Letter from Miss Smith – August 6th, 1947

Miss Smith was one of the teachers mentioned in the original post on the trip, written in the school magazine by Erica Taylor.

Miss Smith was still teaching at Minchenden, when I was there and I think she retired as Head Mistress, when I left in 1965. On the last day of school, I seem to remember there may have been a confrontation between her and Dr. Booth, our form teacher and a respected Physics teacher, over our behaviour. My fellow classmates, who were all leaving, had broken a window in her office to get on the roof to put chairs all round the parapets of the building. She hadn’t found it funny.

She never taught me, but I always felt she was a stern and rather distant figure. This letter shows her in rather a different light.

Dear Mr and Mrs Campbell

I arrived here yesterday afternoon and went up to the Lac to see Ian this morning. I am sure there is no need to reassure you about him. He is perfectly happy and looks very well. He has adjusted himself extremely well to the immense change of food; temperature and surroundings and is going to be very sorry to leave.

It would probably have been much better if I had never gone, because they have been so reassured by my presence as to want to change their mind about sending Jean back with Ian. We are in a quandary here. Ian sees all sorts of difficulties, your work, your holiday, your spring cleaning, your exam! On the other hand next summer he thinks he may very well be called up and unable to repay the Girauds’ kindness.

Now, all this will come as a bombshell and you will be rather upset at this eleventh hour suggestion.

What we want you to do is to wire immediately yes or no – and please do not hesitate to say “no” if it is impossible. Ian thinks that I can put this last point more clearly than he. He really is the most considerate lad I know and he can foresee all sorts of extra burdens for you – that is burdens that you need not make for yourselves.

Life at the Lac is very simple – nothing bourgeois about it at all. They certainly have plenty of the good things of this life and to spare – but that is because they have it to hand.

If you decide in the affirmative – don’t put yourself to a lot of trouble or any at all for that matter. He is a nice lad and Ian will be able to entertain him most royally – and once school starts he will spend that day at school with Ian. It’s the simple life of an English family that counts – he does not need a surfeit of places of interest – in fact he will probably be quite as interested in the country as in the town, and as Ian suggests they might even go camping together. Now please don’t hesitate to say “no” and if you say “yes”, don’t let it make a lot of extra work ; quite unnecessary!

Now I must try to catch the post in the hope that you can have this by Saturday. There is still a question whether the lad’s passport can turn up in time and on rereading this I find that the point that I have not made clear is that the original suggestion did not come from Ian or me, and that they are so impressed by Ian’s niceness – and my character “dévoné” as they call it, that it seemed to them quite natural to change their minds. You see the farmer does not know what a summer holiday is. He works by the seasons. He is rather in the hands of Providence and not compelled like us poor mortals to plan in detail. The outlook is extraordinarily different.

They had gone a long way in the discussion and it was difficult for us to butt in and say categorically “no, you ought to have thought of that before”. We could only say – we’ll write to you, pointing out the difficulties.

Oh dear! I am feeling my responsibilities!

With all good wishes,

Yours very sincerely

Jean M. Smith