Mija’s Room

The 8-Month Year – 2026

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Hiya!

Mysteriously, my calendar, doubtlessly inspired by1Or perhaps acting against. the productivity sphere’s innovation, The 12-Week Year, has developed its own variant: The 8-Month Year.

How does the 8-Month Year work, I hear you ask?

The system is simple. January, with its simultaneous regrets and resolute promises of reform, is permitted to start said year. February makes a brave, if brief, showing. Then, without warning and with no ransom note, March, April, May, and June vanish as though they never existed. July briskly follows, giving no notice to the missing months and expecting everyone to, likewise, avert their eyes and carry on.

In fairness to the calendar and its missing months, like every year this decade, 2026 hasn’t been an entirely uneventful year. At the end of January, an aging surfer-surgeon disassembled and rebuilt my left ankle, then gave me the happy news that I was down two tendons and needed a great deal of bed rest with said ankle higher than my heart for at least 5 weeks, followed by months of physical therapy. He also introduced me to the wonders of Aleve, which I’ve since adopted as Gen X’s Vitamin A.

(more…)

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    Or perhaps acting against.

“Details” – from Newsguy’s Notes from the Naughty

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This was first published on the then Usenet provider Newsboy’s website in July 2000.

In the Summer 2000. I was a Newsguy feature writer for its short-lived column on spanking called ‘Notes From the Naughty’. Sadly they did away with their adult section after only two months. These are of varying quality, but you’re welcome to draw your own conclusions.

It was kewl being paid to write about spanking, at least while it lasted!

 

 

 

“A fetish is nothing if not specific.”

Pablo Stubbs made this wise remark to me at some point when I joked, with some amazement, at the effort and expense he had put into finding just the right gymslip and knickers for me (grey pleated and bottle green respectively). When one is dealing with something which has the power traditional school uniforms have for my partner, expense and inconvenience – not to mention my own physical discomfort, British school uniforms being somewhat less than seasonal in my desert clime – seem trivially unimportant.

“A fetish is nothing if not specific.”

My brain echoed the phrase again as we sat the other night admiring a friend’s canes. He’s got quite a few – all with distinct (and distinctly painful) qualities based on their length and the density of the rattan they’re made from. They are sanded and varnished to precise silky smoothness. All but one has the crook handle of a traditional English cane. Each cane has specific value to our friend for its own sake. As he flexed the canes, and swished them through the air, their number (six, I believe) obviously didn’t seem excessive to him. Choosing the right one to impart the right message was an important part of the ritual discipline he’d be administering.

For me, sitting nervously watching and listening, which cane he would use seemed unimportant. Had he owned but one or two that would have been enough to make me shift nervously in my chair. The swishing of one would have made me cringe slightly, probably visibly. For me, the detail that was important – specific – was that I was to be caned in the specific and traditional manner of a very strict English school. The caning would be slow and exceptionally painful, yet I would be expected to remain as still and quiet as possible during it. Since for me restraints tend to make scenes easier, the authenticity of this caning was what would make it possible for me to restrain myself.

Our friend knew this about me, knew that how and why I was being caned was as important (or more important) than the caning itself. So beforehand we carefully discussed what I’d done which merited this level of punishment. As we talked, I became a disobedient schoolgirl who deserved the sort of strict, harsh punishment I imagined would be meted out by a traditional (and perhaps sadistic?) headmaster at a strict school sometime in the past. I felt guilty and nervous, my hand finally shaking as it tapped gently on his “office” door.

This is the power of specificity for me. My friend, knowing his role, scolded me and slowly manoeuvred me into position. In the past this part has been extended by conversation, time in the corner, essay and line writing. By the time I’m bent over, standing on tip-toe, blushing and dying of shame as my knickers are slowly lowered to my knees, I’m generally already in tears. Some might think (and sadly have thought) that the caning itself is irrelevant at this point, that the strokes don’t need to be very severe. But for me anyway this isn’t the case. Our friend didn’t disappoint; each stroke was delivered with full force, in straight lines, with a great deal of time between each. I thanked him for each one and willed myself to stay in position for “twelve of the best”, as befits a girl receiving such a traditional punishment.

