Bluestockings by Jane Robinson

Author:Jane Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141961095
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2009-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

7. Women’s Sphere

You know, Eileen, in spite of going to Manchester,

you’re really quite normal.1

Perhaps the most obvious sign of continuity between their old and new lives for every undergraduette – unless they lived at home – was the ringing of bells. At each college or hall of residence, bells measured out the routine with reassuring authority. At Langwith Hall, Manchester, they rang nine times daily during the 1930s: for waking at 7.15 a.m., prayers at 8.00, breakfast ten minutes later, the first lunch sitting at 1.00 p.m., the second at 1.45, tea at 4.00, dinner at 7.30, prayers at 8.10, and a ‘morality bell’ at lights-out. At Leeds there was also a dressing gong before dinner, and bulbs were twinkled on and off a few times at 10.30 p.m. to prepare for ‘quiet time’ at 11.00. Any noise after that meant trouble. Senior students were recruited to police the corridors, and report misdemeanours to the authorities. It was an invidious job no one enjoyed.

Domestic orderliness was encouraged not only to ensure the smooth running of a college community, but to lend an air of familiarity to a strange environment. There was a certain cosiness about everyone eating together three times a day, praying together in the chapel, helping each other with dressing, shopping, hair-washing, mending. Coping with the mundane helped settle this rarefied, academic life into a homely context. Be it Durham or Exeter, 1880 or 1930, a woman student’s timetable remained remarkably uniform. On weekdays it would be much as those Manchester bells dictated, with chapel and then work in the morning, exercise and/or more work in the afternoon, meetings of various sorts in the early evenings, and private study after cocoa at 9.00 p.m. (or a cocoa party, of course). There was more socializing and less work on Saturdays; long walks or cycle rides and two bouts of chapel instead of one on Sundays.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.