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Category: discipline

discipline External shot of St. Clare School in the afternoon sun. In the foreground is a girl in a white shirt laying on a cot.

The MP Visits Saint Clare Part V – Clarissa in the Infirmary 1

Posted on By Mija

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“The MP Visits Saint Clare” continues

Earlier instalments:

Further particulars may be found in the Foreword below.

This sequence draws from the Charrington Papers and the less officious corners of Saint Clare’s—those neat staff reports never meant to withstand scrutiny; the household logs written with a pointed, domestic hauteur; and the diaries, margins, and illicit notes in which the girls record rather more than their elders imagine. Some documents are respectably typed. Others arrive in the swift, unsteady cursive of someone writing under pressure, or in a place she very much oughtn’t be.

Readers are invited to take up the archivist’s task, and the investigator’s pleasure, of weighing the School’s polished accounts against the smudged, contradictory recollections of those who actually lived the day. Much will be implied. Little will be stated outright. And attentive readers may notice that Miss Gladys Williams’s file, though she left Saint Clare more than five years ago, has begun to grow again—curiously, and on no official authority whatsoever.

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.

Saint Clare November: 42,924 / 50,000 words

Foreword

From the Archivist

Having concluded Miss Kelley’s contribution to the Charrington Papers—written, as ever, from a strategically advantageous desk—we proceed to the next document set, in which Saint Clare’s own medical wing weighs in.

Clarissa Charrington’s transfer to the infirmary on the evening of 12 July was recorded with the calm efficiency peculiar to boarding school matrons, who tend to regard tears as symptoms, disobedience as diagnosis, and cod-liver oil as cure. Matron Whitlock’s notes provide the official version: measured, sensible, and serenely unconcerned with the child’s sense of dignity.

Clarissa’s corresponding diary entry presents something rather different: a young heroine stunned by shock, shame, and a games skirt that suddenly felt two inches too short for public consumption.

Between the two, the reader may triangulate something like truth.

CLARISSA CHARRINGTON – DIARY

Entry 1 – In the Headmaster’s StudyMiss Kelley comforts crying girl.

12 July 1955 – Afternoon

It happened. It truly happened. I keep writing the words to make them real, but my hands won’t stop shaking. Papa asked Mr Lewis for the room, and then for me, and he was perfectly calm – horribly calm, the kind of calm that means there is no escape. I thought I knew what it would feel like, being in trouble with Papa, but it is worse when he doesn’t even raise his voice. Worse than shouting. Worse than anything.

I was marched in still in my games kit, looking a fright. I had grass on my socks and my blouse wasn’t properly tucked in, and all I could think was that if I’d known he was coming, I would at least have changed. But I didn’t know. No one warned me. Georgie Fairfax only said the Head wanted me at once. (more…)

discipline

Honour’s Game, Part 3 – December 1938 – January 1939

Posted on By Mija

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The story of Inez de Vries’s experiences in the summer of 1955 unfolds through a series of documents – some official, pulled from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others are more intimate, drawn from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others will 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 watches. And remembers.

This story takes readers back to 1938 and tells the story of Inez’s parents, especially Lady Gwendolyn “Honour” de Vries, a St. Clare Old Girl who notices far more than most people realize.

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 responses and ideas are included in the archives and may shift and change the story’s evolution. Also, the observant reader may notice Honour has a new font. I hope it’s more readable. 

Having trouble with the handwriting? Try the plain text version. 

Greystone Abbey, January 1939

If you’ve followed Honour this far – through her first lesson, her first report, and her first taste of consequence – you’ll know how easily a game of observation can become something else.
The new year finds her far from Belgravia, shut in by rain and flooded fields, testing both her wit and her husband’s patience. The guests have gone; Darlington’s lessons continue.

This story follows:

Honour’s Lesson

Honour’s Game – Prologue

Honour’s Game – Part 1

Honour’s Game – Part 2

You might want to read them first. 

