American Girl Visits Mother’s Old School

Press, Volume C, Issue 29679, 24 November 1961, Page 2

American Girl Visits Mother’s Old School

A mother’s stories of her school days and school friends in another land have a special fascination for a child, particularly for one growing up in the United States.

“When I was a girl ...” carries with it a charm, worth listening to, w’hen the reminiscences are set in a small, faraway place in what seems to a child like the days of long ago.

So it must have oeen iot Pamela Moore, daughter of Dr. F. H. Moore and Mrs Moore, in Redwood City, California. Her mother, the former Miss Beatrice Telford, of Christchurch, had talked of New Zealand. Miss Moore came to Christchurch herself this year to visit her grandparents. Dr. T. Fletcher Telford and Mrs Telford, of Aynsley terrace, Opawa. Yesterday she visited her mother’s old school, St. Margaret’s College Though the school has changed its locality, its traditions are the same as they were when the address was Cranmer square and Beatrice Telford was a pupil there. Miss Moore gave a talk to sixth form pupils and prefects on American school life and answered enthusiastic questions. She saw over the school and was served morning coffee by the prefects. Miss Moore was taken to the school by a contemporary of her mother. Miss Gwen Rankin, now president of the old girls’ association and a former member of the school teaching staff. Pamela Moore will take back to her mother a copy of the school’s golden jubilee history and the latest news of her mother’s old friends. School life in New Zealand impresses Miss Moore as being much the same as in the United States when it comes to class work, hobbies and sport School Uniforms “But American girls do not wear uniform, except at private schools.” she said yesterday. “And I think uniforms are a good idea. They are less costly and do away with the ill-feeling and

jealousy that can arise when dress becomes competitive in dam.” Miss Moore said she knew of one public school in the United States which introduced the wearing of uniform to bring happier relationships between girl pupils. Commenting on teen-age fashions, she said she had noticed that New Zealanders wear shorter skirts and more pointed shoes than the girls in California. Commerical Course While in Christchurch Pamela Moore, who is 19, has been doing a course in shorthand and typing at GreggBanks Commercial College. Although dictaphones were used extensively in the United States, shorthand still had an important place in American offices, she said. Miss Moore hopes to get a

job as a shorthand-typist at the University of California, Berkeley, when she returns, and will then share a flat with her brother, a political science student at the university. Her home town, Redwood City, with a population of about 44,000, is 23 miles south of San Francisco. “We drive up in about 35 minutes,” she said. “And talking of driving, I’d rather drive round San Francisco any time than in Christchurch. Here, it seems to me. no-one cares what they do on the road, they just do it.” Miss Moore will be back home on Boxing Day, which happens to be her birthday. Some day she hopes to return to New Zealand. She ■would like to live here, on a farm.