From Ripon College, a life in teaching
In early 2023 the Alumni Office enjoyed a special visit from Margaret, the daughter of Ripon College alumna Nora. In 2021, we were honoured to send Nora an Honorary Bachelor of Education Degree, making her our oldest alum to receive the award at 101 years old. At the time, we shared some of Nora’s recollections about her time studying with us during World War Two, and featured her in our alumni magazine.
Unfortunately, Nora passed away in 2021. But when Margaret visited us, she told us that Nora had still been living independently well into her late 90s. Nora had enjoyed a long career as a teacher in Australia with some of her family following in her footsteps. During her career, she worked across multiple schools, and in her later career was principal of different schools.
During Margaret’s visit, she shared a diary Nora had written as she looked back on her life. In it, she dedicated pages to her time studying at Ripon College, with some amazing details about life at the College.
On her accomodation
In first year, we were in corridors of separate rooms, open at the top, with bathroom at one end and a lecturers bedroom closed off at the other end. These were called after the abbeys in that area of Yorkshire…
Underneath this main floor were the laundry rooms where we could handwash our personal underwear and hang it on drying rails. Our bedlinen, towels and pyjamas went in a linen bag to the college laundry. We supplied all these listed on the ‘Requirement’ page when we received acceptance for College. I had saved about a hundred pounds, besides buying the clothes I needed, a trunk to put them in and extra such as an umbrella, note paper and envelopes to write home. This amount only paid half my fees and the othe rhalf was borrowed from the local Education Authority.
On day to day life
The staff were mostly middle-aged graduates, single women from The South of England except our Infants lecturer, Miss Lucy Stowe, who had attended this college as a student. The principal Miss Eva Lett was a tall, regal figure but kind to us all…
Two large rooms near the studies were called the ‘trunk’ rooms where our empty trunks were stored … the college authorities had built wooden shelves around at three heights in the trunk rooms. When an air raid was sounded in college with a very long sound, we were to grab a rug or eiderdown and go down to the trunk rooms and lie on these shelves until the ‘all-clear’ sounded.
One of the strict college rules was not to speak to servicemen when we were in Ripon. The excuses for rule breakers was that their cousin was in the army and they accidentally met in the street.
Life after Ripon
After completing her course, Nora secured her first job creating and running a nursery class for the children of munitions workers. This initiative was set up for mothers working in munitions factories and was for children under 5. Nora was given two rooms in her local Infants School to set up the class, and a local sixteen year old girl came to work with her as nursery helper.
During this time male school inspectors observed Nora’s work and noted down what she was doing so it could be implemented in other schools setting up similar classes.
On the Tuesday evenings when three of us had to do ‘Firewatching’ all night at school to put out incendiary bombs if there was a raid, I did a series of nursery rhyme figures to paste on the walls of the nursery class. The Infant’s Mistress was a rather dramatic person and did actually belong to a local Repertory Company. She asked me to do posters when they were to have a show. She was quite proud of visitors to the Nursery Class.
After two years in the Nursery Class, Nora took on the Kinder class in the main school. In the late 1940s, Nora took part in a teaching exchange to spend a year in Australia. After a year, she decided to stay for another and work in another part of Australia. It was there that she met her husband, and the rest is history.
A teacher for life
Nora remained in Australia and stayed in touch with other people she’d been to College with. She returned to the UK often and she even attended the 50th reunion in 1990!
Nora received her honorary degree in 2021, having never expected to be awarded a degree. She spent her adult life teaching and inspiring hundreds, if not thousands, of children.
With thanks to Margaret and her family for sharing Nora’s story with us.