Part Three

From the Archivist

From the Lady de Vries Collection, Blue Room Archives, Saint Clare’s School for Girls

The papers presented here form part of what is now known as the Lady de Vries Collection. Though the correspondence was originally preserved among the private files of her husband, Edmund Alexander de Vries, 9th Earl of Darlington, its preservation and eventual deposit at Saint Clare’s are due to Lady Gwendolyn Randolph de Vries herself.

The exchange of initials — D. and H. — occurs throughout. Their precise origins are unclear; however, internal evidence suggests that these letters were both a private correspondence between husband and wife and, increasingly, a record of informal “exercises” undertaken by Lady de Vries during the late 1930s.

The editors have retained the original orthography and punctuation. A few later pencil notes in Lord Darlington’s hand are reproduced in grey type. Where the line between affection and assignment blurs, readers are invited to remember that the world beyond these pages was also shifting — toward war, secrecy, and a very different kind of education.

Recovered documents: December 1938 – January 1939

The following entries belong to that first winter at Greystone Abbey, when the young Countess was learning that discipline can be an intimacy of its own. The surviving pages are marked in her hand and his — neat pencil corrections threading through her typed reports. Both of them writing in their fountain penned script. What began in London drawing rooms now turns domestic, quieter and more perilous.

In these documents, the young Lady Honour de Vries continues working to master her husband’s “exercises”—tasks meant to discipline her curiosity and temper her impulsiveness. Yet what began as a private game of observation now reaches beyond the drawing room. A tea in Chester Square leads to the American Embassy at Grosvenor Square, and the world of polite conversation begins to tremble with rumours of the coming war.

Through reports, annotations, and private diaries, we see the gradual shaping of a partnership: his precision against her wit, his restraint against her appetite for understanding. Honour still writes to please him—but she is also beginning to see, to listen, and to turn the rules of his game to her own advantage.

The tone remains domestic, almost playful. Yet under its surface, something colder and more intricate begins to form.

Note: Comments are read and much appreciated. Much as I enjoy seeing them on Twitter and Bluesky, I especially love receiving them here and promise to respond. Your observations and ideas are entered into the Saint Clare archives and may subtly shift the story’s evolution.

(more…)

discipline

Honour’s Game – Part 2 – November – December 1938

Posted on By Mija

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The story of Inez de Vries’s experiences in the summer of 1955 unfolds through a series of documents—some official, pulled from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others are more intimate, drawn from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others will 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.

This story goes back to 1938 and tells the story of Inez’s parents, especially Lady Gwendolyn “Honour” deVries, a St. Clare Old Girl who notices far more than most people realize.

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 responses and ideas are included in the archives and may shift and change the story’s evolution.

Having trouble with the handwriting? Try the plain text version.

This story follows:

Honour’s Lesson

Honour’s Game – Prologue

Honour’s Game – Part 1

You might want to read them first. 

From The Archivist: 

From the Lady de Vries Collection, Blue Room Archives, Saint Clare’s School for Girls

The papers presented here form part of what is now known as the Lady de Vries Collection. Though the correspondence was originally preserved among the private files of her husband, Edmund Alexander de Vries, 9th Earl of Darlington, its preservation and eventual deposit at Saint Clare’s are due to Lady Gwendolyn Randolph de Vries herself.

The exchange of initials — D. and H. — occurs throughout. Their precise origins are unclear; however, internal evidence suggests that these letters were both a private correspondence between husband and wife and, increasingly, a record of informal “exercises” undertaken by Lady de Vries during the late 1930s.

The editors have retained the original orthography and punctuation. A few later pencil notes in Lord Darlington’s hand are reproduced in grey type. Where the line between affection and assignment blurs, readers are invited to remember that the world beyond these pages was also shifting — toward war, secrecy, and a very different kind of education.

Introduction

The archive continues.

In these documents, the young Lady Honour de Vries begins to master her husband’s “exercises”—tasks meant to discipline her curiosity and temper her impulsiveness. Yet what began as a private game of observation now reaches beyond the drawing room. A tea in Chester Square leads to the American Embassy at Grosvenor Square, and the world of polite conversation begins to tremble with rumours of the coming war.

