Authors: Dawn French
I remember my mum’s anguish when her worst fear came true, and I started my period the
first week
I went away to boarding school! She had given me a good informative briefing about it all, making only one tiny mistake: she had laid out all forms of
‘feminine
sanitation’ apparatus in a row on her bed at home, like some kind of zealous, gynaecological saleswoman, showing me the difference between pads and tampons etc. and she explained that losing this particular type of blood didn’t mean you would die, which was a blessed relief, because I was convinced otherwise. Unfortunately, among the array of equipment she had forgotten to take the wrapper off the Tampax, so I was certain from the off that I wouldn’t be allowing that six-inch monster cotton stick anywhere near
my
toilet parts. Later, of course, I realised that two-thirds of that alarming package was the applicator. Something which I wish I’d known on that first day when I disappeared into the loo at the end of our dorm for over an hour trying to work out what to put where, too embarrassed to ask for help. In a panicked attempt to use a Lil-let correctly, I fumbled about in my own ladygarden for aeons, trying to hold the instruction leaflet with one hand and insert the tampon with the other. I’m sure most women will recognise the pickle I found myself in when, after slumping against the door in a giddy tizz, and jabbing about hopelessly, I finally managed to invade myself correctly. Or so I thought. It hurt. It really hurt. I could hardly stand up. I certainly couldn’t walk without my legs wide apart, as if astride an invisible horse. This was AGONY – how did women do this? I very nearly fainted twice in the first five minutes and hobbled back to the loo for another go. Extracting the enemy tampon was almost as bad as putting it in. Where was the string? Where was the tampon? Had it disappeared up into my intestines somehow? Or my lungs? Would I cough it up at supper? Did I need an air ambulance immediately? Was I dying? After more frenzied furtling, all was well, the tampon was retrieved and I realised that it had somehow
bent
over on entry, and I had been valiantly stuffing it in
sideways
, forcing a very junior fanny to accommodate a very senior-sized intruder. When, eventually, I managed the manoeuvre successfully, I realised just how mightily wrong the first attempt had gone. I was, frankly, lucky to be alive …
I remember loathing the new matron who had come to fill in temporarily for our beloved kind matron, Mrs Coombes. This new beast very quickly alienated all of us with her strict rules and loud handbells in the morning. I appointed myself nomenclator and bestowed the title ‘Hitler’ upon her. We goose-stepped and Nazi-saluted her – do you remember? – but still she remained. She was ash grey and made entirely of granite, not dissimilar to the school, and seemed impervious to our efforts to oust her. In the end, we were forced to take serious action. Little Nicky and I decided to sneak into her room and sprinkle her bed with mice droppings or, even better, rat droppings if we could find them. We thought we ought to be able to – there were plenty of them darting through the shadows around the school grounds. But try as we might, we couldn’t find ANYTHING revolting at school, so I was determined to bring some form of odious poo from home at the weekend. After a fruitless search around our cottage in North Petherwin, I had to resort to the guinea-pig cage. I smuggled in half a shoeboxful of guinea-pig-poo missiles, which Nicky and I spread over and in Hitler’s bed on the Thursday night. Obviously we weren’t there when they were discovered but, suffice to say, she didn’t return on the Monday. Rentokil came though, and were sent into her room. I presume they cited a serious case of guinea-pig infestation in their report to the head.
I remember turning our radios on early in the morning and
Noel
Edmonds would wake us up with lots of gags and silly voices and tunes from Mungo Jerry and Slade and Diana Ross and Benny Hill. It was perfect, because that first moment when we opened our eyes was the very instant we missed our mums the most, so badly, and he helped us get past that bit.
I remember working out that French was taught precisely the same to each year, day for day. Therefore, Patsy’s prep on a certain day would be EXACTLY the same for me, the year below her, on the same day the following year. So I could copy her prep from her previous year’s book, word for word. It helped that you were clever, Patsy, and your prep was usually right. I got away with it for about a month, getting better marks than I ever had before! Then two bad things happened: 1. Mrs Whitfeld (who I loved and respected) totally knew and didn’t even punish me, just whispered in my ear that it was most disappointing, and 2. I didn’t learn any French. A huge regret. Bugger. On both counts.
Do you remember the night we clambered up to the high windows in the dorm in our nighties and flirted with some boys down in the street on North Road? We were giving it plenty of flutter and cheek when all of a sudden they started climbing up the walls! In a trice they were over the Bishops Garden wall and into our dorm. BOYS! IN OUR DORM! AT NIGHT!! This was both thrilling and threatening. A heady mixture. We tried to shush them but they were loud and boisterous. Oh God, I wish they could have stayed longer. We were starving for them. I know we only had to last till the weekend, but nevertheless, we were ravenous … In no time at all, Mrs Coombes heard them and they bolted. The police were called and the boys were rounded
up
and paraded in front of us. We had to identify them so’s they could be charged with breaking and entering. As one, we refused to do this and, even under threat of parents getting involved and expulsions, we kept our quiet. A small nobility but an important one, a tiny moral victory. Miss Abley was fuming. We didn’t do it again.
