Rhubarb October 2022

dorien m c dowell, (née Pluim), Corfe, 1983-1985

with matches (I think there was a cricket-playing boyfriend somewhere).We both remember going to Harrow to score some of the matches and not being allowed into the cricket pavilion for tea – boys only! Some of the teachers must have found it quite a change to teach girls. My mother remembers going to a parent teacher meeting to ask why I wasn’t doing so well in maths and the teacher telling her that he’d never taught girls before. Looking back, we have a lot of good memories and we feel we got a pretty decent education too.There was plenty of time in the Sixth Form to have fun and we had a lot of good times with both the boys and the other girls, whether studying, going to parties (lots of 18ths!) and just hanging out. Sadly, we have lost touch with a lot of people over the years though I see Mike Peregrine (Segar’s, 1980-1985), who lives nearby and obviously Greg McPartlin, Fiona’s brother.

I t’s funny to think that Fiona and I met 29 years ago. Even funnier that we were actually on holiday together when we were contacted by the Beyond Teddies Team about this feature! Obviously one of the best things to come out of our time at Teddies has been our friendship. Fiona is Godmother to my son. The first week we joined we were quite a novelty but things settled down fairly quickly.There were weekly break time meetings for all the girls with Pat Phillips at theWarden’s house to keep an eye on us where we’d eat our weight in trio biscuits.The School did provide a Girls’ Common Room for us above the San but we don’t think any of us ever really used it. We didn’t have a school uniform when we started though they asked us to only wear skirts fairly early on. In retrospect (we’ve just been looking at photos) we looked pretty messy but then it was the eighties…

FEATURE

After Teddies I went to university in the U.S. and then on to the London Business School. I have worked in advertising and Brand management for most of my career.

Neither of us remember much in the way of organised sports – a bit of basketball, canoeing, rowing, even lacrosse but great memories of ice-skating when Port Meadow froze.We both took up cricket scoring which was a fun way to get involved

fiona m c partlin , Corfe, 1983-1985 T he school wasn’t really set up for girls when we arrived. Deborah Hynett and I started off living withWarden Phillips as there were no facilities for girl boarders.Warden Phillips used to pop his head in every morning to wake us up. Subsequently we lived with Joe McPartlin (MCR, 1963-1998) in one of the school houses in Summertown. I think we probably had a lot more freedom (and trust) to move between the house and the school. I would sometimes stop off at theWoodstock Arms to pick up Joe on my way home. There were no girls’ loos except for the one in the school hall and one we were assigned to in our house. It was quite a logistical challenge at times! Dorien and I met in Corfe house on our first day at Teddies, where we shared a study with Rosalind Jones.The first term our study was on the ground floor, but Mr. Drake-Brockman moved us to the first floor the following term because we had too many boys climbing through the window to visit during prep. Corfe was a very new house and we integrated easily with the boys there. There were not many Lower Sixth boys from our year in the house so we ended up sharing duties such as taking the Shells for prep and even putting them to bed pretty much from the beginning. In the Upper Sixth I was Head of House and happily had no major issues with keeping the younger boys under control.

Dorien and Fiona with Shell Boys from Corfe

After I left St. Edwards I went into further education and am now working for the NHS.

Fiona (left) and Dorien (right) 2022

“ When girls first arrived at Teddies I had just started studying for my A Levels and I remember there were some very visible and tangible changes. Firstly the work ethic.The girls who came really wanted to learn and this had an impact on the boys – puerile antics in the classrooms suddenly wasn't so cool. Secondly, as we didn’t have a set school uniform, there was a new interest in what we wore (a Harris Tweed jacket or blazer…?) which hadn’t existed before.We might have bathed more regularly too. ” James MacDonald-Smith (Sing’s 1981-1985)

17