SPEECH GIVEN AT THE ‘CELEBRATION FOR DRAGON WOMEN’ LUNCH (2)

The second daily effect of the War which is more difficult to quantify, is the fact that the masters were obviously for one reason or another exempted from War Service. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been with us in the first place. So many of our masters had actually fought in the First World War, either losing a limb like Frank Cary and his wooden leg, or like Tubby Haynes who, we were told, had had shell shock from the trenches. We were told this to explain certain eccentricities, like cleaning the backboard with girls’ hair if in a bad mood, which he was quite often. Susan Stradling is here (a.k.a. Fuzzy): she will confirm or deny my memory that her beautiful thick, curly hair was considered the ideal instrument by Tubby. [Note: Susan (Stradling) Fasken did confirm it!] We all took this with great sangfroid; I remember someone, possibly me, simply observing that girls were foolish to sit in the front row of Tubby’s maths class. Then there was one master called Matty Bullard from that very distinguished family of Old Dragons, the Bullards; he was young and healthy. We were told he was something called a ‘conscientious objector’; I loved him because he loved my poetry and encouraged me to believe I was the new Shelley, so instantly I decided I liked all conscientious objectors without understanding what they were.
Now to what we did and why it was so wonderful to be a Dragon girl. First of all we got all the good parts in the Shakespeare plays, faute de mieux. I played VIola, Celia and Lady Macbeth under the tender care of Bruno (J P Brown). Except that Bruno cared even more for Priscilla Hett – and made her Rosalind instead of me, explaining treacherously that Celia was the better part, which for some time I believed. However I was no actress. The ability you needed for Bruno was to have a good memory rather than anything else – imagine a full Shakespeare play when you’re nine! But it was all terrifically exciting and gave me a lifelong passion for the theatre and Shakespeare for which I will always be grateful to Bruno. Then there were the annual Gilbert and Sullivans – another lifelong passion – although here I was specifically instructed by Bruno not to sing but to look as if I was singing. Sort of Karioke style.
The point was never directly made to us girls: you can do anything a boy can do. It didn’t need making, quite frankly. We could see that for ourselves perfectly well. Girls, one at most two in each form in my day,. were generally at the top or pretty near it. That’s what I remember, anyway. And the Dragon was fiercely competitive as a school, with form orders every week. I’ve checked that by the way, as it seems incredible now. But competition, at sport, reciting poetry, learning, is a useful and exciting art to learn, when you are young. It was only when I went to my next school, a girls’ boarding school, that I learned that competitiveness was not quite the thing. Naturally I was not at all happy. I was Mowgli who, if you remember the Jungle Book, had been brought up as a wolf. In short, I had turned in many respects into a boy: I knew for example more Latin and Greek that the form mistress for which I was heartily disliked, not only by her but by everyone else. So I would say that the Dragon School equips you for life and challenge – but not for a girls’ boarding school in 1945.
By the way the only reason I chose this school in the first place (my parents would have preferred Oxford High) was sheer competitiveness. I wanted to be like a boy and go in for a Scholarship. And the reason? So I could be on the Honours Board like the boys with their Eton and Winchester scholarships. So I was punished twice for my competitiveness, first by not being very happy there, secondly because when my name was put up, chance had it that it was the far corner, and generally covered up [by] a curtain! I’m going to end on the sport and the joys of playing rugger which we girls all did in those days. I will tell you the following story. I am walking on the touchline of Colet School Preparatory School, with my youngest son Orlando beside me. Beside him is Geoff Owen, also an Old Dragon (later editor of The Economist), whose brilliant athletic son Tom was playing in the game we were watching. Geoff to me: ‘I remember you, Antonia, flying up the wing, ball in hand, scoring goal after goal etc etc.’ I saw a look of absolute amazement on my eight-year old’s face; he was evidently gob-smacked. ‘Why do you look so surprised, darling?’ ‘Well, Mum, we always thought you made all that up, to make us laugh.’ But it was true. I even think I was I the Second XV, but not allowed to play away in the Summerfields match because they had no girls’ showers. Perhaps I did make that up. John Betjeman, another Old Dragon, always swore he saw me in the scrum. He definitely made that up!