Wendy waves goodbye


know, youngsters have so much energy and don’t seem to have the need for sleep. We moved out of Fielding in 1988 and went back to just doing our full time jobs … it was wonderful to have evenings and weekends back. It was in 1991, with John


Dunston now Head, that I decided I needed to change tack and perhaps move on from Sibford, and so I signed up for evening classes in word processing and basic computer studies. However, fate seemed to take a hold again. A vacancy arose in reception. I applied for it and got it … and that is where I remained ... only moving upstairs to the ‘DOS’ office for my last couple of years. When I first started in


Wendy on her last day working at Sibford School


towels always have to be folded lengthways first and stacked in the cupboard with the folds towards you.


Margaret was a character. We


weren’t allowed to talk casually while we were working … her mantra being that if you were talking then you weren’t working … so we spent most of the day in silence except when she had gone to lunch when we caught up with news. However, as soon as she appeared on the drive, silence was once again maintained. However, although she could be


a tyrant, Margaret was also very compassionate and was a great source of strength to me and I feel privileged to have been able to work with her. When Margaret retired in 1982


(by now Jim Graham was Head), I took over as school housekeeper, a position I held until 1993. By this time Summer Lets were becoming the norm – and so the job that had started off as part


time became very much full time! During this time I also became Assistant House Mistress in Gillett, working with Lesley Norton. I stayed in Gillett for two years and moved out only when I married Mike. In true Sibford fashion the flat was needed immediately for another member of staff so I had to vacate it on the morning that we married … so not only was I getting dressed for our wedding but I was also packing up crockery and spring cleaning the bathroom at the same time! The following year there was


a vacancy in Fielding for House Parents and somehow or other Mike and I were ‘persuaded’ to apply for the job and we moved in during the Summer of 1986. We spent two years in Fielding, an experience I wouldn’t have missed but not one I would want to repeat either. I found that working full time and then going ‘home’ to look after around forty 16 and 17-year-olds very tiring. As we all


reception we used type writers and Gestetner machines and everything was paper-based. There always seemed to be a ‘mailing’ on the go and I would be surrounded by boxes in my office of letters, reports etc that needed posting out to parents. By the time I left nearly all correspondence was emailed … the introduction of the internet and email has made such a huge difference to how we work these days. I was lucky because I had done my word


Ye-ha ... Wendy as a cowgirl at a SOSA reunion in the1980s.


The Sibford Rocket / 13


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