Grange Home School Uniform

A couple of days ago I received a notification from Swordfish who had joined Blipfoto in order to publish some pictures he has come across recently from his years at the Grange Home School...the same years our three children were there. Some years ago I had run across one of those first day of school pictures every parent takes from time to time, but this one, for us, was a first day of school with a difference. The kids were fully decked out in their school uniforms and standing in the garden of our house in the Grange, rented from a Professor Crosbie and his wife who were going with their two little girls to the U.S. for a two year teaching stint somewhere.

I ran across the invoices for a term from the Grange Home School some years ago and had them framed for posterity along with this picture. Dana still has hers, so I took a picture of it the other day when we were there. I will refrain from telling the the story of the acquisition of the uniforms again, but it can be found here...suffice it to say that it was a long and laborious process, and I STILL have the uniforms in the attic, more than a bit the worse for wear. I can't imagine what will ever happen to them, but I just can't bring myself to part with them. They are an instant reminder of a more innocent time. 

There is also a picture of the invoice for Dana's term in the extras. It is a testament to why we save stuff, for it is fascinating reading now...Three pounds for Scottish Country Dancing for a whole term? Dinners for 11£40p? I suspect the tapioca pudding wound up wrapped in a napkin and somehow smuggled into the nearest trash can, but it wouldn't have been easy. One of the things on the uniform list was a cloth napkin, not the disposable paper ones of today.   The tapioca, or 'fish eyes' seemed to have been universally loathed. If I had been serving it at home it would have been the dog that benefitted, but there was no dog at the Grange Home School.

Every uniform item (including the cloth napkin) had to have a name tag sewed into it...one more small core to accomplish in front of the laboriously lighted coal fire of an evening. It was known as 'smokeless coal' perhaps because it was almost impossible to light...certainly not with the twist of newspaper we always used in our wood burning fireplace at home. I think we finally resorted to blocks of paraffin to get the stuff to burn. It is ironic that wood burning fireplaces have now been outlawed here, and we have a gas fire that lights with a remote control. We had a cellar full of smokeless coal which the kids had a fine time playing in one day, emerging black with coal dust from head to foot. Here, Dana's dog ate the remote control, turning on the fire in the middle of summer before rendering the remote control useless for turning it off...

So this picture is for you, Swordfish, if you are still following the annals of the Grange Home School via this amazing Blipfoto site.