The life of an inspiration (From Stroud News and Journal)

The life of an inspiration

We all have a fond memory of a special teacher; someone who inspired us, encouraged us or just managed to strike the right balance between kindness and discipline when we were at school. At 98, Gladys Dorothea Beale, founder and ex-headmistress of Blueboys School in Minchinhampton, holds a dear place in the hearts of those she taught. She retired nearly thirty years ago and her small school is now closed, but she is still greeted warmly in the street by ex pupils today. Tamsin Treverton Jones spoke to this extaordinary woman.

A DIRECT descendant of Dorothea Beale, pioneering headmistress of Cheltenham Ladies College and founder of St Hilda's College, Oxford, who died in 1906, it seems certain that Gladys inherited some of the teaching talents of her illustrious great aunt.

Teaching is in the blood: another aunt, Dora, was headmistress of Stroud High School as well as founder of a small boarding school for girls, Bussage House. "I did not intend to teach," Gladys explains, "but I drifted into it and it has been my life."

The Beale family have lived in and around Minchinhampton for over 200 years. Her grandparents lived at Hyde Court, a large country house, where Gladys spent many happy summers as a child. She tells of a well-staffed household and a fully stocked kitchen garden, governesses, dances and tennis parties.

In 1921, when she was 14, her parents and three siblings moved from Wimbledon and were given a house, part of the Hyde Court estate, The Yews on Minchinhampton Common. It became their family home and later, Blueboys School.

Gladys went to St Mary's School in Calne, before moving away to teach at boys' preparatory schools: Oakley Hall in Cirencester and St Neot's in Eversley, near Reading.

"One of the saddest things to me," says Gladys, "is that practically all the boys I taught before the Second World War were killed fighting. Looking at the names in the chapel at Oakley Hall is like looking at a class list."

It was not until 1942, having come home to look after her widowed mother, that she started her own school: "A number of local children, whose parents didn't want them to go to the village school needed lessons," says Gladys. "I was happy to take them on."

Opposite The Yews in those days, was an old coaching inn called The Blueboys, named after the young lads who worked in the dyeing rooms of the local cloth mills and who came out brightly coloured as a result. The Yews School began to grow; the numbers swelled from six to sixty, boys staying on until they were eight and girls to eleven. It was, eventually, the children themselves who thought of changing the name to Blueboys School.

"It was a small school and the atmosphere was fairly relaxed," Gladys remembers. "The inspectors used to come and go, but on the whole, I could teach what I liked."

Many of the children went on from Blueboys to Beaudesert Park School on Minchinhampton Common, run at the time by Headmaster John Keyte and his wife Jo. "Miss Beale may have had free rein, but she also had the sense to see what was required," says Jo. "She sent us some extremely well-grounded children. The three Rs were expected, but Blueboys pupils were always very well started off."

During the Second World War, Gladys not only taught full-time at her own school but also worked as a Land Girl during the school holidays. Later, she became an Air Raid Warden as well as Commandant of the Girls Training Corps that met in Minchinhampton Market House.

"The girls were local and all in their mid teens," says Gladys. "The idea was that they had some sort of training before going into the services - PT that sort of thing."

Many past pupils including young royals and other members of the establishment owe a great deal to her down-to earth teaching methods.

As today's politicians rage about respect in the classroom, Miss Beale's seemingly effortless discipline and good results seem a world away.

What is it, then, that makes a good teacher? "She certainly had an affinity with her pupils," says Jo Keyte. "She didn't look down on them in any way, but talked to them 'man to man', so-to-speak. Her authority, however, was absolute: when she walked into the classroom, every child would sit up straight. She made it quite clear who was in charge, without ever being too severe."

Gladys has her own thoughts on the matter: "Teaching is vocational but it is also a skill," she says, "and you can't expect anyone to teach if they are not interested and they just don't care."

In July 1976, she retired from teaching, entrusted Blueboys to her successors and moved into Minchinhampton, where she has lived happily ever since, immersing herself in all aspects of town and church events and entertaining friends in her own home."

"I have found community life here in the village to be very sustaining," says Gladys, who also takes enormous pride and pleasure in her numerous nephews and nieces and their offspring: "14 great and 10 great-great at the last count," she says. "They are quite fascinating and what's more, they keep me young."

Having given up driving only last year, Gladys is a familiar figure walking around the village of Minchinhampton and although she says she doesn't remember all her past pupil's names she says she never forgets a face. She still enjoys bridge - no doubt a demon player - is active in the British Legion and was until recently coordinator of the Bible Reading Fellowship.

"This is an extraordinary woman," says local vicar and friend Canon Michael Irving. "She lives life to the full and makes the most of every day. Self-effacing and endlessly interested in others, she is, quite simply, an inspiration to us all."