Jean Whittle, née Jeanette Storch, tells us more about her time at Latymer between 1941 and 1946, as well as her life overseas afterwards (including living in Ghana and emigrating to Australia, twice!). 

What was it like being a student in the 1940s? 

For much of 1941 I was an evacuee in Cullompton, Devon, and that's where I took the scholarship exam to attend secondary school. When it was time to start at Latymer in September 1941, the London blitz was over and London seemed fairly safe, so I was brought home to Edmonton. Since we children had known nothing but war since September 1939, I don't think we thought much about it - it was just normal to us. 

At Latymer, girls sat on one side of the room, two to a desk, and boys on the other side, two to a desk. But a boy and a girl never sat together at one desk. Girls were addressed by the teachers by their first names, but boys were addressed only by their surnames. 

Our teachers wore their academic gowns all day, sadly many gowns were in a very worn state. I don't know whether this was some sort of pride on the teachers' part, or whether they couldn't afford to buy replacement ones because of the clothing coupons that would have been required in wartime. Our Latin master was a very tall man, and when he walked along and turned a corner, tattered strips of his gown would stream out behind him! 

Girls did domestic science (e.g. cooking) and general science, but boys did chemistry and physics as two separate subjects. Girls could elect to go with the boys and do chemistry and physics instead. About four of us did this (I swear it wasn't because I liked boys better!). Boys got no choice. Pity for some boy who wanted to be a chef… 

At the end of second year, they took the best children from each form and put us into a class called "L" and taught us Latin. In days gone by, you needed Latin or Ancient Greek to get into a university, or at any rate into one of the best ones like Oxford or Cambridge. So I was in 3L, 4L and 5L. I wonder if they still teach Latin at Latymer these days? (Yes we do!). 

What are your fondest memories of your time at Latymer?

Every Christmas the staff used to put on a pantomime in the Great Hall with all the pupils as audience. One of my more vivid memories is one that starred our French master, Dr Frank J Williams, as a Russian named Frankski Jameski Williamski, and he and Miss Strubell, the Art teacher, kept flinging their arms around each other and declaring their passionate love for each other. It was hilarious and the staff were great sports letting their hair down in front of all the pupils like this every year.

What were your favourite extra-curricular activities here? 

I didn't mind the sport games we played - I think the girls played hockey in winter and netball in summer. But gymnastics was an absolute hate of mine. I was hopeless at it and never managed to climb more than a few inches up a rope or jump over the horse. I visited the school for a reunion in 2006, and our gym teacher, Mrs Bennett (Miss Munns when she taught me) was there. Everyone was queueing up to tell her how wonderful she was, but I told her that the gymnasium was a torture-chamber for me. It was mean of me, but I really did suffer at the time! 

Was the teaching influenced by the war/post-war conflict? 

I don't think teaching was much influenced by the war. There was probably a shortage of them as many former teachers would have joined the services. I remember one man who taught us English for a while, and he had some foreign accent that made him unable to pronounce the letter "w". This was unfortunate as he once had to give us a lesson on "Overvorked vords" and the poor man got teased unmercifully. (Not by me, of course!) 

There were some things we couldn't do because of the war, which made us sad. For instance, they used to show us films of prewar students holidaying in places like Switzerland, which we couldn't do. By the time I left school in 1946 the war had been over for a year, and my friends who stayed on to 6th form were able to do some of these things again. 

When you were at school, what did you want to be when you grew up? 

By the end of 5th form I was just about to turn 16, and I was really tired of school. I was fed up with being treated like a child, and I hated always having to wear a hat and gloves summer and winter, and the dreadful thick black stockings we girls had to wear in winter. So I arranged to leave at the end of that year, and my teachers were most upset about this. They said if I stayed on I could become a teacher or a nurse - that was all they could offer intelligent girls in those days. I said I didn't feel suited for either of these jobs. My mother always had the idea that I should become a "secretary", and that sounded alright to me. 

What did you do after Latymer? 

I did a year's commercial course at Tottenham Technical College. No one told me I could have learned shorthand and typing in Latymer's 6th form, otherwise I might have stayed on another year and learned the commercial subjects there.

After I left Tottenham Tech I got a job as a junior shorthand-typist in London's Lower Regent Street in the engineering department of one of the Rediffusion radio companies. In later life I worked in many different sorts of office, such as solicitors and patent agents. I usually managed to find interesting jobs and wasn't unhappy with the path I had taken. 

Just after I turned 18 my mother died. My father sold our house in Edmonton and I started living in a hostel in Bayswater, sharing a room with three other girls. 

One of those girls was planning to go to Australia as a ten pound pom, and I decided to go with her as I had always yearned for warm sunny weather. But then she dropped out as she couldn't afford the ten pounds. It was a lot of money for us then - about three weeks' pay. They didn't pay juniors very much as you were supposed to live with your parents until you got married. 

So I came to Australia on my own, aged 19. It was a six-week journey on a ship. A girl I met later in Australia had a lovely cruise coming out, but the ship I came on was a dreadful old hulk that had been a troopship during the war, sunk in the Red Sea and then refloated. It wasn't a very enjoyable journey at all, but I do remember we had a crossing-the-line ceremony as we crossed the equator, and that was fun. 

What were your first thoughts when you arrived in Australia? 

I loved Australia, but after a few years I got a bit homesick and went back to England. But I could never get acclimatised back to the English climate and soon wanted to leave again. I didn't want to go back to Australia, but I got a job in Ghana as secretary to the General Manager of a timber company out in the rainforest. It was quite a nice life there, with an African cook-steward to do all one's cooking, washing and housework! 

I met my husband there. He was in charge of the Transport Department of the company I worked for. We got married in Ghana, and I got pregnant there and had to go back to the UK to have the baby. I stayed with my in-laws in Edinburgh. 

Soon after that my husband lost his job, so I couldn't go back to Ghana. My husband didn't want to live in the UK any more than I did. He had always heard me talking about Australia and said "Let's go to Australia", so we applied as ten pound poms! 

I am the only person I know who has been a ten pound pom twice (now known as Boomerang Pom)* but only paid the ten pounds on both occasions – many others had to pay their own fare the second time around. I had a different name the second time and they didn't ask me if I had been to Australia before. They weren't interested in me - only in my husband who was a diesel mechanic. The baby and I were just hangers-on. I have lived here ever since. 

I love Australia, especially Sydney. I don't particularly miss England (or the climate) as I don't have any relatives left there that I am in touch with. I now live in a flat on my own in Sydney, and my son and his wife live about 20 minutes' drive away and always help me when I need it. 

*This term is used to describe British migrants post WW2 who emigrated to Australia, returned to the UK, just to emigrate back to Australia again like a Boomerang. Around ¼ of British migrants during this period returned back to the UK and between a third to half of these re-emigrated to Australia. https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/articles/13640