100 Years of Calendar Sale: 1916 – 2016
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1916 The first Calendar Sale took place in the autumn of 1916. Miss Phillips, who taught Botany, had a particularly artistic Third Form, and their flower illustrations mounted on card with calendars attached were sold to endow a cot at the Canning Town Settlement. The sale was held in the school hall and £20 was raised. The sale became an annual event as more items were made and sold. In 1925 the proceeds totalled £170 and were divided amongst charities including the Church Missionary Society, Queen Mary’s Hospital, Northwood Hospital, Hoxton Guides, British and Foreign Sailors Fund and the Waifs and Strays, as well as ten guineas for the school library. Between the wars, the afternoon always finished with a play. To encourage a continued education after school days, St Helen’s started a Trust Fund with a gift of £5. Since then, the Calendar Sale and other efforts have generously supported the Fund. One of the girls involved in the 1916 Calendar Sale was Freda Poll who wrote:
“ Miss Phillips, Audrey Kingsford and myself were the committee. Everyone painted like mad and we stuck on tabs and ribbons and prices. Some of the Calendars we displayed by pinning them on the wall bars – but Miss Dale who taught Drill had other views.”
‘St Helen’s, The First Eighty Years 1899 – 1979’, edited by Rosalind Onians and ‘Girls in Green’, edited by Kate Ogden and Susan Millership
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1920s Calendar Sale was repeated for several years until in 1923 a parent gave a set of baby clothes to sell in addition to the calendars. By 1925 the proceeds amounted to about £170 which was divided as follows: Cripples’ Cot Trust Fund Books for Library Waifs and Strays British and Foreign Sailors Queen Mary’s Hospital Working Charity Fund Mr Lloyd’s Centenary (Hoxton) Hoxton Guides Northwood Hospital Hoxton Piano CMS
£20 – 0 – 0 88 – 1 – 3 10 – 10 – 0 3–0–0 2–2–0 1–0–0 5–0–0 5 – 2 – 11 2–2–0 5–0–0 5–0–0 1 – 10 – 0
From then on, urged on and helped by the staff, the girls collected goods for the stalls which varied in type and number from year to year but always included many homemade articles, some of which were fashioned by fingers more earnest than dextrous but which were nobly bought by generous friends and relations. Mrs Broadbent was known to have charmed at least one father into turning out his pockets to show that he had spent all his loose change! Miss Sibbitt took charge of the calendars. Domestic Economics pupils had to continue with the fudge and cake-making were rewarded with a day off later to go over the Peak Frean factory. Devotees of today’s Calendar Sale would have found the same busy hubbub, albeit on a smaller scale, but with one big difference. By 5 o’clock in the afternoon the Hall was miraculously cleared of stalls, chairs were arranged in rows and the audience were expectant for the play without which no Calendar Sale was complete. For the first time, in 1929, the Junior and Senior Calendar Sales were held separately, and by the end of the autumn term the target of £500 had been raised for the school’s first swimming pool. ‘St Helen’s, The First Eighty Years 1899 – 1979’, edited by Rosalind Onians and ‘Girls in Green’, edited by Kate Ogden and Susan Millership
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1930s – 1940s Throughout the Thirties Calendar Sale proceeds usually amounted to something over £300. In 1931 the propriety of holding the sale was actually in doubt in view of the severe general economic depression. It was agreed, however, that the greater the distress the greater was the need of the charities trying to relieve it. The sale must certainly be held but the goods must be particularly useful and saleable. Memories of Calendar Sale in the 30s:
“ making sausage rolls by the dozen for Calendar Sale usually late at night in the company of nice Miss Aitken, the cook” – Susan Knight (Crofton) “We also made a variety of sweets, fudge, fondants, toffees and jellies for Calendar Sale, also three-fruit marmalade.” All of the St Helen’s traditions at Northwood and the Welsh annexe at Tregoyd were kept up throughout WW2, which included Speech Day, Carol Service, Calendar Sale, Competitions, House Picnics etc. Mrs Broadbent would come down from Wales to look after the stall at Northwood for the Hoxton Mission.