In the morning I could see where each stroke had left the distinctive double marks or “tram-lines” that are the evidence of a traditional caning. I couldn’t help smiling at the proof of my “punishment” as I admired it in the mirror. It’s all about details, you know.

After all, a fetish is nothing if not specific.

Self-Parenting, a poem

Posted on By Mija

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I wrote this two weeks after surgery (more on that later) as I sat in bed crying because the news sucks,  there was another form to fill out, I found out I couldn’t go to the Vegas party this weekend, and plus I couldn’t wash my hair. I formatted it as an image to post on Twitter and Bluesky, but then forgot to do it.

It really is, still, shocking to me that whether or not I’ve eaten and what I’ve eaten has such an effect on me, especially since I’m rarely hungry. I know I’m not alone in this. I have a friend who told me that whenever she and her dad would be in a discussion/disagreement and it started to get heated her dad would say something like “I’ll continue this after we’ve both eaten an apple.” This seems like a really good idea.

Since I’m only cooking for me these days and I’m home recovering I can forget to eat or remember but it seems like too much trouble / easier just to go to sleep.  Especially if, say, I’ve been writing some Inez stuff or reading or practicing calligraphy. Just about anything is less boring than cooking1When I say cooking here I mean the day-to-day keeping myself fed kind of stuff. More elaborate cooking and baking is different and interesting. and eating.

Clearly my more responsible inner self needs to keep better tabs on what I’m eating when because there’s always time for a protein shake.

Text version for those who use Readers:

Self-Parenting

Me: I’m sad & everything sucks.
Me: Nothing will ever be right again.
Also Me: That’s terrible. Have you eaten?
Me: You think that’s why I’m sad? Food?
Also Me: Was it dinner last night?
Me: <rolls eyes> Lunch.
Also Me: But I made dinner.
Me: It’s still in the microwave.
Also me: Eat something now. You’ll feel better.
Me: I won’t. I’ve just eaten something. You’ll see.
(15 minutes & one protein smoothie later)
Me: Shit.
Also me: What?
Me: Everything still sucks but I’m okay.

~by Mija

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    When I say cooking here I mean the day-to-day keeping myself fed kind of stuff. More elaborate cooking and baking is different and interesting.
discipline

The Seduction of Anne Kelley: Part II, Correction Made Plain

Posted on By Mija

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Many thanks to the helpful beta readers The Preacher’s Wife and @paulatnorthgare. They both say this is fine, so any remaining mistakes anyone (Becca)) finds are obviously their fault. I thank them for sticking their… necks… out so kindly. 

Seriously. though, I currently need eagle-eyed proofreaders even more than usual as I’ve had to have reconstructive surgery on my ankle and tendons with less than a week to prepare. More on that later, except to say that there has been too much of the not-fun-kind-of-pain Because of said pain there has also been some narcotic pain medication. Oh and the discovery that being on temporary disability (apparently I can’t teach on heavy meds with my foot higher than my heart) is way more stressful and at least as much work as doing my job.

More whining about that later. 

Introduction

The papers gathered here belong to the wider Saint Clare archive and sit alongside the documents already familiar to readers of the Inez de Vries sequence: detention essays, staff memoranda, prefect minutes, household logs, and the private writings that have a habit of surviving precisely because no one quite knows what to do with them.

The Seduction of Anne Kelley draws from the Kelley–de Vries correspondence, preserved in the Blue Prefect Study papers, where material that is neither wholly private nor entirely official has long been kept. You will find letters meant to be burned, copies retained “for reference,” and drafts that should by rights have been torn up but were instead saved, retied, and filed under headings of optimistic vagueness. Some pages are neatly typed, as though the truth might be made more palatable by proper margins. Others arrive in the swift, unsteady cursive of someone writing under pressure, or in a place she very much ought not to be.

