To be disturbed by this Jilly Cooper anecdote forcibly stripping clothes off a teacher at school?

[Jane379]

I was reading some articles on Jilly Cooper recently and was quite disturbed by this anecdote about her time at boarding school in the 1940s-50s: ' ‘We undressed Miss Harris, got her down to her petticoat, poor thing, and just jumped on her. She was wriggling on the floor like a fly. Poor woman! So we were punished and not allowed to have cake for tea that day!’

https://www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/magazines/essex/22628679.jilly-cooper-recalls-earliest-essex-memories/

  What? I suppose I find it really hard to believe since usually you read about awful treatment of students at schools like that, not the reverse. I suppose some schools must have been more lax then, assuming it's true. Poor woman, indeed...

I never could stand her or her type.

Its the sort of world she's from, probably loads of them like her.

Yes, that is disturbing. If it was something I'd done I wouldn't be recounting it as an anecdote, I'd be ashamed.

Its just silly messing about that kids would do though, in a private school I suppose. You wouldnt get that down at the local comp!!!

It might well have had no serious intent behind it at the time, but you'd think as an adult you'd reflect and think how awful that must have been for the teacher, to describe the woman 'wriggling like a fly' - it's not something I'd repeat other than perhaps in a context of 'horrible things I've done that I now regret'.

Did you never see her on any shows, thats how she spoke, thats how that type refer to things, they have a silly childish, jolly hockey sticks way of talking. Very matter of fact. Very horsey types I associate them with
I dont know what it was about her she annoyed me intensely whenever she popped up on chat shows. Awful.

Yes, exactly.

I actually came across this anecdote first when I was reading a book by a child psychotherapist about bullying (Don't Pick On Me by Rosemary Stones). Interesting book. Anyway, one section quoted Cooper as saying, 'We bullied Jennifer because she was fat and Enid because she had large breasts at 11 years old', then talking about stripping this poor teacher.
The book didn't include citations and I can't find this elsewhere so it could be fake but the teacher incident is substantiated by this interview. Certainly one would hope she regretted any bullying though the interview I quoted doesn't sound very regretful.

My mother remembers one girl from a wealthy family feeling entitled to bully a teacher into leaving the classroom in tears after weeks (private girls' day school in the 80s, for comparison) so I wonder if there could have been a similar dynamic where the school were maybe intimidated by parents...

I'm not sure I ever did - I tend to avoid chat shows because they're normally just puff for whatever book/film/record the person is about to release. Sounds like I didn't miss anything!

Yes you were lucky!!

She was always dragged out on This Morning or Wogan or such like, Pebble Mill that sort of thing. Yakking on about posh people and their affairs, money, horses, posh things.

I couldnt stand her.

Exactly.. she was 73 at this point so you'd expect a bit more than the sniggering way she seemed to still view it.

Her books are horribly misogynistic, so this doesn’t surprise me at all.

Hardly pleasant for a teacher to get their clothes forcibly stripped off.. what job would expect you to tolerate that?

That is a proper posh person story. Isn't it?
I feel like trying that in a local comp would of gotten you beaten silly back in the day!

(I remember my mum telling me a story of a girl who swore at a female teacher back in the 50s. The teacher picked her up, threw her in the bin and walked off!😆)

She was always one of those “dogs are better than people” types which I find sinister as they only say that because dogs can’t talk!

Harry said something similar about his teachers at boarding school. I can’t remember what exactly. I didn’t read the book, but it was discussed here.

It was all the gushing about her adulterous husband that was nauseating. I know I would not have liked her in real life.

I remember her on a hair makeover programme where the hairdresser improved that haircut she had. But she didn't keep it up. I may be making this bit up but I'm sure it was because Leo didn't want her to change her hair style.

Whilst I do not doubt for a second that such things DID happen..

With the benefit of having met and chatted with Jilly on several occasions (she was friends with a good friend of mine so these were social events not 'celebrity meets normal person' events)...

She was utterly, completely, wholly, barking mad, batshit crazy, loop the fucking loop.

And had been for a very very long time. 90% of what she recounted as having happened to her, happened to someone else, and she heard about it or was witness to it... she had a very creative, inventive mind, and spent most of her adult life with more than one foot in total fantasy land.

I was always curious as to what she was like pre Leo, i think a lot of the absolute batshittery was an escape from how awful he really was as a husband.

He stripped a teacher? I hope not!

Why give her a cop out. Perhaps she just was a horrible batty person.

No, but something really cruel about a house mistress, like using her cruel nickname to her face.

I’m not saying it’s in any way right, but it’s hard to get outraged about what some children did in the 1940s. It was a completely different world back then.

I think as a society we’re completely far removed from even the 1960s/70s, never mind the 1940s.

Interesting. Maybe this could be it... It's an odd anecdote to relate in such a light-hearted way, whether true or not.

She always spoke positively about her marriage publiclt, it's sad the reality was not as happy.

Was this typical 1940s school behaviour??

If anything surely teachers were more likely to have more authority then? I don't think this would have been widely seen as ok.

After all, boarding school memoirs like Roald Dahl show pupils being the cowed ones.

No job now, the past is a different world. No teacher would be expecting that either then as children would have been seen as needing to be obedient, but lots of things happened in the 40s and 50s that are alien to us now

It sounds like a Lord of the Flies moment with feral children gone mad. Sadly it doesn't seem that JC ever held herself accountable for what must have been utterly terrifying and humiliating for that poor teacher.

Not being allowed cake for one day is a pathetic punishment for it. Probably got away with it due to having rich parents the school didn't want to upset. You'd have got a lot worse punishment in a state school then and now for that.