‘St Helen’s, The First Eighty Years 1899 – 1979’, edited by Rosalind Onians and ‘Girls in Green’, edited by Kate Ogden and Susan Millership
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1950s – 1960s In 1949 plans were announced for the building of the Rowland Brown Hall, which was to be opened in 1959 (the school’s 60th birthday year), and Calendar Sales became bigger affairs to help raise money. Senior girls ran sideshows, providing fun whilst accumulating money in penny and tuppenny amounts. A ‘Mile of Sixpences’ was introduced, and fathers were urged to turn out their pockets for sixpences to see which House could have the longest line by the end of the day. The Old Girls took over from Mrs Broadbent running their own stall, with proceeds going directly to charities in which OGs took an active part in Britain and around the world. Calendar Sale continued to thrive, the receipts becoming more and more astronomical and more than keeping pace with the increased numbers of pupils and the ever-present bogey of inflation. At a chance meeting with Miss Phillips in 1970 Mrs Seldon invited her to come and see what her third form sale had become. Her astonishment may be imagined!
“All I can remember about Calendar Sale is frantically knitting squares which we then sewed up into rugs for The Settlement in Islington.” Gay Williamson (nee Heughan) Class of 1962
‘St Helen’s, The First Eighty Years 1899 – 1979’, edited by Rosalind Onians and ‘Girls in Green’, edited by Kate Ogden and Susan Millership
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The memories of a nine year old in 1956
“ I was a boarder at The Gables and any extra-curricular event was a source of great excitement. Preparations for Calendar Sale seemed to be endless in the build up to Christmas and I remember it was an added bonus for boarders that we were able to see our parents when they attended the sale. I remember that there was always a great deal of bath salts and talcum powder donated (usually Yardley’s Lavender) and whenever I now see that product in the shops I can’t help thinking of Calendar Sale! The boarders were issued with a rather modest amount of pocket money to spend at the sale and so we had to be very frugal but because our “tuck” was also dispensed in rather meagre rations we usually spent all our money on homemade toffee and fudge. As Juniors we had to make calendars for the sale, thus upholding the original tradition. However, I remember one year whilst in the Senior School, our form mistress had the idea of collecting empty jam jars and filling them from large bags of cheap bath salts - that idea required some serious marketing skills! The raffle was always an eagerly anticipated feature of Calendar Sale. I remember winning a leg of frozen lamb one year! Not much use to a nine year old Gables boarder! Another time I won a string of pearls - a very generous donation but somewhat wasted on me at the time but much appreciated in the years to come. I think I may still have them somewhere. I also remember The Old Girls stall - they looked SO old! Happy days!” Anthea (Nee Castell) Hartley (Class of 1966) “ I remember that each year Miss Gibb, together with the First year Sixth class, used to make toffee apples to sell at Calendar Sale. These weren’t just any old caramelised, tooth breaking apple, they were the most delicious fudgy concoctions and I’ve not encountered them anywhere else. Someone must have the recipe? I’ve asked in the past, but to no avail! I don’t know what year they were first or last offered but we’re talking the early 60s, maybe late 50s.” Penny Rodnight Ware (Class of 1966) ‘St Helen’s, The First Eighty Years 1899 – 1979’, edited by Rosalind Onians and ‘Girls in Green’, edited by Kate Ogden and Susan Millership
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1970s 1972 was the year in which we began to divide our Calendar Sale takings between St Helen’s and our usual charities. For some time it had seemed there was unintentional hypocrisy in proclaiming that we gave away everything we made to charity, then appealing to those same parents who supported Calendar Sale year by year for charity to ourselves. We made, and continue to make, powerful efforts to increase our takings so that we could still distribute £1000 to the many charities we had previously delighted in supporting, putting at the same time £1000 towards our new swimming pool. Not everyone on the staff approved of this, so we voted on the issue – the only time we have had recourse to such democratic procedure – and the decision to work for others and ourselves was carried.