Through reports, annotations, and private diaries, we see the gradual shaping of a partnership: his precision against her wit, his restraint against her appetite for understanding. Honour still writes to please him—but she is also beginning to see, to listen, and to turn the rules of his game to her own advantage.

The tone remains domestic, almost playful. Yet under its surface, something colder and more intricate begins to form.

Note: Comments are read and much appreciated. Much as I enjoy seeing them on Twitter and Bluesky, I especially love receiving them here and promise to respond. Your observations and ideas are entered into the Saint Clare archives and may subtly shift the story’s evolution.

Having trouble with the handwriting? Try the plain-text version below.

Part Two

From: The Blue Room Collection, Saint Clare’s School for Girls
Recovered documents: November–December 1938

 

Exercise — 20 November 1938

You are to attend Mrs. Allerton’s tea tomorrow afternoon. Treat it as a continuation of your previous exercise.

Instructions:

    • Keep your gloves on at all times.
    • Decline the cakes; they are dreadful, and you think better on an empty stomach.
    • Smile when spoken to, but answer only when asked. Listen for what is not said. Women talk freely when they believe you bored.
    • Write it afterwards, while the voices are still fresh.
    • Keep the tone measured, not arch.
    • Distinguish what you know from what you think you know.

Deliver your report to Darlington on the same evening. Late papers will be penalised.

You do not want to be a naughty girl, my Honour.

(more…)

discipline

Honour’s Game – Prologue – Autumn 1938

Posted on By Mija

2 comment(s) so far. Please add yours!

The story of Inez de Vries’s experiences in the summer of 1955 unfolds through a series of documents—some official, pulled from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others are more intimate, drawn from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others will 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.

This story goes back to 1938 and tells the story of Inez’s parents, especially Lady Gwendolyn “Honour” DeVries, a St. Clare Old Girl who notices far more than most people realize.

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 responses and ideas are included in the archives and may shift and change the story’s evolution.

Having trouble with the handwriting? Try the plain text version.

Introduction

This tale follows Honour’s Lesson, where Lady Gwendolyn Randolph de Vries — Honour — first tested the patience of her new husband, Edmund Alexander de Vries, 9th Earl of Darlington. Like that earlier story, it begins in a more traditional narrative mode, borrowing the cadence of Regency romance. Yet here a new element enters: the reports of a bride still half a schoolgirl, too quick with her laughter, too eager for her husband’s notice, and learning how his sternness might be turned into intimacy. What she believes to be a private game of observation will, in time, shape far more than she imagines.

Though not set at Saint Clare’s, its themes are familiar: discipline, secrecy, defiance — threads that will later be woven through the school itself.

From The Archivist: 

From the Lady de Vries Collection, Blue Room Archives, Saint Clare’s School for Girls)

The papers presented here form part of what is now known as the Lady de Vries Collection. Though the correspondence was originally preserved among the private files of her husband, Edmund Alexander de Vries, 9th Earl of Darlington, its preservation and eventual deposit at Saint Clare’s are due to Lady Gwendolyn Randolph de Vries herself.

The exchange of initials — D. and H. — occurs throughout. Their precise origins are unclear; however, internal evidence suggests that these letters were both a private correspondence between husband and wife and, increasingly, a record of informal “exercises” undertaken by Lady de Vries during the late 1930s.

The editors have retained the original orthography and punctuation. A few later pencil notes in Lord Darlington’s hand are reproduced in grey type. Where the line between affection and assignment blurs, readers are invited to remember that the world beyond these pages was also shifting — toward war, secrecy, and a very different kind of education.

Prologue

(This part of the text comes from the end of Honour’s Lesson)

With that she turned away, trembling, pullimg the sheets tight around her, her back to him. He watched as her tears slid hot onto her pillow. Ned stroked her back until, finally, he was sure she slept.

Then he rose and slowly went back downstairs.