The sequence opens, deliberately, near the middle of things. In July 1955, Anne Kelley, a Saint Clare’s English mistress, writes a letter to “Gwennie” with the ease of long practice. Only afterward do we return to the beginning, to see how their correspondence formed, why it was encouraged, and what it made possible.

Readers are invited to take up the archivist’s task, and the investigator’s pleasure, of weighing what people say they intended against what they were, in fact, doing. Much will be implied. Little will be stated outright. Those accustomed to the School’s “special friendships” may notice familiar patterns resurfacing in adult form: the same hierarchies, the same alliances and intimacies, and stakes rather higher than dormitory gossip ever required.

These letters trace the development of that correspondence, from proper parental enquiry to something more deliberate, conducted quietly over time in the familiar idiom of the School. For those who prefer their archives with a guide, a brief introduction to the principal actors has been provided, in the manner of a proper dramatis personae. The archive remembers. And so, of course, does Inez.

Previous “Seduction of Anne Kelley” posts:

Comments are warmly welcomed. While I enjoy seeing them on Bluesky and Twitter, those left here become part of the archive proper, where they may quietly shape what follows. I cannot promise the archive is obedient, but it is, as ever, attentive.

Having trouble reading? Try the plain text version.

Archivist’s Foreword

The letters that follow were written in early 1948. By then the novelty of beginning school at Saint Clare’s had worn thin, and routines had settled enough to reveal their effects. Correspondence between Lady Gwendoline de Vries and Anne Kelley was established and less formal. Outwardly, their subject remains Lady Gwen’s daughter, Inez de Vries, recently returned from her Christmas holidays. 

Readers may already sense a shift. Attention moves, almost imperceptibly, from conduct to pattern, from incident to structure. The exchange remains courteous, but its purpose a bit sharper.

These letters are preserved among the Blue Prefect Study papers, arranged in neat stacks, organized by year, tied and retied with faded green silk ribbons, and filed under “Private.” They are offered not as evidence of misdeeds or indiscretions, but as records of how trust develops through encouraged affection.

 

Lady Gwendoline de Vries

Abbey House

 

2 February 1948

Dear Nancy,

   I trust your Christmas was a delightful affair, suffused with its usual gaiety and good-natured merriment. Forgive my intrusion regarding my daughter, Inez. I have some small concerns following her brief return home for the holidays, and wondered whether you had observed any corresponding change as she settles again into Saint Clare’s.

   During her time here, the household staff observed that Inez was less attentive to her room than has been her habit. In some respects, her standards appeared to have slipped rather than improved, falling below those she maintained even two years ago. The housekeeper remarked that she seemed uncertain how to make her bed properly or to hang a dress as expected. Her punctuality, too, was less exact than usual, a change I noted myself. None of these lapses were of any consequence in themselves, but their consistency was sufficient to attract comment and to create unnecessary work for others.

(more…)

fiction

The Seduction of Anne Kelley: Part I, Old Girls, New Channels

Posted on By Mija

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Introduction

The papers gathered here belong to the wider Saint Clare archive and sit alongside the documents already familiar to readers of the Inez de Vries sequence: detention essays, staff memoranda, prefect minutes, household logs, and the private writings that have a habit of surviving precisely because no one quite knows what to do with them.

The Seduction of Anne Kelley draws from the Kelley–de Vries correspondence, preserved in the Blue Prefect Study papers, where material that is neither wholly private nor entirely official has long been kept. You will find letters meant to be burned, copies retained “for reference,” and drafts that should by rights have been torn up but were instead saved, retied, and filed under headings of optimistic vagueness. Some pages are neatly typed, as though the truth might be made more palatable by proper margins. Others arrive in the swift, unsteady cursive of someone writing under pressure, or in a place she very much ought not to be.

The sequence opens, deliberately, near the middle of things. In July 1955, Anne Kelley, a Saint Clare’s English mistress, writes a letter to “Gwennie” with the ease of long practice. Only afterward do we return to the beginning, to see how their correspondence formed, why it was encouraged, and what it made possible.

