GALLERY PART SIX - 1950s photos & anecdotes
courtesy Alicia (Alisha) Sufit
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I stumbled on your
St. M's site yesterday and was fascinated and moved: Gosh, gosh . . . the site puts together bits of the puzzle that remained mysterious to me. I'm going back to it soon to scour for more information! Interestingly, I'm still in touch with John Maizels, with whom I was also a fellow student at Chelsea School of Art, though he doesn't appear in your list of ex-pupils. His brother and sister were there too. Someone else I've been emailing recently is Gered Mankowitz, and I'm wondering if he's the "Gerald" in your photos? So, was Nikolai Tolstoy a pupil at the school or a teacher? I'm a singer-songwriter (see web site - www.alishasufit.com & www.magiccarpetrecords.com) and years ago I wrote a song about a man I had a brief relationship with - NicholasMaltzoff. I was singing it in a bar one night and this stranger came up to me and said the song sounded Russian, and that he was ? Tolstoy. It turned out that Nicholas Maltzoff was a friend of his. The ballet mistress at St. M's was Miss Trasvinski (not sure of the spelling). Her mother accompanied her on piano. I was ballet mad and went later to the Arts Educational School to train full time. This one is of Jean Bennett's fireplace at Woodgate Cottage, Beckley, Sussex, with a portrait of her on the mantel
On Lawn at Woodgate Cottage; I adored Jean Bennett, a brilliant and inspiring teacher. (Cripes! I still remember her phone number - Beckley 224. She was like a second mother to me, and more, as I'm sure she was to quite a few). I was also was very fond of Dorothy Bevan, though I'm not sure she reciprocated! Is she still alive? Dear Jean died about 24 years ago, I think, aged eighty, I believe. I'll try and pin point the date. A group of us went down to her cottage for a memorial service. As mentioned on the bit I wrote "on site" my parents had the cottage and land next door to Hedgerley Wood. Our place was called Sunley Bank with fifteen acres of woodland attached. I remember going next door and meeting Mrs Bevan one time. As far as I can remember the children are from left to right:- Evelyn Ripper. Front row -Vicki Berger and Lucinda Huxley. Back row - Gered Mankowitz, Yoko Suga, Alicia Sufit, Christopher Burns, Harvey (surname?), girl-can't-remember-name, Gloria Harris, can't-recall-name-of-half-boy.
The line-up is from left to right - Beverley ?? (tall girl kneeling), Christopher Burns, Gered Mankowitz (with beard!), Sarah Walton, Alicia Sufit (stocking plaits), unknown boy, Harvey ?? Seeing as I'm around eight years old, the year must have been approx 1954 I don't know the names of these children, but they were
all in my mother's class - Mrs Sufit. They are dressed up for a play
she wrote for them. She had the bright idea of asking then each what
they'd like to be, rather than casting just one girl as the princess, one boy as the
king and so on. She ended up with something like 5 princesses, six wizards,
four kings, etc. Hilarious, and also much fairer, much more democratic! My mother, Mary Sufit, who was a teacher at T & C, kept pet mice in the school for the children to observe etc. 'Minnie' had given birth to some little micelettes and my mother proudly took the aquarium they lived in round the school to show the other pupils. But she was very upset when she realised that 'Minnie' had not finished giving birth. Out popped another two, blind, pink little scraps. They lived in a nest of chewed-up cotton wool and newspaper, and were exquisitely beautiful. I can still remember the musty mouse smell, feel the little feet on my hands (and the accidental peeing!!) we also kept Moon Moths in the school, fantastic creatures that miraculously hatched out in captivity. They had huge scythe-shaped eau-de-Nile wings with little moon shapes on them. Adrian Wright, son of Kay Wright, who taught art at the rival school, King
Alfred's. Adrian is an actor, settled in Australia.
Stephanie Tomalin has a beads and needlework shop in Portobello Road. About
ten years ago I found myself next to her at the RFH. I leaned forward and said
"Hello Stephanie", before my brain had caught up! I loved the Jungle Gym in the playground and the high suspended pole that one could swing about on. It was very interesting getting a glimpse on your site of that same playground after all these years! kind regards, Alicia (Alisha) Sufit |
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Thanks to Alicia for providing these photos and anecdotes.
Perhaps you have something you could submit for inclusion, The teachers? The buildings? Hedgerley Wood?
whatever you have that you could share. Contact me