He sat at his desk until dawn, the muffled sound of her weeping still in his ears. She could not be silenced, he knew; nor could she be made meek. She could not be made blindly obey, yet he could not explain any further. Would he be required to keep her buried on the estate? Thrash her until his displeasure made her tremble? He didn’t want her to be afraid of him. Not like that. That was not the life or marriage he wanted.

He closed his eyes as if in prayer. Perhaps he did pray.

She would not blindly obey him. He couldn’t expect that. However, she was smart, eager to please. She might be steered. Better a task set by him than mischief sought elsewhere.

Ned began to write.

oOo

 

He sat at his desk while sh slept. He could not silence her — Honour was not a woman who could be silenced, or remain chastened for long without planning rebellion. She was too beautiful not to be noticed, even had she been inclined to play the wallflower — and her debut season had already proved she was anything but.

But perhaps he could occupy her, channel her wit, make her mischief serve rather than endanger. He thought of the gathering that evening — the way her mimicry had held a circle of men, the way their laughter and eagerness to refill her glass had seemed innocent to her but perilous to him. She played at daring, not knowing the stakes.

He dipped his pen. If she must play games, then let him set the rules.Ned wrote at the top of a clean sheet: Exercise. She would to attend her next gathering with her eyes open, not for admiration but for information. She would listen,  note, and report. His words constructed a leash, disguising it as a lark.

He wrote at top of the page:

(more…)

discipline

Honour’s Lesson, Autumn 1938

Posted on By Mija

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The brief tale that follows is not of Saint Clares’ in the 1950s, nor yet of the Upper IV. It comes from an earlier generation, set long before Inez first entered the school gates. In the unsettled autumn of 1938, Ned and Honour de Vries were newly wed. Told not through documents, but in the style of Regency romance, this story offers not a school record but a portrait of love, discipline, and loyalty in a world tilting toward war. Attentive readers may recognise here the same threads: secrecy, obedience, defiance, so important to Inez’s own story.

It was a London drawing room, heavy with smoke and restless laughter, late in the autumn of 1938. The newspapers still proclaimed peace, yet every sensible man felt the ground quiver beneath the headlines. Ned stood aloof, a whisky glass untouched in his hand, his eyes fixed on Honour, his young bride—radiant as a flame in pale silk, perilously bright.

The pale gown softened her beauty but betrayed her youth, making her seem more the debutante she had been months before than the worldly wife she fancied herself. Her laugh – pitched a shade too high, lingering a breath too long – drew the eager attention of every young man in the room. They mistook her inexperience for daring, her girlishness for sophistication.

When she mimicked the Prime Minister, tilting an imaginary umbrella and wobbling her voice in his plummy tones, the circle of young men roared with delight. She flushed with triumph, careless of the older women’s sharp glances and of the attaché in the corner whose eyes saw her not as a beauty but as a lever to be pulled.

Ned’s jaw tightened. To the others, she was a charming bride showing off her sparkle. To him, she was a bright flame catching against dry kindling. He saw the peril of innocence mistaken for invitation, the danger of brilliance wielded without care. He sensed gossip already clinging to her like sickly perfume, a risk that could be stored, repeated, used. He admired her wit – how could he not? – yet threaded through the gaiety he heard something else: the false brightness of a society pretending it was not on the verge of war.

Once they left the party, he let his mask slip, stopped hiding his displeasure. They rode home in near silence, the hum of the motor car the only sound between them. Honour was still flushed with triumph, replaying her witticisms, humming, smiling as though she had carried the evening herself. To her, it had been another drawing room lark, a stage on which she sparkled. To Ned, it was a reminder that he was already driving headlong into a war declared in whispers, a phantom that would end only when the real one began.

At last she noticed his tension. “You’re cross with me,” she said, light as champagne bubbles. “Were you jealous, my husband? I did not think you insecure. It was but a bit of fun to pass the time.”

“You enjoy being noticed,” Ned replied flatly.

She smiled, careless. “Is that a crime, my Darlington?”

He did not turn his head. His gloved hands rested steady on his knees, his gaze fixed ahead.

“You enjoyed yourself,” he said finally, his voice level. “Too much.”