Readers are invited to take up the archivist’s task, and the investigator’s pleasure, of weighing what people say they intended against what they were, in fact, doing. Much will be implied. Little will be stated outright. Those accustomed to the School’s “special friendships” may notice familiar patterns resurfacing in adult form: the same hierarchies, the same alliances and intimacies, and stakes rather higher than dormitory gossip ever required.

These letters trace the development of that correspondence, from proper parental enquiry to something more deliberate, conducted quietly over time in the familiar idiom of the School. For those who prefer their archives with a guide, a brief introduction to the principal actors has been provided, in the manner of a proper dramatis personae. The archive remembers. And so, of course, does Inez.

Comments are warmly welcomed. While I enjoy seeing them on Bluesky and Twitter, those left here become part of the archive proper, where they may quietly shape what follows. I cannot promise the archive is obedient, but it is, as ever, attentive.

Having trouble reading? Try the plain text version.

 

Foreword

The letters that follow predate the document introduced in Part 0 by some eight years. They belong to the autumn term of 1947, shortly after Inez de Vries arrived at Saint Clare’s, and long before MP Gerald Charrington’s visit rendered Anne Kelley’s correspondence anything but theoretical.

At first glance, there is little here that would trouble a filing clerk. A parent writes to enquire after her daughter. A young schoolmistress replies with due propriety. Both women observe the conventions of their roles, and neither commits anything to paper that might not, under ordinary circumstances, be read aloud in the Headmaster’s study without embarrassment.

And yet, as readers of Miss Kelley’s July 1955 letter will already suspect, this exchange did not remain ordinary.

What follows is not a school report, nor even a sequence of them. It is the beginning of a private correspondence, conducted alongside official channels and sustained with care. The language is measured. The pace unhurried. Nothing improper occurs. But certain permissions are granted, quietly and by degrees.

These letters were found, like their later counterparts, among Lady Gwendolyn de Vries’s papers in the Blue Prefect Study archives, tied and retied, and eventually filed under “Private.” They appear to have been kept not for reference, but for continuity.

The archivist offers them here not as explanation, but as context.

Lady Gwendolyn de Vries

 

1 October 1947

My dear Miss Kelley,

   You will, I hope, forgive a brief note from a parent so early in the term. I should perhaps say at once that I do not write in any official capacity, nor with any expectation beyond what you may think proper.

   My daughter, Inez de Vries, has only just arrived at Saint Clare’s, and while I am quite aware that the School’s regular reports will tell me all that is necessary in due course, I confess to a small curiosity as to how she bears her first weeks. One remembers, perhaps more clearly than one expects, how revealing those early days can be. (more…)

correction corner

Correction Corner #2 – January 12, 2026

Posted on By Mija

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A brief pause at the archive desk for housekeeping, mending, and the occasional discreet pinning back of a hem.

First, handwriting. I have been revisiting earlier entries to make the use of cursive fonts more consistent, and, more importantly, more readable. Lady Gwendolyn and Miss Anne Kelley’s writing now appear in hands that suggest legibility as well as character. Flourish has its place, but Saint Clare’s has never been a school that prized ornament over clarity, except perhaps in the prospectus and certain prize-day speeches.

Second, the forewords and afterwords. I am also tidying these across the MP Visits sequence so they speak to one another more neatly. The School itself is perfectly capable of generating three contradictory accounts of the same event, plus a fourth in pencil that insists the first three never happened. The archive, however, ought to provide at least a stable frame in which to enjoy the confusion.

Third, a practical matter, now happily resolved. Paul, our longstanding and long suffering Stylesheet Beak,1A Beak, as any public school pupil will tell you, may sound like a gentle bird, but is not to be trifled with, particularly where fonts are concerned. has fixed the vexed matter of the comment box, which on some browsers (Safari, I am looking at you) displayed readers’ words in a size apparently intended for smuggling under a blotter, or for writing the Lord’s Prayer on a grain of rice. The situation is now in hand.

