Introduction by Mark Danelaw
At the time of our tale, state intervention in private education or mobile phones and social media has not quite materialised. The school, to all intents and purposes, is a law unto itself and both its governors and backers like it that way.
St Denise and the Martyred Saints is one of those old English girl schools that caters to a certain class of people who have money, a dire need of privacy, and a problem daughter or two. Most of the young women who are dispatched to this school have failed traditional education or have been much too free with themselves, their money or their caution for polite society to yet endure.
The average student is around 19 or 20-years-old. Having failed either O levels or A levels and often have legal issues their wealthy and aristocratic families wish to remain out of the public eye. Students have to be at the very least 16, but the upward age is never quite published in the school prospectus.
The school board led by Elizabeth, Countess Avebury, is highly protective of its girls and school traditions, not to say its income stream. To this end they prefer their staff and teachers to be onside with the aims and traditions rather than entirely educationally competent.
Our headmistress, the redoubtable Margaret Clements, BSc, BEd, has been at the school for four years and at 41 she intends to be there for another 20 or more; having left her previous employment somewhat under a cloud.
The set-up and rules are simple. There are four houses, each headed by a housemistress, who is responsible for discipline. Teachers can deal with students as they please and all are assisted by a small cadre of students all hoping to climb the privileged ladder to escape the scum pool, more of which we will say.
The first in the rank of delightful assistants are the monitors. Organised snitches with certain privileges, an excuse for lateness, being the main one. They are also the legs of the machine running messages between staff. Then comes the ordinary prefects, authorised to slipper the seat of miscreant’s knickers up to six swats and assist in more serious sanctions. Above them are the Senior Prefects, officially authorised to slipper up to 12 swats on the bare, but they are the gatekeepers to further promotion up the ladder of privilege. Led by the honourable Daphne Penrose-Gough, they can be quite ruthless with errant monitors and ordinary prefects, who must accept quite gruelling attention without complaint if they wish to climb higher.
In this way school discipline is altogether tight and a boon to the teaching staff, especially those inclined to coast in their little sinecures.
Most rules are punished, if not by the prefects, then by teachers and housemistresses. The cane is common, but other methods are available, so long as it involves a bare bottom and vivid red pain. There are demerits and dreaded detention, more of which we will say. The most arduous rule is reserved to keep academic standards high.
No one can graduate until both social and academic standards are met. Terms are long and holidays short. Any girl that fails a subject is caned each week. The bottom two students in each subject are caned each week and an F is an outright double dose.
As for caning, well by tradition it is more of an art than science. No one wants to be bothered by a stroke count; that sort of thing can be left to autistic boys’ schools. No at St Denise after a caning a girl is either, sorry, very sorry or thrown into a hell of bottom burning regret. Persistent transgression or open rebellion usually ends at either Margaret Clements’ door or Saturday detention; and often both. It is worth noting here that neither Miss Clements nor the teacher running detention deals very much in sorry.
That brings us to the scum pool. At St Denise, while there is a junior class for 16 and 17 year-olds who genuinely need extra motivation on their way to A Levels and a good university; most new girls are over 18. These girls, having mess up already or owing to them being one step ahead of prison, are the square pegs that have to be hammered into an appropriate hole. This second intake of hopefuls starts at the bottom of the school and the school starts on their bottoms.
Every new girl has to serve at least one term with minimal rights and no benefit of the doubt, and more usually two or three. Only when they have mastered the rules and customs of the school and have achieved a certain standard of academic prowess are they permitted to be known as saints.
There is more to learn about St Denise, much more, but perhaps later.
Mark Danelaw
Appropriate Appointments, the first part of our story.
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