(more…)

discipline

Gladys in Trouble – 7 to 9 July 1955

Posted on By Mija

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The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a series of documents—some official, pulled from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others are more intimate, drawn from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others will 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 responses and ideas are included in the archives and may shift and change the story’s evolution.

Foreword

From the archivist:

The Charrington Papers, of which the present collection forms a small but telling part [see also Heard in the Charrington Household, Melodrama by Post, and The Secret Letters] offer a glimpse into the anxieties of an English household in the mid–twentieth century. The documents gathered here—letters, annotated responses, and private jottings—capture in miniature a struggle over authority and propriety between Gerald H. Charrington, Member of Parliament and self-appointed patriarch, and his sister-in-law, Miss Gladys Williams, a young woman who had the misfortune to combine a lively disposition with a poor instinct for discretion.

Gerald’s concern, as his marginal notes repeatedly remind us, was not primarily with his own standing in the Commons (never more than modest) but with the long-term durability of the Charrington name. For him, a single ill-judged phrase, if repeated outside the family, could metastasise into a reputation for “wildness”—a quality, in his view, both unbecoming in a woman of five-and-twenty and indelible once attached. That his sister-in-law’s lapses might be mentioned in the Hertfordshire Gazette or (worse) among the parents at Saint Clare School was to Gerald a matter of great peril.

Gladys, for her part, complies outwardly—she had little choice—but her replies, clipped and formally correct, show a mastery of what might be called “obedience with barbs.” She acknowledges each of Gerald’s terms in turn, yet her diction—quotation marks, ironic phrasing, and finally the notorious sign-off, “Your ever-dutiful sister-in-law”—betrays a simmering contempt. Gerald, pen in hand, read her words as if they were a draft to be marked, underlining insolent turns of phrase and scribbling anxious comments about “damage” and “reputation” in the margins. His annotations, reproduced here, are at once the most revealing and the most inadvertently comic element of the collection.

The reader may choose to treat this exchange as a serious episode in the policing of female conduct in postwar Britain. Equally, one may detect in it the rhythms of a domestic farce: the ponderous elder brother pronouncing “terms” as if from the bench, the young woman skewering him with her pen even as she submits, and the lurking fear that the Gazette might carry word of it all. Either reading is legitimate; indeed, part of the value of the documents lies in their capacity to sustain both.

Letter from Gerald Charrington to Miss Gladys Williams

 

7 July 1955

My beloved sister Gladys,

Following our interview in the study this morning, I set down the following terms, which will remain in force until further notice:

      1. Your allowance is suspended. You will be provided with necessities at my discretion, but no sums for amusements, travel, or frivolities.
      2. You are not to remain in this house without either myself or Mrs. Fielding in residence. Neither are you to absent yourself on visits without my express approval.
      3. You will attend a course of domestic science at the St. Albans Institute. Mrs. Fielding will make the arrangements. Attendance is not optional.
      4. You will accompany me to Saint Clare School later this month, to answer directly for your actions in the matter of your niece and her friend.
      5. Fielding will remain in residence and will report daily by post. In addition, I will require  a weekly written account of your progress from your teachers at the domestic science institute..

As to your question of when these restrictions will be lifted: that will be when I am confident in your maturity and judgment.

Gladys, I care for you as I have always done. It is because of that affection that I cannot allow you to go on as you have. Think of this less as a punishment than as a remedy, one that may yet set you on the sounder course you require.

I trust you understand me clearly. Please respond to this letter and indicate your understanding and agreement with each of the tenms. 

Gerald H. Charrington

(more…)

discipline

Heard in the Charrington Household, OR,The Day Miss Gladys Came Home

Posted on By Mija

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The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a series of documents—some official, pulled from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others are more intimate, drawn from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others will 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 responses and ideas are included in the archives and may shift and change the story’s evolution.