“ My memories of Calendar Sale are of the old gym that ran alongside the veranda, and outside which we used to queue to get into the dining room for lunch. I can remember the big beam that used to come down from the ceiling that slotted into a pillar that we had pulled out from the wall and the ropes that were tucked away behind the wall bars when they were not in use. Each class used to run a slide show in here as part of calendar sale and there was the walk along the beam balancing a book on your head and a bell in the hand, the coconut shy and guess the number of jelly beans in the jar. After spending most of our time in here we would race into the Roland Brown hall where all the tables were neatly laid out with white table cloths and the bottle tombola was always on the stage. There were always jars of homemade jam and a lucky dip – as I can remember the sawdust all over the highly polished floor.” Stephanie Gilbert (née Thomson) - Class of 1979
‘St Helen’s, The First Eighty Years 1899 – 1979’, edited by Rosalind Onians and ‘Girls in Green’, edited by Kate Ogden and Susan Millership
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1980s “ My main memory of Calendar Sale was that my mum bought some hand knitted leg warmers from our class stall c 1984. She then wrapped them up and I gave them as a birthday present to the very girl who had both knitted them and sold them to my mum for about 20p. Hilariously excruciatingly embarrassing!!!” Isobel Wood (née Thorpe) - Class of 1990 “ I was at St Helen’s from 1977 - 1986 leaving after GCSEs. I remember a Calendar Sale when my sister and I won a brace of incredibly ‘high’ pheasants and had to take them home on the Metropolitan line tube... the carriage emptied very quickly! Our dad made us pose with them in the garden before making poor mum pluck and cook them... it turns out they were higher than we thought and inedible! Many fun memories of trawling through what felt like hundreds of table-tops of nick-nacks and treasures to spend pocket money on and buy family Christmas presents... Our parents are now in a nursing home this year and we have been sifting through their things, only to find lots of memories from St Helen’s preserved forever in boxes, cupboards and filing cabinets!” Irene Coupland (née Steinbrecher) - Class of 1990 “ Oh wow, Calendar Sale! Now that brings back memories! It was THE most exciting event, I absolutely loved it! I don’t know if it’s because I was a boarder and it broke up the monotony of a weekend in Gables or Gwyer or because we just didn’t have much excitement in our lives back then! But we looked forward to it so much and loved buying lots of little trinkets and treats. One year I bought some little blue and white Chinese looking vases for my grandmother who’d lived in Hong Kong and had a little collection of Chinese porcelain. She is still going strong entering her 95th year, as is her collection of blue and white vases... complete with the Calendar Sale additions!” Luisa Baldini (Class of 1992)
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As the size of the school increased, two Calendar Sales were held each year, one for Junior School and Little St Helen’s in October and one for the seniors after half term. By 1989 it had become harder to fit two Calendar Sales into the available Saturdays, when there were so many sporting fixtures to be arranged as well as the end of term play. So the decision was taken to make one big event for the whole school. A Father Christmas Grotto was installed in the green rooms. It was very popular and younger children waited patiently to see Santa. A former Charities Coordinator who organised Calendar Sale at St Helen’s, Jane Phillips, commented,
“Calendar Sale continues to go from strength to strength. Every year the huge variety of stalls across the site raises in excess of £6,000 for a host of charities. The most impressive thing is the large number of girls wanting to set up and run many of the stalls for charities of their own choice. It is certainly an event in the true spirit of St Helen’s in its commitment to raising money for charity.” Calendar Sale is a tradition that the school can be proud of, as Rosalind Onians (Lathbury, Class of 1934) said,
“it is the permanence of it”.
‘St Helen’s, The First Eighty Years 1899 – 1979’, edited by Rosalind Onians and ‘Girls in Green’, edited by Kate Ogden and Susan Millership
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1990s “ Yes I have hugely fond memories of calendar sale - mostly of the sense of it being a treasure trove with endless possibilities for finding gifts or treats. It felt endless when I was younger; in my mind’s eye I see trestle tables stretched out covered in things. I wanted to try them all.” Madeleine Spencer (née Friedmann) Class of 2003
“ My memories of Calendar Sale in the early 90s are that all girls had to attend in uniform. Woe betide the girl who missed it without good reason! The mothers sent in lots of handmade doll clothes, cushions and various craftwork, and I remember the charity stalls well. Most of the stalls were held in the RBH then. The boarders used to have their own game stalls, and I remember the beautiful bookmarks which the Chinese boarders made – you would give the name of the recipient and they would write the name in Chinese characters on the bookmark. They made great presents!” – Sally Shackman, former staff member and parent
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2000s “ My biggest memories of Calendar Sale during the 2000s is the way that Jeanne Phillips (a former Charities Coordinator) would sweep up the whole school with her exuberance to raise money for the charities. She was the big driving force behind getting Calendar Sale organised and on one occasion she put on the Santa suit for Santa’s Grotto. She held an assembly a few weeks before the Calendar Sale in a pantomime-type style using teachers and prefects to encourage people to bring in donations. I recall Duncan McClaren (former PA to Mary Morris) saying to Jeanne about how their office was overrun with donations to the point where you could barely get in to see the Head!” – Morné Hoffman, current staff member
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