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No.
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Spring 1932
No.
107
Spring 1949
Autumn
1967
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164
Spring/
Summer 1968
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We had delightful thrills, long walks, bathing in the Tarn and generally looking after ourselves. Muriel Dennis always provided a large hamper to provide a sound basis to cope with outsize appetites. Evelyn took a large part in making a success of these happy occasions when she was a member of the party. As we all know, Evelyn, from a very early age, has been a keen motorist. I was known as a rather slow driver in my old Morris coupe with the dickey seat. Evelyn regularly poked fun at the time I took to get from point to point. On the Rose Castle trips we had to get up at an unearthly hour on the Monday morning, Evelyn chasing round the women, and I undertaking the equally unpopular task with regard to the men. After a whirlwind rush-round having breakfast and finally cleaning and tidying the cottage the two or three cars would set off for school. On one such occasion I determined that I would not be held up to ridicule by Evelyn for my slow driving, so I got my passengers quickly into the car and set off some time before Evelyn and all the way back without stopping, forcing the old coupe to its limit in order to arrive in good time. On swinging into the playground just before 9 o'clock what was my chagrin to discover that Evelyn was already there, wondering why I had been so long on the road. They were happy days.
But we can go even further back than that to the time when Evelyn Nicholson was a pupil here, every bit as "new" as the latest first former. Muriel Dennis, wife of the headmaster then, speaks of her as "a progressive thinker,” and goes on to say,
'She never seemed to put a foot wrong, which was the cause of much wonderment to me. ; 'She think how she managed it. She and her friend Doris McNall were splendid leaders on the Girls' side, and I'm sure they must have saved Miss Wells many a headache by their useful assistance.
I always enjoyed Evelyn's contributions to Hymn Singing. She had a sweet voice though not a very strong one. She was always a ready and sympathetic helper in all sorts of social activities and very often the instigator of them.
My memories of Evelyn are all happy ones!"
A. Herbert Dobbing was on the staff at that time.
It was circa 1922 that Stanley told 'me, as I sat on the end of his bed in B bedroom that his sister was coming to Ayton next term. It was the beginning of along and at times close friendship as she worked through her brilliant school days then away to university and back to Ayton as a colleague, until I went to Brummana in 1948.
Evelyn was one of those pupils who made teaching French a pleasure and I may say with all due respect to her contemporaries, such pupils are few and far between. I remember the immaculate neatness of her exercise books, their freedom from gross errors, blots and erasures, so easy to correct because there was so little to deserve it, and so soothing to a teacher's ego.
In the Senior Literary Society we found more common ground. I remember with delight that when at university she had to choose a subject for a thesis she wrote on Samuel Butler, whose rather spiky satire was one of our shared enthusiasms. Georgian poetry, so despised nowadays was another, and that reminds me of "Crossings", the unwieldy, formless, whimsically poetic play by de la Mare in which she played the part of Sally, with by the way, Ruth as the seven‑year‑old Ann).
"Dark browed sailor, tell me now, Where, where is Araby."
This and the lovely lullaby ("Now silent falls the clacking mills") were her two songs, part of Armstrong Gibbs' marvellous incidental music.
Evelyn had in those days a very sweet, somewhat husky singing voice which she later developed under the tuition of Mr. Harper and accompanying her many songs for performance mainly in hymn‑singing was another of the great pleasures I owe to her. A particular favourite which I occasionally hear still and always with a backward glance was Quilter's and Tennyson's "Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white."
Many other memories flood in; visits to her home in Low Fell, glorious holidays at Young Friends' camps, but these selected impressions of a very valued experience must suffice. I welcome her to the ranks of the so-called "retired.” She will always find plenty to do.
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