I once put Julie Searle’s head in a suitcase and sat on it. I couldn’t help it. She was really whining. On and on and on. I don’t think she minded too much. She was laughing. Eventually. I’m a bit sorry about it now. A bit.
I recall the anxious moments in the morning, when the post was handed out, and how vital it was to get some, any. Valentine’s Day was especially horrendous, but every day mattered. Thank God for my regular correspondence with Nigel. Our many letters written under pseudonyms were probably the germ of sketch writing. All letters, however, from parents, brother, boyfriends, girlfriend were – are –
so
welcome. A proper personal connection, an intimacy and a gift. I have never ceased to feel the same joy every time a proper letter arrives. My nearly 100-year-old grandma has written to me every few weeks for the best part of 40 years. Our shared history is invaluable, our connection is strong and continually nurtured through those hundreds of wonderful letters.
I remember the staunch, tough facade you presented, Nikki R. You were my first experience of a person my age with a strong moral centre. An unshakable sense of justice and left-ness. Being a day girl, you brought in a fresh breath every morning, the astringency of your big, loving, boisterous family. Others, (idiots), mistook you for grumpy and severe, but I knew and
know
you to be a fierce protector and an insanely loyal advocate. And you were so physically fit and determined. I remember your supreme dignity in the gym competition when you chose to do a routine to Gladys Knight’s version of ‘The Way We Were’. You settled yourself into position on the floor in the middle of the hall, arms aloft, waiting for the music to start. There was a hush. Whichever twit was operating the sound system took
ages
to switch it on, and then stupidly spooled right back to the beginning of the track where Gladys blethers on about ‘the good ol’ days’, and ‘try to remember … the kind of September …’ and ‘the skies were bluer …’ on and on for a good two minutes of solid cheesy chat. All the while you maintained your ready position and didn’t flinch a muscle. After what seemed like years of waiting the song eventually started, and even that had its own internal introduction before finally Gladys sang, ‘Memories, like the corners of my mind …’ And you started your graceful, winning routine. I’m not sure many other teenagers would have had such composure. That’s you all over, quiet, patient, dignified. Until the music started of course, because it was you who introduced me to soul music, to blues, to Motown and all those fab girl groups. You had your mojo workin’, maid, and still do.
And you, Nicky V, ‘little’ Nicky Twobells. Always dodging and diving, nervous but keen, sporty and sensitive. A girl so desperately in need of approval from parents who, inexplicably, seemed to withhold it. So you sought it elsewhere, making sure you were appreciated by many, and you were. Always canny you stayed on the right side of the more dangerous girls. The queen of malapropisms, inventing a whole new language of not-quite-the-right-but-sort-of-much-better words. Your cheek and your beauty
enabled
you to pilfer our boyfriends from right under our noses but somehow I never minded because you deserved them, and they adored you. I remember our kissing technique practice with pillows, backs of hands and even each other when measures were desperate! I remember chapel every night and how sentimental and virginally obsessed we were with Jesus for a while. I remember how kind you were to some of the very young boarders, flexing your maternal muscles and discovering how lovely it was to be needed. I remember our chambermaiding exploits together down in Salcombe, to make money in the summer holidays. The endless disgusting sheets, the sticky rooms, the trolley laden with individually wrapped biscuits too delish to resist, taking photos of each other’s bums on residents’ cameras for them to discover in Boots when they returned from their holidays. Fighting off randy chefs and barmen, far too old for us. Sharing a bedroom in the attic of the hotel, for protection. I was eventually seconded to the laundry by the housekeeper, to keep me out of the trouble I was always in. For instance, one time I knocked and walked in on a shirtless man doing press-ups behind the sofa in his room. I chatted away inanely while I tidied up until I realised he wasn’t alone, and he wasn’t doing press-ups. Yep, that was me then demoted and safely ensconced in the bowels of the Salcombe Hotel, washing, drying and ironing on a huge industrial roller thousands and thousands of mounds of dirty white sheets. As every chambermaid finished her duty, in she would come and dump another mountain of sheets. If there had been any unsightly accident in the sheets or they were particularly soiled, the chambermaid would shout ‘Thunder!’ as a warning, and leave me to it, to bleach and wash the offensive linen on an extra-hot
boil
wash. I was surrounded by piles of sheets that looked like the tips of icebergs. Sheet icebergs. The floor was never,
ever
clear of them. I used to sweat a lot and drink pints of Vimto to replenish my fluids, and I smelt of bleach and starch, but to this day, I appreciate the feel of a well-ironed crisp sheet because I know the effort that made it so.