Fourth, and this is a correction still in progress, I have been remiss in providing plain-text versions of posts that rely heavily on handwritten fonts. Not all readers find cursive easy, and while Saint Clare’s has a long tradition of expecting girls to decipher one another’s notes at speed (often by torchlight, and often with consequences), the archive should be more accommodating. Plain-text versions will be added going forward, and to earlier posts where possible. Consider it accessibility rather than a collapse in standards.

Finally, a word about illustrations.

Some readers will have noticed a change. Earlier Saint Clare/Inez entries often came with drawings that leaned toward coloured pencil and watercolour, the sort of thing one might expect in a storybook, a school annual, or the margins of a Latin exercise when the mistress’s back is turned. Changes in how image generation now behaves on ChatGPT have made that style increasingly difficult to produce reliably. The results tend, of late, toward the photographic, the over-polished, or the alarmingly literal, which rather defeats the point.

For the time being, I will be relying on simpler artwork and on drawings I already have, with the occasional experiment when circumstances allow. I may yet pull out my coloured pencils in a pinch, but no promises. The point has always been suggestion as much as illustration, and I trust the archive can manage with a little less gloss and a little more imagination.

Thank you, as ever, for your patience, your sharp eyes, and your willingness to notice when the filing system has been quietly adjusted. Corrections, like discipline, work best when administered early and with a steady hand.

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    A Beak, as any public school pupil will tell you, may sound like a gentle bird, but is not to be trifled with, particularly where fonts are concerned.
fiction

The Seduction of Anne Kelley: Part 0, An Introduction

Posted on By Mija

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Introduction

The papers gathered here belong to the wider Saint Clare archive and sit alongside the documents already familiar to readers of the Inez de Vries sequence: detention essays, staff memoranda, prefect minutes, household logs, and the private writings that have a habit of surviving precisely because no one quite knows what to do with them.

The Seduction of Anne Kelley draws from the Kelley–de Vries correspondence, preserved in the Blue Prefect Study papers, where material that is neither wholly private nor entirely official has long been kept. You will find letters meant to be burned, copies retained “for reference,” and drafts that should by rights have been torn up but were instead saved, retied, and filed under headings of optimistic vagueness. Some pages are neatly typed, as though the truth might be made more palatable by proper margins. Others arrive in the swift, unsteady cursive of someone writing under pressure, or in a place she very much ought not to be.

The sequence opens, deliberately, near the middle of things. In July 1955, Anne Kelley, a Saint Clare’s English mistress, writes a letter to “Gwennie” with the ease of long practice. Only afterward do we return to the beginning, to see how their correspondence formed, why it was encouraged, and what it made possible.

Readers are invited to take up the archivist’s task, and the investigator’s pleasure, of weighing what people say they intended against what they were, in fact, doing. Much will be implied. Little will be stated outright. Those accustomed to the School’s “special friendships” may notice familiar patterns resurfacing in adult form: the same hierarchies, the same alliances and intimacies, and stakes rather higher than dormitory gossip ever required.

These letters trace the development of that correspondence, from proper parental enquiry to something more deliberate, conducted quietly over time in the familiar idiom of the School. For those who prefer their archives with a guide, a brief introduction to the principal actors has been provided, in the manner of a proper dramatis personae. The archive remembers. And so, of course, does Inez.

Comments are warmly welcomed. While I enjoy seeing them on Bluesky and Twitter, those left here become part of the archive proper, where they may quietly shape what follows. I cannot promise the archive is obedient, but it is, as ever, attentive.

Archivist’s Foreword

This document, a letter from Anne Kelley, English teacher and housemistress for Inez and Clarissa, is written on Saint Clare’s letterhead and dated 12 July 1955. The reader will recall that 12 July 1955 was the day of MP Gerald Charrington’s visit, the sort of day the timetable insists is perfectly ordinary right up to the moment it becomes legendary, and when poor Clarissa learned that a man may promise to “conclude matters at home” while concluding them perfectly well in the Headmaster’s study. Despite the letterhead, this document is not a school report. It is not, in fact, an official communication at all. It is, strictly speaking, the sort of thing the writer hopes will be burned, mislaid, or eaten by the dog before anyone has the bright idea of filing it.

