut and Other Space Jobs’ was published in 2019 and was shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Award.

Sheila was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours List for services to astronomy and diversity in physics.

DR SHEILA PEARSON

WHSU Wimbledon High School Union and the Benevolent Fund The WHSU Benevolent Fund was set up to assist and help old girls, exstaff and others with connections to the school. This year there have been no applications to the Benevolent Fund. On occasion we have been able to give considerable gifts and can almost always help in some way even if financial help is not appropriate. If you would like to make an application for help, or refer somebody to us, please contact the fund through any committee member. All matters are dealt with in total confidence.

The WHSU itself and the Benevolent Fund are non-profit making and have no source of income other than donations, which are very much appreciated. If you would like to donate to either the Benevolent Fund or the WHSU please make any cheque payable to the “Wimbledon High School Union” (please indicate which you wish the donation to go towards) and send it to any of the committee members listed.

The WHSU committee continues to look for new members. If you would be interested please let us know. We have 3 meetings per year at 6pm at the school and the annual reunion lunch. The only requirements are being an WHS alumna (or ex-staff member) and that you are interested in the school and its history.

WHSU Prize Since 2018, the WHSU has given an annual prize to a student at the school who has upheld the long-standing values of the school of loyalty, strength, self-sufficiency and putting others first.

We are delighted that the 2021 winner of this prize is Carys Hobbs who received a book token and a further £20 to donate to a charity of her choice. Carys has donated this to Woman’s Aid, a charity that works towards gender equality and provides help for the victims of domestic abuse.

Carys said “I am very passionate about bringing equality for all genders and I would describe myself as a feminist, and this is a charity which looks to solve these issues which I care so much about.”

Well done Carys.

Obituaries Professor Lynne Reid

Anastasia Arnold (née Franklin)

Class of 1942, died 5th May 2021 aged 97.

Class of 1990, 1971-2022

Professor Lynne Reid was the first woman to achieve the rank of professor of experimental pathology in England. Born in Australia in 1923, Lynne was educated briefly at WHS when her family moved PROF. LYNNE REID temporarily to England. Since childhood she was always determined to be a Doctor; her father had been badly injured in WW1 and she and her sisters played doctors and nurses, caring for him.

As her education progressed it was the natural career choice for her although she faced prejudice as women were generally steered towards being nurses and not doctors. Lynne returned to Australia with her family when war broke out in 1939. Having completed her medical degree at the University of Melbourne, on returning to England in 1950 she worked as a research assistant and lecturer. After a period as a professor in experimental pathology at the University of London, she moved to Massachusetts where she became pathologist-in-chief emeritus at Children’s Hospital, Boston and pathology professor at the Harvard Medical School. During her long and distinguished career she received numerous awards and commendations for her work and held a series of distinguished appointments in Britain, Australia and the United States. Lynne continued to lecture all over the world throughout her life and was always pushing for women’s rights and equality.

Ana was one of those rare people who genuinely did light up a room when she came into it. An exceptional musician, after graduating from Trinity College of Music she taught in Kenya where she met Dougie Arnold. They married and started a school together outside ANASTASIA ARNOLD Mombasa. They had two children Oliver b.1998 and Charlotte b.2000, who also went to WHS. They too are extremely talented musicians.

Latterly she was in a long-term relationship with musician Kate Moore. Ana was heavily involved in teaching in a number of schools and was a key member of the Aspidistra Orchestra. She had recently joined the RAF Reserves and was the first reservists ever to play in the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, the very week she died in a road accident in France. Always an adventurer she touched the lives of so many with her warmth, kindness and positivity.

Mandy Bruce Class of 1972, died April 2003 Many will not of heard that Mandy Bruce died in April 2003 - much too young. Mandy went on to become a successful Fleet Street journalist, noted for her celebrity interviews in women’s magazines. She was also an accomplished author of numerous children’s books and biographies. Mandy was married to subeditor Ross Tayne.

Her final work was the Oyster Seekers, about her favourite restaurant in her favourite town, Whitstable. Published just months after her death, it is a fitting tribute.

Mary Toase (née Hodges) Class of 1949, died 22nd July 2021 Mary joined Wimbledon High in 1942 on a scholarship. She made friends for life: Mary, Pam and Connie always kept in touch. In fact, together with their families, they went on many happy holidays together. One couple even became Godparents to Mary’s daughter Alison.

MARY TOASE

Mary did well at school and secured a job in the small branch library of Wimbledon Park, soon becoming their Branch Librarian.

From there, she moved to the larger Wimbledon Library and after a while was in charge of its Lending Department.

Mary met Charles in the library, they married in 1953 and had 68 happy married years together. When Mary fell pregnant, she left Wimbledon Library. Once her daughter Alison was a toddler, Mary’s career took a different turn. Mary became the editor for the Guide to Current Periodicals in 1961 and 1962.

From there, Mary moved into specialist libraries. From 1964-1968, she was Assistant Librarian of the Association of Certified and Corporate Accountants. Subsequent positions were all in medical libraries. As Librarian of the Royal College of Midwives, Mary was keen to pass on her library skills to her potential readers and, to this end, wrote a series of articles in the Midwives Chronicle in 1979.

