Monday 5 October 2009

Matron Philips

In teaching, one has the undeniable privilege of encountering from time to time those people who are prepared to go beyond their normal call of duty and offer services to the school that greatly benefit the pupils concerned. Miss Philips was one such person and her arrival in Wellington House as its new inexperienced matron turned out to be a veritable godsend indeed.

The role of the house matron was to ensure that standards of behaviour were maintained among the boarders, that they tidied, dressed themselves and made their beds properly and were ready for the day ahead. As the term ‘matron’ so strongly suggests, Miss Philips was to be a maternal figure to the boys as well as their guide in matters of hygiene, tidiness and personal appearance among many other things.

Miss Philips was a young woman who was very much the product of her own education which was imparted to her in a strictly run all girls’ private school. Her choice of dress strongly echoed the ethos of her ‘alma mater’ with her smartly pleated tartan skirt, sensible lace up black shoes and plain white blouse. And she had absolutely no qualms about passing on these beliefs and values to the boys in her charge and soon found her innate talents in matters of discipline and willingness to set the very highest of expectations for her boys to be very much appreciated by the boys’ subject masters.

Miss Philips was astute enough to see that poor old Mr Driscoll really had lost his touch with reality and was fast losing control of Wellington. The likeable, yet less than competent veteran house master no longer had the ability to set the necessary expectations within his House. Boys had stopped fearing his study well before Miss Philips’s arrival and everyone knew him as a kind old duffer who was more concerned about this afternoon nap than the behaviour of the boys who were supposedly in his charge. Some at the school even suspected he was gradually succumbing to some form of long-term dementia.

In such a way, at a mere twenty years old, Miss Philips took total command over her boys who soon learnt that life in Wellington was now set to change dramatically. Every morning, beds had to be properly made, pyjamas neatly folded on top of pillows and the boys had to stand to attention next to their beds in their school uniforms which their new matron personally inspected before dismissing them.

Miss Philips had a noble aim for her boys; her boys would be the smartest, most orderly in the whole school and, like it or not, they were to become ‘her boys’ and reflect her values and eventually be under her personal charge. For several years, Miss Philips, a young hitherto wholly inexperienced matron became the unspoken commander of Wellington House. And, to be quite frank, she proved herself as redoubtable as any house master I have ever known.

I can remember boys trembling with the most dreadful apprehension at the very thought of disappointing their matron. Miss Philips saw to it that her boys were always provided with a meaningful consequence to their actions. I shall never forget how she dealt with one boy in particular who has recently sent me his account of a meeting with Matron Philips whilst residing in Wellington House as a boarder in the second form. This is how he remembers it…

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She called for me when I least expected it. I was just coming to the end of lunch in the school dinning hall when Parker, her personally appointed helper stood behind me and said, “Finish now, Cooper. Matron Philips needs to see you in the dorm.” I followed Parker as he led me to the dorm. When I entered, Matron Philips was standing next to the iron railing at the end of my bed wearing her usual pleated tartan skirt, white blouse and a navy blue jacket with the school emblem from the girls’ school she attended sewn onto its right-hand breast pocket. She stared at me in silence and, as soon as I had approached, she pointed to a pack of chewing gum she had found stuffed inside the case of my pillow.

“Don’t even bother lying to me, Cooper,” she said. “You know why you’re really here!” She was holding a small slender cane in one hand which she tapped against the iron rail of the bed. I took up my position and held my breath.

At first, I was not unusually worried. Her cane was just a thin prep school cane, the sort used on younger boys of eight to eleven. But I soon learnt that her choice of cane was unusually flexible and whippier than any cane I had previously experienced. The first stroke caused me to let out a terrible shriek as the slender end of its tip whiplashed against my regulation grey shorts and left what felt like a streak of caustic fire across my bottom. She carried on relentlessly and, after a while, through the pain and endless swishing of her English prep school cane, I realised why I was there. I was there to be taught the way things were to be for the rest of my school life – like it or not, I was now under Matron Philips’s complete and utter charge and that was the way it was going to be from now on.

She finished me off with a couple of stinging blows to the palms of my hands. When it had all finally ended and I just stood there in front of Matron Philips, my head bowed in submission to her authority, a part of me desperate to learn how never to displease her again. Before dismissing me, she spoke to me softly. “I’m sure you won’t be wanting to go through that again, Cooper. Will you now?” I nodded my head very firmly and nearly felt urged to beg her to explain to me what I should do from now on to avoid her wrath or displeasure.

“Thank you, Miss Philips.” I said as Miss Philips dismissed me, not unkindly. “Good boy, Cooper,” she said smiling at me and then added, “You’re one of mine now!”>>>

Young Cooper, along with all of the other boys who found themselves under Miss Philips’s charge soon learnt that obedience and respect towards their Matron was their only option. At times, Miss Philips was forced to remind individual boys of their mistakes and they found themselves at the receiving end of her small prep school cane which she used to an overwhelmingly strong effect. Indeed, Cooper later on described his dismay at just how ‘merciless’ it was when so expertly wielded by his new Matron and how, thanks to her, its stinging whiplash tail spurred him away from idleness and sloth towards reflecting her ideas and then finally embracing her values and beliefs in later life.

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