Fortunately for this archivist, and for you, dear reader, it was saved and filed.

The reader may recall that earlier, in Miss Kelley’s own journal, there is a line about “enough of this ink-spilling” and the need to “take up a clean sheet” in order to write to “Gwennie” about the day’s events.[1] This is that clean sheet, or at least one of them. Saint Clare’s, as we are learning, produces duplicates with the same ease it produces contradictory rules.

The letter was later found among Lady Gwendolyn’s papers in the Blue Prefect Study archives, as part of a bundle tied with green ribbon and optimistically labelled “Williams, G., Misc. 1955.” It is marked, in spirit, for your eyes only, which in any archive, even Saint Clare’s, is less a boundary than an invitation.

[1] One further note, offered as an observation rather than judgement: the salutation of “Gwennie” is not the sort a young schoolmistress generally addresses to either a countess or the mother of a pupil. And yet Anne Kelley is generally so very professional and proper. Curious, that.

 

Saint Clare’s School for Girls

12 July 1955

My dear Gwennie,

   You asked to be told when anything material touches Clarissa; what follows is for your eyes only. I was correcting essays at the outer desk by the Head’s study when Mr. Charrington arrived with Miss Gladys Williams. I will not pretend I did not linger. One can hear perfectly well from that chair if one is so inclined. (more…)

discipline

The MP Visits Part X — A Closing Essay OR Loose Ends, Properly Filed

Posted on By Mija

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Introduction

The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a constellation of documents—some official, drawn from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others more intimate, taken from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others retain the texture of handwriting, rendered in a cursive-style font.

Readers are invited to step into the role of archivist, assembling the story from these traces, and imagining the lives that fill the gaps between pages: tensions,  alliances,  secrets far too dangerous to write down. Not everything will be explained. But Inez is watching. And she remembers.

Note: Comments are read and much appreciated. Much as I like reading them on Twitter and Bluesky, I love getting them here, and promise to respond. Moreover your ideas and reactions also join the archives, where they may quietly shape what comes next.

The MP Visits Saint Clare – Previously posted

The Archivist Gets the Last Word: 

When the last ink dried on Mr Fowler’s log: petrol topped, ham sandwiches eaten, punctual return to St Albans at four o’clock, the day and its record appeared, on their surface, neatly concluded. A tidy ledger of routes, meals, and mild discontent is precisely the sort of document one expects from a conscientious chauffeur in the summer of 1955. And yet any record, by its nature, resists such tidiness.

(more…)

fiction

MP Visits Saint Clare – Part IX – Statement of J. Fowler, Chauffeur

Posted on By Mija

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Banner of "How to Read Inez of the Upper iV"The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a constellation of documents—some official, drawn from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others more intimate, taken from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others retain the texture of handwriting, rendered in a cursive-style font.

Readers are invited to step into the role of archivist, assembling the story from these traces, and imagining the lives that fill the gaps between pages—the tensions, the alliances, the secrets too dangerous to write down. Not everything will be explained. But Inez is watching. And she remembers.

Note: Comments are read and much appreciated. Much as I like reading them on Twitter and Bluesky, I love getting them here, and promise to respond. Moreover your ideas and reactions also join the archives, where they may quietly shape what comes next.

Archivist’s Foreword

The following document is a statement by J. Fowler, chauffeur to Mr Gerald Charrington, MP, covering the journeys of 12–13 July 1955.

Unlike the diaries and letters elsewhere in this sequence, Fowler’s account is procedural rather than reflective. It records times, routes, meals, weather, and behaviour with the precision of a man accustomed to being accountable for vehicles, schedules, and other people’s movements. Emotional interpretation is minimal; judgment, where it appears, is plainly marked as such.

It should be noted that although styled as a log, this document was not drawn from an official motor book. It survives as a copied statement, taken down after the fact and retained alongside other materials relating to the Saint Clare incident.

That it exists at all is, perhaps, the more interesting fact.

