大象传媒

Another story from Sylvia gives an insight to the desperate shortage of skilled, professional workers, whilst all possible manpower was draughted into the armed Services. However, when it came to the time for Sylvia to be assessed for what she would be doing with her life, she was interviewed the the Employment Office, and was asked if she had any experience with young children. Bearing in mind she was herself only just 16 at this time, all she could say was yes that she had been in the Girl Guides, and been in command of a troop of brownies. Because of this, she was told she would not be 鈥榗alled up鈥� that is she was not going to have to go into one of the women鈥檚 services 鈥� but she would be given teacher training. At this particular stage of the war, teachers were in very short supply. Many were elderly who had given up retirement in order to take the place of the men and women who were overseas or elsewhere on National Service. A year later the emergency teacher training for people being demobbed was introduced, but at this time, there were simply not enough people to get organised. So this young woman 鈥� whose only experience was in the Guides and Brownies, was told to report to a village school, at Far Cotton, near Northampton for training on the very next day. The training consisted of sitting in on classes and watching the teacher in charge. Sylvia must have had a natural aptitude, as after only three weeks, she was considered to be sufficiently trained to be given a job at another local school, where there were 67 children between six and seven years old, and once again she was given instructions to start straight away, However, between her training and the day she was due to start teaching, the weather intervened. There was deep snow, and freezing temperatures. So on her first day she had to walk several miles to work. On arrival, the school was empty, as none of the children had been able to get to school, and there was no heating, no hot water, and the toilets etc were all frozen up. Nothing daunted, Enid managed to find gloves, coal shovel and necessary kindling, and she set to to clear out the embers to light a fire. While she was doing this she noticed that a man had come into the schoolroom 鈥� dressed in a dark suit with business collar and tie. He watched her for a while, and then asked her what she was doing there. Having explained, he then asked her if there was anything he could do to help, so she immediately said 鈥� yes please, come and help me clean out the toilets and try and get them working. And this is just what they did. When they had finished the gentleman turned to her and said 鈥� 鈥淒o you known who I am?鈥� Well of course, Enid had no idea, and said as much. Whereupon the said gentlemen said 鈥業 am His Majesty鈥檚 Inspector of Schools for this District鈥� 鈥� In those days these people were not even one step down from God! so one can only guess that our Enid must have made a very good impression!

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