Introduction:

Miss Gladys Williams was enjoying herself in Scotland — scarves, suitors, and no shortage of attention — when a telegram from her brother-in-law yanked her home like a fish on a line. By the time she stepped off the train at King’s Cross, protesting she’d been “dragged back in chains,” the machinery of the household was already rattling back into place. The chauffeur collected her, the housekeeper was torn from her seaside holiday, and even a maid had to be fetched from the village. All this fuss over a single letter — one that should have stayed safely in the school office, but instead slipped out with Aunt Gladys’s obliging help.

What happened once the front door shut was not meant for public ears. But houses have ears of their own. The chauffeur, the housekeeper, and the temporary maid each caught a part of the day’s drama, and their accounts, set side by side, give us the picture.

Here, then, is Heard in the Charrington Household, OR, The Day Miss Gladys Came Home.

Having trouble reading? Try the plain text version. 

Private Notes of J. Fowler, Chauffeur

 7 July 1955, King’s Cross Station

9:55 AM

Mr. Charrington and I arrived on the platform. Dark suit, bowler, gloves, umbrella. Car polished and ready, myself in uniform. His mood was grim.

I positioned trolley where the first-class carriage was expected. Train in on time.

Miss Gladys Williams stepped down, breaking off with two young men who pressed their cards on her as though it was their right. Two porters trailed after with the luggage. She carried a small valise and a bright little handbag, face done up, headscarf tied like a cinema actress — not the thing for King’s Cross morning, but she’s always been a pretty girl and knows it. Too much indulged, if you ask me.

Exchange heard:

Miss Williams (too loud): Well, here I am, dragged back in chains!

Mr. Charrington (curt): Good morning, Gladys.

I said nothing but took the valise and set it on the trolley atop her other luggage. She clung to her little handbag as though I had offered to take it too. Her smile faltered then, as if she finally realized this was no game.

We walked off in silence. She tried chatter:

Miss Williams: It was only a bit of fun, Gerald — all blown up into a five-reel melodrama.

Mr. Charrington: We will not discuss it here.

While I saw to the cases, stowed them in the boot. Mr. Charrington opened the rear door himself, put her in, and then got in the other side.

(more…)

amigas A watercolor sketch of a huge stack of luggage and a small black dog,

Mija and Her Brave Furry Companion in the British Isles OR Five Suitcases, One Dog, and the Case for Simplicity

Posted on By Mija

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Preview — To be read in BBC Radio 4 style

A summer adventure across the British Isles with Mija and her faithful furry Sutti girl: castles and cottages, uniforms and ferries, triumphs, tribulations, and luggage of mythic proportions. Part travelogue, part comeSutti-to-Kings-Crossdy of errors, and wholly a tale of old friends, new discoveries, and the surprising case for simplicity.

Chapter 1 — Long Beach: Paperwork, Panic, and Packing

(in which bureaucracy meets AuDHD and luggage multiplies like Gremlins)

The days before July 4th were chaos. The house had to be left in order: weeds pulled, rocks shifted, spiders relocated from their Olympic training ground. Errands multiplied — medications, safe deposit box, vaccinations (for Sutti, not me). I was just about keeping up when United rang with the kind of breezy cheer reserved for delivering ruin: “You’re missing a Heathrow Certificate for your service dog. No papers, no entry. Cargo is an option?”

“No, cargo is not an option.”

My voice probably cracked. I’d been so careful about everything to do with Sutti, working on it months in advance, working off a series of lists, paid a veteranery service to make sure her certifications were correct.1Turns out those were for her health. Heathrow needed to document *mine.* This had not been mentioned prior. Sigh.] 

Numbly I stood and listened to the nice woman from United outline what documents needed to be obtained and emailed and what would be required to get them. That they usually took a month or so to process, but I could try and get them done faster if I followed her instructions. These included calling Heathrow. “I can’t” I whispered.

She didn’t hear me.

“Email them to me when you have them. Then call so I know they’re there.” 

I sat staring at the clock. It was late on July 3rd — the Friday before the biggest holiday weekend in the U.S.2Businesses that had opened all had mostly closed by 12PM. — and suddenly I understood the particular horror of being told doing something isn’t impossible, but almost is. Traveling with my dog in the cabin into the UK in 18 hours wasn’t closed off entirely — it could be done, there is a process, but only with Herculean effort, panic, and possibly a pact with Satan. That was, in too many way, worse than an outright “no.” 

