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AOSA ANNUAL REPORT 1999 |
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My most vivid memory of Dorothy is as a fellow piano pupil of Annie Williamson, learning to play duets together, notably ‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’. I was usually struggling with the easy accompanying part whilst Dorothy played the more demanding top part in great style. Dorothy has a long association with both Ayton School and the Society of Friends, being born in Sunderland in 1936 into a Quaker family. Early holidays were to Wensleydale, a Quaker stronghold and, as the war bombings increased, she was taken with her mother and brother to live in Bainbridge and started school there: she joined her brother, Geoffrey, at Ayton in April 1947 - the last term of “Junior A”.
In 1953, Dorothy left school and found her Ayton musical training most beneficial as she pursued her chosen career at teacher training college. This was followed by a year at Dartington Hall in Devon. She returned to Sunderland, newly qualified, to teach music at a large secondary school, living at home and spending some time with her parents after so many years away. In 1960, she was appointed by John Reader to the music staff at Ayton, working with Richard Addison and, later, Douglas Jones, Matthew England and Martin Essex, and found herself teaching the children of some of her school contemporaries. At one time during this period, there were nine old scholars on the school staff in various departments. Pupil numbers were such that many ‘lived out’ in houses in the village. The Meeting House was enlarged to cope with the increasing numbers and Leven Hall was planned, financed and built. With 200 boarders and 100 day scholars, there seemed few clouds on the horizon and there were great plans for the future of the school. In 1976, Dorothy left full-time teaching to marry Edward Dawson, a widower with a daughter, Jane, at the school. This gave her yet another new experience of Ayton - as a ‘parent’. During this time, Dorothy continued as a peripatetic music teacher at Ayton and continued her music teaching in Northallerton, with pupils and staff of schools there, concentrating on entrants for the higher examination grades, up to grade 8 of the Associated Board. Old Scholars are fortunate in finding in Dorothy a President with such a long and varied association with Ayton. She has known or worked with all the school Heads since Stanley Carr and Evelyn Nicholson in the 1940s, through to Alice Meager. In addition to her teaching commitments, she has been Old Scholars’ Area Secretary for four different areas since 1954 and also served on the OS Executive Committee, missing very few OS gatherings in all this time. We wish her well in her term as President Elect and President. |
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A great deal of her time at Ayton was spent in the music
rooms, practising for one examination after another but she took part in hockey
and netball and was an active member of Pendle house teams. Other memories of
Ayton junior school days include watching the senior school’s performance of
the Pirates of Penzance and listening to the newly developed EP & LP
recordings, a great improvement on the old 78s, which had to be changed every
five minutes. This helped build up her wide knowledge of classical music.