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COMMUNITY & EDUCATION


said ‘Miss Mason, we’d very much like to accept you on our course but we simply can’t due to your lack of height.’ I am five feet and half an inch which didn’t reach their cut-off point back then but this disgusted me as they had my vital statistics in my application so why offer me an interview?”


It’s hard not to be overwhelmed by the sheer spectacle that is Wentworth Woodhouse’s great façade. But imagine being an 18-year-old woman living away from home for the first time in such breath- taking surroundings.


The college welcomed students from all walks of life, but none had come from such affluent backgrounds where this standard of house was deemed ‘ordinary’. However, before the first 40 scholars could move in, the house required many alterations to make it habitable. A few years previous, it had been used by the intelligence corps during the war and was in a bit of a sorry state.


The original intake spent their first term at Harrogate, living at the Valley Gardens Hotel, training in the evenings at the local ladies’ college, and spending their free time indulging in tea and cake at Betty’s. Once works at Wentworth


Woodhouse had been completed, they were finally able to move in in January 1950 and the first student to step through the door was Sybil Wilbraham, or Mason as she was then.


“It was also my 19th birthday


that day, January 17th, and it became the college’s birthday which we celebrated every year. In my final year when I turned 21 and the college turned two, my father paid for a party there which was a spectacular event,” Sybil, now 88, says.


Over its time as a training college, the vast amount of rooms at Wentworth Woodhouse changed uses from ceremonial dining rooms to dance studios. The first accommodation blocks were in the South Wing, nicknamed Bedlam, where up to four students would share a room with a bathroom and ‘tilley’ or small kitchen utility area. As numbers grew, more areas


of the East Front were used until, in 1959, the Earl agreed to let out Hoober House and a college bus was provided for those commuting to and from lectures. There was also accommodation in the stable block. Chris Ireland, who was a student there from 1964, was one of the students who chose to live at Hoober House in her second year before returning to the North Wing for her final year


“There were 60 ladies who started the course at the same time as me and many had not lived in a communal setting before. I was from Surrey which was very different to South Yorkshire – particularly understanding the northern language! You had to get on with one another but we all quickly gelled without much arguing. The friendships we made have stood the test of time and even after 50 years these remain steadfast,” Chris says. None more so than Sheila Sherwood who also started in 1964 and whose two roommates were her bridesmaids who she still sees regularly. For Sheila, it is this close- knit community which drew her to Lady Mabel over other colleges like the one in Eastbourne where the accommodation was scattered away from campus. Plus, she grew up in Sheffield so the journey back home wouldn’t be that laborious. Other students applied purely for the standard of teaching on offer for which Lady Mabel was a forerunner in contemporary techniques. Sybil, like many others who would go on to attend Lady Mabel College, had always wanted to teach, particularly PE and sport, and had applied to many of the other specialist PE colleges without success.


“I was called for interview at several which were pretty gruesome and intensive weekend trips away. At the end of each one, the principal


aroundtownmagazine.co.uk 47


That was the end of her PE dreams in Sybil’s eyes and instead she considered applying for university to study zoology and botany to become a science teacher. Then Lady Mabel College came on the scene and changed her life. Their new model of teacher training focussed on Physical Education compared to the preceding Physical Training which had been used in schools for years. “Before, in PT, school pupils were made to go over a box or horse and the teacher would have to catch them or drag them over if they couldn’t do it. Because of my height, it didn’t look as if I could although I knew my own capabilities. The new style of PE meant students could now experiment with apparatus and do their own thing,” Sybil says. Lady Mabel College was the first to introduce this new theory in gymnastics along with the Laban Principles of Movement in dance which concentrated on quality of


movement and how the body could use shape and space effectively. Rather than a rigid style of teaching where every student was expected to perform to a certain standard, teachers now had to be brimming with ideas and encourage pupils to draw out attributes to match their individual abilities. “As the first 40 students, we were the pioneers – or guinea pigs – and so we considered it a great privilege and responsibility. We had fantastic backing from the tutors and we gave them tremendous respect. Our relationship was perhaps very different to subsequent years; staff were more stringent in ways as we were the initial result of their innovative concept. But our teachers were also learning so we embarked on this new journey together,” Sybil says.


It would have been a culture shock for most Lady Mabel students as they had been brought up on the old physical training style. However, when the Sybils of the world went out to teach after graduation, they inspired a whole new generation of would-be teachers who were intrigued by the modern way. “It was a challenge because schools had only ever known Physical Training and you would be a junior PE teacher to someone


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