Because I was already exhausted and anxious to the point of burnout. I spent most of the previous year feeling stressed and stretched beyond breaking. By the time the semester ended being told I had to resubmit a single form caused tears and a sense of overwhelming despair.

 

I am not cargo.

Soo, not at my best. But this is Sutti. I couldn’t go without her — she needed to be on the plane. And not as cargo.

So began twelve frantic hours of bureaucratic hopscotch: PDFs, rabies certificates, microchip scans, vet letters, panic disorder paperwork, and, I swear, fragments of the Magna Carta. And so many phone calls.3Real calls. Like where I dialed and talked to people. People I didn’t know and weren’t expecting my call. Who were really helpful. At one point I tracked down Sutti’s trainer on his 25th anniversary trip to Paris.4Okay, but I didn’t know that’s where he was. Or why. By dawn, miracle of miracles, Heathrow approved her. When the LHR certificate finally landed in my inbox, ready to forward triumphantly to United, the sense of accomplishment I felt was on par with getting my doctorate. My vet’s office later told me no one they knew had ever flown a dog into the UK in the cabin of a commercial airliner. I credit academic-deadline stamina, indignation, and loyalty to a small dog who is not cargo.5I was also extremely fortunate that my employer had had me document Sutti’s training, skill, and my need for it so I already had letters from my doctors testifying to my CPTSD, severe anxiety, and panic disorder. So I guess I should thank my university’s HR office. Someday. The Heathrow Animal Reception Centre, brisk, friendly, helpful, and sensible (July 4th being just another day to them), were also exacting. (I had to call after each batch to find out what they needed next. Finally they determined that my paperwork was valid, Sutti s a service dog, but since her school isn’t on the official ADI list, I could either prove her training in 47 different ways, none possible from outside the UK, or pay £447 so she could enter with me.

I gave them my credit card number. It was 5AM and I still needed to pack. Yeah, my packing never stood a chance. Executive function is, for me, a single-use tool, and mine was entirely eaten by the paperwork marathon while it was going on. Once that fire was out, nothing was left for choosing clothes. So I defaulted to the only possible strategy: bring everything.6It was pointed out to me, that there was another choice. Bring nothing and buy the things I needed. Sensible in retrospect and would have proved far cheaper in the end, but I’m not lying when I say it never crossed my mind. Surprised? In the end I had two giant 60-pound7To be fair to myself one contained a 20 pound bag of Sutti’s Very Special Food (sold in the UK it turns out) and all her toys and stuff. suitcases, a carry-on roller, and a backpack. The Luggage Hydra Gremlin was born. And had been fed after dark.

More after the jump

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  • 1
    Turns out those were for her health. Heathrow needed to document *mine.* This had not been mentioned prior. Sigh.]
  • 2
    Businesses that had opened all had mostly closed by 12PM.
  • 3
    Real calls. Like where I dialed and talked to people. People I didn’t know and weren’t expecting my call. Who were really helpful.
  • 4
    Okay, but I didn’t know that’s where he was. Or why.
  • 5
    I was also extremely fortunate that my employer had had me document Sutti’s training, skill, and my need for it so I already had letters from my doctors testifying to my CPTSD, severe anxiety, and panic disorder. So I guess I should thank my university’s HR office. Someday.
  • 6
    It was pointed out to me, that there was another choice. Bring nothing and buy the things I needed. Sensible in retrospect and would have proved far cheaper in the end, but I’m not lying when I say it never crossed my mind. Surprised?
  • 7
    To be fair to myself one contained a 20 pound bag of Sutti’s Very Special Food (sold in the UK it turns out) and all her toys and stuff.
discipline sketch of a folder and pen on top of a skirt and blazer

The Elwood Files – Inez of the Upper IV

Posted on By Mija

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How to Read “Inez of the Upper IV”

Banner of "How to Read Inez of the Upper iV"The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a series of documents—some official, pulled from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others are more intimate, drawn from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others will 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 responses and ideas are included in the archives and may shift and change the story’s evolution.

