Page 17 - HGS Suburb News 147 - September2021

Garden Suburb Community Library is reopening!
At long last we have been given permission to
reopen the library and we will open our doors to all
our loyal readers on Tuesday 7 September at 10am.
We will continue to run our click and collect scheme
for those readers who are still shielding. Full details
will be announced in due course in our newsletter,
social media and at gardensuburblibrary.org.uk.

The cast of The Count of Monte Cristo in Little Wood (Photo: Owain Rose)
Garden Suburb Theatre update

COLIN GREGORY Highgate. This was followed by an the Gatehouse, 25-28 November.
energetic and imaginative Auditions will be on 13 September,
ike all arts organisations the production in Little Wood of ‘The details on the GST website and
Garden Suburb Theatre has had Count of Monte Cristo’ adapted Facebook. Next year the group is
L a year like no other. Having and directed by Owain Rose, co- hoping to stage a family Pantomime
substituted two one act plays with directed by Mary Musker. A in February, Noel Coward’s ‘The
a cast of two for a full length play second production in the Wood, Vortex’ in April and another family
with a cast of ten, the new of Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’, show next summer in the Wood.
production had to be cancelled directed by Teresa Poland followed There’s plenty of opportunity
twice because of lockdown. After at the end of August. to audition, including for junior
nearly a year of Covid safe rehearsals Looking forward, GST’s next members, and to get involved
indoors and out, Brian Friel’s ‘The show will be ‘A Matter Of Life and front, back and off stage. The
Yalta Game’ and ‘Afterplay’, both Death’ adapted by Tom Morris and group is also planning a full
based on works by Anton Chekhov, Emma Rice from the 1946 Powell programme of social events for
were successfully performed at and Pressburger film of the same members, most of which take place
Upstairs at the Gatehouse in name. This will run at Upstairs at in the Free Church Hall.
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Photos: Marc Hull

Remembering the Tea Bring

House Kindergarten me Sunshine

ISABELLE FICKER
read with interest Margaret Harris’s article on the Tea House (Issue
126); however, no mention was made of the Henrietta Barnett Junior
ISchool’s Kindergarten that made its home there in the early 1960s.
I wonder how many residents remember Mrs. Burchell and Hettywog?
At the top of Northway, away from the main Junior School building,
the Tea House was a world of its own, ideally suited to small children.
The cloakroom was on the left of the main room and, on arrival,
children would hang up their coats and change into their indoor shoes.
Each had a shoebag with their name sewn on. I still have mine: I cannot
believe my feet were ever that small!
The main room doubled as classroom and play area in wet weather.
Each morning we would be greeted by a big, beautiful rabbit that had
been drawn on the blackboard in coloured chalks by Mrs. Burchell. Her
name was Hettywog and in one of her paws she held a big bunch of
coloured balloons. Sometimes the balloons had words in; sometimes
they were just coloured which meant that we were going to get a story.
The school day ran from 9am to 12.30pm. We sat at low blue tables
to work and paint with half an hour’s break at 10.30am. For break we
were given a quarter pint of milk and were allowed to choose a Smartie
from a big glass jar. If we had been good, we were allowed to choose a Competition
red one. After that we ran out into the front garden and usually made a closing soon!
dash for the drainpipe by the hedge to see if we could find Squid. Make sure you
Who was Squid? I hear you say. Well, Squid was Hettywog’s
submit your
mysterious friend who lived down the drainpipe. Hettywog and Squid
had lots of adventures and we would be told all about them at the end Sunshine shot
of the morning before going home time. We were then sworn to secrecy by 20 Sept!
– adults were not allowed to know about Hettywog and Squid. Maybe
that’s why there was no mention of them in the article. Oh dear...!
It was a sad day when the kindergarten moved and even sadder
when Henrietta Barnett Junior School was closed down. It was a
delightful school and the Suburb has not been the same since.
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