I remember the endless rows about the school uniform, among all of us. In the sixth form we were finally allowed to ditch the dreaded stripy blazer with blue serge kilt and heavy jumper. Each new sixth form were allowed to choose their own uniform, a chance to be unique and expressive. How, then, in the name of cock, did we end up with brown and mustard as our palette? What were we
thinking
?!
I remember Miss Abbott, our drama teacher, with her beautiful clear diction and her twinkly eyes. I begged my mum to let me have extra lessons after school with her, where we sat in a tiny musty room above the bow arch at the main entrance to the school. I knew that paying for these lessons was a stretch for my parents but I decided I would rather die than miss them. We discussed plays and writers, new and classic. We worked on voice and we prepared pieces for exams. When I think back now, I was behaving much like an aspiring young actress, but actually I didn’t have any desire to act at that point, I just wanted to spend time with Miss Abbott. More than that, I wanted to
be
Miss Abbott, and if I couldn’t be her, I wanted to be
like
her. She had trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, and she told me all about that. Very early on I decided it must be a fine school, if Miss Abbott went there. So I would go there. And I did. I would be a drama teacher.
And
I was … briefly. All because of my crush on the fabulous Miss Abbott.
I remember you, Angie. The Cornish rebel, by far the most defiant of us all. Where we were cautious or wary or even a bit pious, you were reckless and bold and wild. You were the first with the boys, unafraid to experiment and full of confidence, which was
so
appealing. You knew how to scrub up and play the ravishing siren, which was singularly irresistible for everyone who met you. How many times did I cover for you with little white lies to your mum and dad about staying with me, when in fact you were on another of your wildcat adventures? I used to worry that you might slip up, or be disappointed somewhere inside the anarchy, but you were too astute for that. As has been proven all along, you have a strong survival instinct and have always manoeuvred your way out of a sticky situation with great aplomb. With all this firebrandery bubbling inside you, I was amazed that you were able to conceal it at will with the flip side of your nature, the no less real nurturing, motherly and astonishingly upright character you also are. A woman of fascinating and fabulous contradictions, you are one of the most enthusiastic and energetic people I know. So much of this came to bear when later in our twenties we shared a room together in a flat in London. I had no hesitation jumping in to that adventure with you because where you are, there is thrill …
Jane. Janey. Or ‘Sausage’ for some reason I’ve forgotten …! The stylish, clever one among us. If we were in
Sex and the City
, you would be elements of all the characters mixed together with the largest part being Miranda, the contained and ferociously intelligent one. You always played your cards close to your chest
and
I had an abiding feeling that you were finding most of our school life highly amusing in a very internal and sophisticated way. You were quick-witted and observant, and I loved sharing jokes with you. If my memory serves me well, we did quite a bit of double-dating so saw a lot of each other outside school on dates with Nick and John, our gorgeous mullet-haired boyfriends. I have pictures of you and I outside our house, Forder Cottage, near Launceston, in Cornwall. We are writing songs and strumming guitars. The songs were
very important
tortured songs about love and loss, neither of which we had experienced at that stage, but about which we were experts. We used to go to a folk club called Friars and believed that we were genuinely much better than everyone who performed there. Except Ralph McTell of course, who we idolised because he sang of
exactly
our pains and joys, right? Yeah. The other man who was singing just to us, although not at Friars club sadly, was Jim Morrison. He was, sort of, our boyfriend. You and I fancied we were very like Ali MacGraw in
Love Story
except we weren’t American or dying of cancer. We didn’t have hockey-champion preppie boyfriends either, but otherwise, we were
so
like her. We favoured the long, dark, parted-in-the-middle-and-worn-in-bunches-or-plaits-likea-squaw-type hairstyle that Ali did and we thought it looked pretty good. I’m looking at the photos. It didn’t. Since your dad was the housemaster of Mannamead House at Plymouth College Boys School (where my brother went though he was in a different boarding house), I spent some time staying with you there. Which meant staying inside a boarding house. Full of boys. Your room was literally one wall away from about SIXTY boys. I could smell them! No, seriously, I really could smell them …
I
could hardly contain myself when I was there with you. You were so cool about it, it was second nature, you could ignore it, them. I spent the whole time pathetically squirting teenage oestrogen from every pore, but I was desperate to hide my so uncool excitement in order that you didn’t feel compromised or think that I was your friend only in order to gain such privileged access to so many captive chaps. However, I can’t deny that it was a fab bonus …!