Forward to the Elwood Files

It is one of the consolations of life in a girls’ boarding school that, although hairbrushes vanish before prayers only to reappear at bedtime, knee socks sag at inspections, and knicker elastic betrays its wearers at the worst possible moments, one may always rely upon the ingenuity of the pupils. The present dossier — christened in pencil The Elwood File — began with a folded scrap of green ink and a doodled key, and swelled, in due course, to the proportions of a minor parliamentary scandal. Or so it felt to Ronnie Elwood at any rate.

decorativeThe dramatis personae require only the briefest introduction. Veronica (Ronnie) Elwood (Upper V) is amiable and obliging, with a handwriting that proclaims every secret long before she intends it. Inez de Vries (Upper IV) is armed with both daring and design, seldom without a plan calculated to vex her elders. Keeping them under ceaseless watch is Georgina Fairfax, Senior Prefect, whose close supervision might well recommend her to the quietly vigilant MI5. Among the staff, Matron persists with her infallible spoonfuls of of cod-liver oil, Miss Kelley keeps a close eye on her house with rather sharper judgement than some expect, and the Headmaster, from his lofty perch, maintains that martyrs are not to be manufactured at any cost.

The scheme itself — to smuggle a page of prose through the mighty bulwark of school protocol, hidden inside another girl’s letter home — did not succeed. Prefects pounced, staff rummaged, and the mail-bag emerged none the wiser. And yet — here is the rub — Lady de Vries, many miles away, somehow contrived to receive the very intelligence intended for her, and with remarkable promptness.

How Lady de Vries came by her intelligence is not disclosed in these pages. That she had it — and was corresponding about her daughter with the Headmaster before the week was out – is beyond dispute. The archivist can only remark that Saint Clare’s leadership is already discovering how very little control remains within its grasp.

Having trouble with the handwriting? Try the simple font version.

Notes Found

[Folded small; tiny key inked at the top.]

 


Strictly Between Us — Dispose Wisely
Do you have space in your letter home for a stowaway?
Thought you might add something for me next time you send yours — nothing shocking, just something better not left in the St. Clare’s pigeonholes. I’d owe you a favour (real currency, not just toffee).
Your mum wouldn’t mind a stowaway page, would she?
P.S. Your hair looks like it’s plotting mutiny today. In the best way.


Margin (G. Fairfax): 11/6 — confiscated, folded tw

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discipline

Notations from Matron’s Logbook: Inez of the Upper 4th

Posted on By Mija

0 comment(s) so far. Please add yours!

 

How to Read “Inez of the Upper IV”

The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a series of documents—some official, pulled from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others are more intimate, drawn from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. These pieces will be posted gradually, over the next two weeks, allowing the narrative to take shape not through a single telling, but through fragments. Some will appear typed and orderly; others will retain the texture of handwriting, rendered in a cursive-style font to honor the green-ink originals. 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.

Use the comments to build the story together: ask questions, float theories, invent what’s missing. What do you. think lies between the lines? The archive is incomplete—but the story lives in the spaces between.

Introduction to Notations from Matron’s Logbook

Based on yesterday’s and today’s staff memos, if you’re wondering how the adults at Saint Clare’s have been coping with the ripple effects of Inez de Vries’s behavior—well, Matron does not “cope” when it comes to school girls. Matron examines, documents, and judges.

For those unfamiliar with the role: the school Matron isn’t quite a nurse, not quite a governess, and certainly not one to cross. She oversees the infirmary, enforces standards of health, hygiene, and attitude. At Saint Clare’s she doles out cod-liver oil, brisk dismissals, and the occasional perfectly legal bottom-smacking. Given with her broad hand and firm affection, of course.

This log entry, made the Sunday after Inez’s transgressions and disciplinary theatrics, gives us a glimpse into the clinical eye (and moral clarity) of one Patricia Rowntree, Matron of Saint Clare’s since before the Armistice. She has no time for teenaged drama or malingering.

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