We are saddened to announce the passing of alumnae member Janet Evans nee Horsford, who died in October this year, 3 days short of her 96th Birthday.  Janet always spoke fondly of her time at Watford Grammar School for Girls during the Second World War and her daughter was kind enough to share some of her memoirs about her school days that were also read at her Thanksgiving Service.

In the summer of 1936 Janet (aged 7) was given extra homework to do in the afternoons in preparation for the Entrance Examination to Watford Grammar School for Girls. She passed, and for the sum of £5 12s 6d per term, her formal education began at Lady’s Close in form 2 with Miss Lancaster. She travelled each day on the train from Bushey and Oxhey to Watford High Street station, followed by a 10 minute walk with her season ticket on a cord around her neck and her satchel on her back. Coming home for lunch each day, for an eight year old, the days were quite long and tiring, especially in the winter when it would be dark by the time she returned home.

In the summer of 1939, Janet sat the scholarship exam one Saturday morning and they managed 10 days on holiday but had to return home early to prepare for war and for her father and brother to evacuate with their schools. Family life would never be the same again.

Janet went back to school into Lower IVb, each day clutching her gas mask and tin of iron rations in case they got stuck at school because of an air raid. Life was quiet up until the Christmas holidays when her father came home to spend Christmas with Janet and her mother. Her brother stayed in Minehead and they missed him a lot. Sadly, it was to be the last Christmas with her father as the weather after Christmas was snowy and icy and he had a fall, banging his head. He managed to get a taxi home from Luton where he was staying with his school to rest, but gradually became paralysed down his left side as a result of a cerebral bleed. Janet’s mother cared for him at home for 10 days until she was exhausted and he was admitted to hospital in Watford. An operation was performed and he was later transferred to an Emergency Hospital at Leavesden to convalesce.  At the same time Janet developed measles! After about 3 months, in early April when the weather was still cold and icy Janet was allowed to visit her father on Easter Sunday 1940 even though children weren’t normally allowed. She chatted and played cards with her father and sadly he died two weeks later from pneumonia.

Peter left school and got a job to help his widowed mother financially before his time came to join the Army as it became increasingly clear that the war was going to be prolonged. Janet’s education continued thanks to receiving a scholarship and when she returned to school for the summer term, her Uncle Henry bought her a bicycle so she could ride to school and not have fares to pay. Janet was happy at school and she made a number of life-long friends including Barbara Holmes, Myrtle Hemming and Sheila Griggs despite the air raids and dog fights going on overhead. Her studies culminated in 1944 with examinations for the School Certificate, the equivalent of GSCEs today. These were held in June and July just after D-Day. Due to interruptions caused by Doodlebugs, two or three times they had to pick up their exam papers and dive for the shelters in the basements of the school and ‘No words could be spoken’. One afternoon, 25 of them were in the basement dining hall doing their final Latin paper until 5pm, everyone else had gone home and Miss Davidson the Headmistress had stayed on with them. At the end she said on no account was anyone to leave, as an imminent danger warning had been put up on Benskin’s brewery. All was silent so several of the students decided they would go home and made a dive for the bike sheds. They then heard a doodlebug coming very low and suddenly the engine cut out, by which time they were haring back into school to be met by a very angry Headmistress. Fortunately, the Doodlebug fell in Cassiobury Park and for once no one was hurt, just a lot of trees destroyed and a big hole left. When they met up at an Old Girls Association event years later, Miss Davidson told Janet she had only been so angry because she felt responsible and had been really frightened! Despite Janet’s form mistress (Miss Soames) (who she never really liked) telling her mother not to expect too much in her results, Janet surprised everyone and got credits in all her subjects and was therefore able to go on to do further study if she wished. She went into Lower 6th science and studied Chemistry, Physics and Biology for a year. There was no chance of her going to university as they did not have the funds so towards the summer of 1945, Janet began thinking she should leave school and get a job. The war in Europe finally at an end, Peter returned home for a month’s leave and was immediately shipped out to the Far East.

After much discussion, Janet did leave school and was fortunate to get a job as a laboratory assistant at the Ovaltine Research Laboratories in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire with the help of Miss Davidson. There, she spent the next nine years engaged in a very interesting and productive career and she did get the chance to continue her studies towards a degree in physiology and chemistry at Chelsea polytechnic, part of London University with the company giving her and her peers time off to travel  and paying for her tuition and exam fees.  In the lab, Janet worked half time on routine checks of the products coming out of the factory and the other half on original research on all the new vitamins that were being discovered at that time – late 1940s, early 1950s. Janet worked for 3 years as personal assistant to Chloe Klatzkin, who having qualified as a pharmacist came to Ovaltine to do research for her PhD. Janet felt very chuffed when Chloe got her doctorate as she thanked her by name in the thesis for her technical assistance. They went on to work together on the structure and stability of Vitamin B12 after it had been discovered as a cure for pernicious anaemia. Janet found that very exciting, she recalled Dr Wokes – her boss - handing her a tiny glass phial containing a small quantity of a red solid and asking her to make up a solution of it. It was synthetic B12 and with a grin on his face he said ‘don’t drop it, that cost £100!’ That was a lot of money in those days – nearly half a year’s salary as far as Janet was concerned! In an attempt to earn a bit more money, in 1952 Janet applied for a job at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill. She got the job but they wanted her to commit to a minimum of 2 years and Janet had already made quiet plans to get married in 1954 after Tony had finished his first year of teaching, wherever that might be, so Janet felt she could not make that promise. Dr Wokes came up trumps and she got a substantial pay rise so she was able to stay at Ovaltine until her marriage and move to Gloucestershire.