Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [3]
And then there was Mum. It seems that when Anne turned right, young Jenny chose left. Again and again and again. We don’t know when exactly and we don’t know why. All we know is that eventually it cost Jenny her life.
It’s such a puzzle. What made Mum take the path she did? She had the same options, the same support network, the same genes. But it wasn’t enough. Nursing wasn’t for her. Academia seemed to be a waste of her time as well, although she was, according to her early reports, very bright. By the age of fourteen she was no longer interested in what Lewes Grammar School for Girls could offer her. And they, it’s fair to say, were running out of patience with her too.
I don’t have many of my mother’s possessions, but on my sixteenth birthday Granny and Grandpa gave me a box containing various letters and documents. For years I left that box unopened, too afraid of what I might discover. When curiosity did get the better of me, I felt sad that I hadn’t had the courage before. Wonderful new clues to a fuller picture of my mother’s life were hidden in letters, photographs and newspaper columns. It’s emotional stuff. I just wish Mum came out of it better.
One letter was a note to Grandpa from the headmistress of Lewes Grammar, Miss Margaret Medcalf. She claimed she’d gone to the café in Newhaven and discovered Mum and a couple of friends. Mum had sworn she was there with Grandpa’s blessing, but obviously she was playing hooky. In any case, the head wasn’t fooled and wrote to Grandpa, who replied, by return, saying he would do everything ‘to uphold the reputation of the school’. It all sounds wonderfully prim now, but at the time I’m sure it was mortifying for Grandpa. As a soldier, he’d been prepared to put his head above the parapet in the line of enemy fire. It was another matter in civilian life. All he wanted from his family was for them to keep their heads down. It wasn’t much to ask, was it?
It was for my mother.
The truanting school letter was dated 16 May 1968 – a week before Mum’s fourteenth birthday. I’m sure Grandpa hoped his intervention would be the end of it. Unfortunately, a few days later, things got worse.
A note from the school posted through my grandparents’ front door explained the bare bones: ‘Dear Mr Beavis, your daughter Jennifer was committed to the Victoria Hospital in Lewes today suffering from the effects of some pills she had taken. She is being kept overnight for some observation. I’m very worried indeed about the whole matter and I would be grateful if you could come and discuss it with me at your earliest convenience. I do hope Jennifer will recover soon.’ It was again signed by the headmistress.
I can’t imagine how Grandpa must have felt. Obviously he was worried that Mum had been taken to hospital, but at the same time . . . the ignominy of it all! The knowledge that a daughter of his had taken some sort of overdose and ended up in hospital must have been so much for him to bear. The only saving grace was that, as far as he knew, only he and the head-mistress’s office were aware of the matter. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to last.
The case made all the local papers. They were fascinated by the story of three middle-class girls bunking off school to take, as they reported, ‘barbiturate tranquillizers known