Later, she took up the post of Librarian at the Research Council for Complementary Medicine (RCCM) and her passion for homeopathy grew and her position morphed into Executive Secretary of the Council.

Mary retired from the RCCM in 1989. She rediscovered her early love of painting and enjoyed visiting her three granddaughters in Aberdeen.

Mary died just 17 days after her beloved Charles.

Cynthia Barber (née Martin) Class of 1949, died on Christmas Day 2021 Cynthia was born in Orpington, Kent on 15th May 1931, her sister Ann in 1936.The family moved to Kingston in 1937. When war broke out, the girls were sent to boarding school which was later evacuated to Wales. The girls then moved to Yorkshire where they stayed with an Aunt. In 1943, they returned to Kingston and were sent to WHS. At school, Cynthia enjoyed singing and joined the school choir which had the honour of singing with the Bach Choir during a performance of St. Matthew Passion. She was a Girl Guide and returned to her Company to run it as a Guide Lieutenant. She loved sport and played hockey and tennis for the school. On leaving school, she joined the Wimbledon Hockey Club.

On matriculation, Cynthia went to a Secretarial School and her first job was as Secretary to the Clerk to the

Governors at Imperial College of Science and Technology where she joined the College Choir. In 1952, she got a job as a Nursery Governess to a family with 5 children in Portugal. After 3 years, she returned to the UK and worked in London for the Portuguese Embassy and later for a firm of management consultants. In London, Cynthia met Keith and they married in 1961 and moved to Rochester. Daughter Sarah was born in 1962 followed by Fiona in 1965.

Following moves to Takeley then Dunmore, the family were involved in many Church and community related activities. Cynthia was involved in setting up a branch of Faith in Action, fundraising and supporting a church in Malawi. Some of the money raised went to provide Bicycle Ambulances. Her fundraising continued, raising money for the Great Dunmow Maltings. Cynthia became a Baby Weigher in 1972 and continued to do so up to 2020.

Judith (Jay) Blundell Class of 1983, died 29th January 2021 Jay joined WHS in 1976 and from the very start it was clear what an incredible sportswoman she was. After leaving the school in 1983, she studied Chemistry and Education at the university of Bath, where her sporting life continued. After graduating, she became a teacher and inspired many students throughout her working life.

JUDITH BLUNDELL

On 29th January 2021, aged 55, Jay passed away after a very short, devastating and cruel illness. In her last conversation with one of her school friends, only a few weeks before she passed away, Jay said that she “didn’t want to be forgotten”. Her former classmates are determined that this will never happen and have agreed with WHS for an annual sports prize to be awarded in her name. If you could like to make a donation, you can do so at https://www.jumblebee.co.uk/ fundraisinginmemoryofjudithjayblundell.

Barbara Shaw (Art Teacher 1944-1984), born 1924, died June 2021 Margaret Bond (Chemistry Teacher 1951-55), born 1929 Margaret Way, Class of 1957, Head Girl 1956/7, died August 2017 Penelope Howell (née Brown), Class of 1969, died August 2021 Elizabeth Quine (née Scott), Class of 1972, died 2016 Phyllis Menzies, Class of 1940, died Jan 2022 aged 99 Charlotte McFadden, Class of 1969, died 2007 Pauline Oates, Class of 1936, died March 2022

Events WHSU Lunch

Class of 1972 Reunion Lunch

After a two year absence, we are delighted to invite you to the 2022 Annual Reunion Lunch on Saturday 14th May at the school and the Union is very pleased to invite you to this as our guests. There will be an opportunity to see the school and, of course, join in singing the School Song.

This summer it will be 50 years since the Class of 1972 left Wimbledon High School. Sue Davidson, WHSU Committee member, was one of these leavers and she and her classmate Calli Dracos are organising a reunion lunch to celebrate this occasion. The lunch will be at the school on Saturday 18th June 2022.

If you would like to come please email Sarah Mitchell so we can add you to the list and have an idea of numbers.

If you are a member of the Class of 1972 and would like to attend the lunch please call Sue or email Sarah.

Message from the Head We have seen so many moments of achievement and triumph this term, all the more vivid amidst the difficulty of Covid, and in every arena.

Academically our students are flying high and doing so much more than the curriculum asks of them. Our Model United Nations team won plaudits aplenty at Haileybury, putting NNEDY in the best performance we’ve ever had in FIONNUALA KE MUN and representing South Sudan with confidence and verbal dexterity; the TEDx evening dazzled all who saw it as our speakers owned that stage with great aplomb; and the Civil Discourse programme has continued apace.

We’ve also gained national recognition in netball, rowing and lego! All of this alongside brilliant concerts, dramatic productions and creativity galore. We’re so proud of our students, and so grateful to our alumnae for their support and commitment to their school.

U14 SE ENG LAND NETBALL CH AMPIONS

Fionnuala Kennedy, Head

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WHS TEDX EVENT

Wimbledon High School, Mansel Road, London SW19 4AB t. 020 8971 0900 e. info@wim.gdst.net

You can find us on: Facebook @WimbledonHighSchoolAlumnae Twitter @WimbledonHigh