Lessons with Miss G: #9, People and Places

Miss Goldie and John Skinner, an Australian teacher trained by FM and then later his secretary, shared premises in Soho Square, next to the French Protestant Church. The waiting room (shared with Skinner, who had his own teaching room in another part of the building) and her teaching space had been one large room and was divided with stud-walls. A climbing plant of some sort had been trained all around the picture rail. Although there were lots of chairs, I think I only once or twice encountered another person – waiting for a lesson with John Skinner. The stud walls, as mentioned in an earlier post, provided hardly any sound-proofing.

In her teaching room, the smaller half of the divided space, the furniture all seemed tiny; a writing bureau, some chairs, a small couch in one corner for the extremely rare lying-down turns, a portrait-style photograph of FM on one wall, a small ‘attic-type’ window looking out at the adjacent London buildings; sometime later there arrived on the floor beside her bureau a rather large doll of Mrs Tiggy Winkle – the hedgehog washerwoman from Tales of Beatrix Potter – who stared at you surrealistically while you were trying to ‘not react’.

On the third or fourth floor of the building was a men’s washroom which was usually locked. On one occasion I fortunately found it open and went in. There was a ‘seriously suited’ elderly gentleman in there, looking very much like one of Charles Dickens’s less loveable characters; one thought of Mr Murdstone. He glared at me suspiciously. “I suppose you have a key?” he challenged me. “Well no I don’t, actually” I replied. “Hmm! Then whom are you here to see?” he growled. “Miss Goldie” I answered.

His manner then changed entirely; Mr Murdstone disappeared and there before my very eyes stood none other than Mr Pickwick. “Oh, Miss Goldie!” he said. “Well that’s all right then. Take your time and I’ll send someone to lock up. Do have a good lesson…. but I am sure you will. Good day!”

I believe the gentleman owned the business which leased the building and that he gave Miss G and John Skinner their rooms at a very favourable rate. Some years later, however, the lease expired and Miss G and John Skinner had to go. They moved to the Bloomsbury Alexander Centre in Southampton Row near the British Museum. Several of Miss Goldie’s pupils helped her to relocate, and it was pleasant to see her in another context than ‘the lesson’. I drove into Soho Square to take some things in my car to Southampton Row. My then girlfriend Elena, who was also having lessons with Miss G, came too. There was a touching moment as we parted from Miss G when Elena, being Spanish, moved towards Miss G to embrace her. Then, just as Miss G moved forward in response, Elena hesitated – thinking that she oughtn’t to – Miss G hesitated … and the moment had gone.

Rumour had it that MIss G had brought her vacuum cleaner in with her on the underground to make sure she left the old place clean. I don’t know if it is true, but it would not surprise me.

© 2013 John S Hunter