Sarah Squire

The School Room
Cheriton Fitzpaine
Devon
15^th September 1876

Dear sister,

So here I am in Cheriton Fitzpaine. The apples that have not been picked glow red-ripe as rubies among the bleached roots of the orchards and the scrubbed faces of my students are no less rosy.  Sometimes there are over a hundred children gazing up at me in the school room, nearly half of whom have had no schooling. Imagine such a state of affairs back home in Exeter!

The headmaster and I teach them all together in the same room, though I have particular jurisdiction over the infants, some as small as three, which I suppose means I shall have the privilege of dealing with their wet drawers and stockings when he takes out his cane, as he does all too often.

Mr Nicholas is a gruff old buzzard who will not desist from reminding me that we work under “payment by results”. This means we’ll receive no salary if but one child in Standards fails their Reading, Writing and Arithmetic tests. “Such a little slip of a nineteen year old such as yourself, not even yet certified as a teacher,” he lectures, “can ill afford to spare the rod.” But if results are his priority, let’s see what a little kindness and consideration can do. I intend to innovate with a penny for the sweetie shop for every nervous new child joining the school, and they can get started on their arithmetic counting out their change.

In any case Mr Nicholas has more at stake on the salary front, earning £140 pounds annually to my £40. I do hope Queen Victoria has things more equitably worked out with Mr Disraeli.

Oh sister, it’s like another country up here in Mid Devon, away from the hustle and bustle of Exeter.

The only commotion by way of traffic is the horses coming in and out of the village under the shrewd supervision of the local carrier, a vigorous young man by the name of Wotton. The speed at which he waters and changes his horses is indecent to behold, but I suppose he won’t get paid if he misses his delivery times.

Furthermore, the dialects of my students are quite impenetrable. A little chap by the name of Jimmy Furze quite set my teeth on edge with a formidable cracking sound as the children chorused their seven times tables. It transpired Jimmy had smuggled in a bag of his one penny gobstoppers and was endeavouring to crack them with his back molars.

“You won’t give me a whizzer, Miss?” he asked plaintively (that’s a clip round the ear to you and I), when I rounded on him. “I swear I wuz tryin to eat her quiet but she’s as ‘ard as a dug’s eed!”. “Hard as a dog’s head”: what a fetching simile! And you heard me right, every inanimate object in these parts is either a he or a she, and the more recalcitrant their nature, whether it’s a broken plough or a pensioner’s lame leg, the more feminine they become.

Fortunately the “vitty-handed” or nimble-fingered carrier, Mr Wotton, has offered his assistance as translator. He appeared in the school room clutching his hat yesterday, after the bell had sent the children sprinting to their milking and harvest duties, and was quite breathless. I said I hoped he hadn’t run over and he explained it was his Asthma, not helped by the straw dust of the stables,  which made me feel a “girt gawk” in the parlance of the children. I must have blushed, for he asked me if I was feeling “zamzoad” or suffering the effects of too much sun. He bid me “dray zee for”, or pull up my chair, and was some way through translating the Cheriton lexicon, when he became distracted.

One of those nimble hands darted forward and most tenderly wiped a smear of chalk from my nose. He must have caught my look of alarm for he retorted, none too cryptically, “Now don’t be stuggy, maid, I ain’t got enough puff to waste my breath on preamble, and the carrier as works slow misses his delivery.”

Unfortunately a peel of laughter betrayed that bold Jimmy Furze and his three snot-nosed brothers with their faces pressed against the window pane, beholding the entire spectacle.

“I haz a saying fur zee, Miss Squire!” the young stripling cried through the glass, “Our mother allas says husbands is like land: best winter ‘em, summer ‘em, then winter ‘em again before zee buys the farm!” Then the four of them shrieked with merriment and ran off before they could feel Mr Wotton’s riding whip.

Perhaps Mr Nicholas is onto something regarding sparing the rod…but I find I like it here all the same. I’ve tasted the end of a Cheriton Fitzpaine summer, Perhaps I’ll tarry in this position long enough to try out a winter too…

Your loving sister,

Sarah