Eton Is “A Bit Frightening”

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30095, 1 April 1963, Page 2

Eton Is “A Bit Frightening”

[By SUSAN VAUGHAN] Mrs Elizabeth Chenevix-Trench, wife of the new headmaster of the world’s most famous public school, believes she will find Eton “a bit frightening.” She is the cheery daughter of a retired naval captain. At one time she taught in a State primary school, and has always hankered after the idea of going back to primary school teaching. It is unlikely to remain an unfilled wish, not only because there is something rather incongruous about the idea of the wife of the Eton head teaching at a State school, but because her life is already fully occupied. Loves Gardening She has four children: Richard, aged four, Jonathan, two; and twin eight-year-old daughters, Laura and Josephine. ”1 don’t know what Eton will think of Jonathan.” says Mrs Trench (as she calls herself in everyday life). ‘‘He'll probably shake the foundations. He's so strong he can wreck a room in a minute. He just walks into peoples studies and that’s the end." The studies Jonathan has | been walking into lately are at Bradfield College. Berkshire, where Mr Trench is

head at the moment. Mr Trench is very much the working head and takes 15 periods of classics a week. And Mrs Trench is very much the energetic wife. When she is not attending to the needs of the boys and her own family, she is, as her husband puts it, “digging like billy-o” in the garden. She is a pleasarut-looking, trim woman, with reddish hair. In spite of its reputation as the starchiest school in Britain, Eton has a liking for progressive heads. The retiring head, Dr. Robert Birley, who stopped the boys w’earing top hats, is known affectionately as “Red Bob. ’ Perhaps it is because of this attitude that Eton, founded in 1440, has managed to survive so long. (All Rights Reserved.)

Bryndwr Plunket Mothers’ Club. — Mrs M. Taylor, president of the central Plunket Mothers’ Club, was chairman at the annual meeting of the Bryndwr Plunket Mothers’ Club. Officers elected were: chairman, Mrs D. Tonkin; vice-chairman, Mrs H. Christall; secretary, Mrs R. A. Mehalski; treasurer, Mrs J. Perkins; committee, Mesdames M. Ross, C. Breeze, A. Clarke. P. Carr, M. Woods, M. Hill. J. Poulton and J. Christiansen.