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The MP Visits Saint Clare, Part VI – Inez’s Diary, 13 July 1955

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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..

Foreword

The following diary entry was written by Inez de Vries during the night of 12–13 July 1955, after visiting Clarissa Charrington in the infirmary. It was not intended for circulation and does not appear to have been shown to anyone, the author having taken the precaution—elsewhere noted—of invoking a suitably comprehensive curse against unauthorised readers.

It is reproduced here without alteration as part of the Saint Clare materials relating to the events of that week. The entry does not describe the incident itself, which is documented at length elsewhere, but records Inez de Vries’s role in the aftermath.

The MP Visits Saint Clare – Previously posted

13 July 1955 – after midnight

I went to the infirmary after lights-out, waiting until Matron’s rounds had slowed and the house settled again. It didn’t seem right to go while things were still actively happening.

Clarissa was awake. She looked different, the way people do when they’ve stopped performing. Smaller, younger — or simply unfinished. She tried to sit up and then thought better of it. Good move.

She wanted me to stay (even asked me)  and I didn’t know what to say. Stay?

But I sat down and we talked a little. Well, I talked a little. Clarissa talked a lot. It more or less balanced out. She’s still very young, new to school, new to boarding. She hasn’t yet learned that what girls say rarely matters, and that everything passes — and quickly.

Two months is nothing. I’ve been here for years now. (more…)

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

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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…)

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