The MP Visits Saint Clare – Previously posted

Statement of J. Fowler, Chauffeur

12 July 1955 – Outward Journey
Departed St Albans residence at 9:00 AM driving Mr Charrington, with Miss Williams also in the car. Sky overcast, Traffic heavy, but cleared past High Wycombe. Arrived Oxford at approximately 11:30 AM. Topped up petrol. Stopped at Lyons Corner House for tea. Miss Williams appeared late, having missed breakfast; expressed dislike of the buns.
Resumed journey at 12:00 noon.
Conditions improved past Oxford, skies clearing, weather warm. Miss Williams requested windows down; request refused on account of disturbance to Mr Charrington’s papers. She sighed and appeared out of sorts, but did not argue.
Proceeded via Gloucester and Hereford. Checked radiator water near Hereford at approximately 1:30 PM. Opened housekeeper’s hamper for luncheon. Miss Williams dissatisfied with contents, suggesting we stop at a tearoom. Mr Charrington and myself found the sandwiches and biscuits satisfactory. We still had a long drive ahead.
Progress steady thereafter. Arrived Shrewsbury at approximately 3:30 PM. Weather warm, skies bright. Entered North Wales by the trunk road; roads narrow but passable. Arrived Saint Clare School at approximately 4:45 PM.

12 July 1955 – At Saint Clare
Mr Charrington and Miss Williams proceeded inside. I remained with the motor and drove into the village. Took refreshment at the Crown public house (pint and pie). Proprietor’s boy fetched me when called for; returned to the school with the motor at approximately 5:30 PM.
Departed Saint Clare at approximately 5:45 PM with Mr Charrington and Miss Williams. Weather fine, sun still high, clear visibility. Proceeded back via Shrewsbury. Miss Williams silent for most of the journey. Mr Charrington read papers.
Stopped at petrol station near Oswestry at approximately 7:00 PM. Checked oil and tyres. Continued without incident. Arrived Charrington residence (Bryn Derwen) at approximately 8:15 PM. Motor garaged in the carriage house.
Supper taken at table. Hot meal provided by housekeeper. Mr Charrington ate well and expressed approval. I was given a place and did the same. Miss Williams declined supper and took only tea, stating she felt unwell from the travel. (more…)

fiction

MP Visits Saint Clare – Part VIII – Mustn’t Grumble Gladys

Posted on By Mija

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The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a constellation of documents—some official, drawn from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others more intimate, taken from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others retain the texture of handwriting, rendered in a cursive-style font.

Readers are invited to step into the role of archivist, assembling the story from these traces, and imagining the lives that fill the gaps between pages—the tensions, the alliances, the secrets too dangerous to write down. Not everything will be explained. But Inez is watching. And she remembers.

Note: Comments are read and much appreciated. Much as I like reading them on Twitter and Bluesky, I love getting them here, and promise to respond. Moreover your ideas and reactions also join the archives, where they may quietly shape what comes next.

 

Archivist’s Foreword

The following entry was written on the evening of 12 July 1955, after the party from Saint Clare had arrived at Bryn Derwen.

Unlike the previous document, which was composed under some pressure and at speed, this account was written in a place that ought to have been familiar and consoling, but was neither. It does not revisit the events of the Headmaster’s study (those are recorded elsewhere, and at some length), but concerns itself instead with what lingers once the official business is concluded, everyone has been properly seen to, and there is nothing left but supper, accommodation, and, possibly, tears at bedtime.

Former pupils may find the tone uncomfortably recognisable.

The MP Visits Saint Clare – Previously posted

Gladys’s Diary

12 July 1955

Evening (at Bryn Derwen)

The scene in the Head’s study was the worst of it. The rest of the day wasn’t as loud or dramatic, but it sat on me just as heavily. I cannot remember feeling so weary, so empty.

I never did drink the Head’s tea. Even the sandwiches looked poisonous, the bread curling at the edges, the ham shining faintly in the heat. I watched Gerald eat, cool as a cucumber. When the Head returned, he thanked him as if nothing more awkward than a recent school report had been discussed.

(more…)

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