About me...
I loved my year at Paddock Wood; it was a care-free time of my life, before I embarked on being grown up, becoming an adult.
My room mates Mae Sabbagh (right), and Zaman Al Wazzan (below), they were super companions to spend a year with. Thrown together from different cultures, different religions and very different backgrounds, we made the most of the time we had together; this was something Mrs Savill had a penchant for. We learned to accept each other for what we were, learned about each other’s cultures and learned to get on with one another too.
Paddock Wood Finishing School......one of the best years of my life
Front row l-r: Frances de Courcy Wheeler, Rosamond Brett (now Wing), Caroline Lowther, Claire Rudd, Alison Mitchell (now Goodere). Next Row l-r: Jane Denise, Vicky Brett (now Bulmer), me, Louise Reidleberg, Barbara Cormack, Margaret McGill, Sian Jones sitting next to the right hand greyhound.
3rd row l-r: Sally Hobbs (now Blackwell) sitting on a greyhound, Anne Myers (Povey), Rosie Farr (now Thornton) & Trish Tilden Smith (now Smitheram).
Back row l-r: Ena Smale, Catherine Nash (now Neave), Susie Creswell-Wall, Carol Cowl, Sue Eade & Janet Kemp
I live not too far from Lightwater now with my husband and son.
It gave me great pleasure to organise our first-ever whole school Reunion in June 2011 and another one in 2015. I’ve created this website for all the girls who are already in contact and for those still to find us!
If you’d like to be in contact, please feel free to do so: pippa.anderson@me.com
Thank you...
In the Easter term, another student Alison Goodere (nee Mitchell) and I accompanied Zaman to her home in Bahrain for a 3 week holiday. It was 1976 and Bahrain was a very different country to that which it is now. Western girls in Bahrain was a novelty and Zaman and her family showed us many aspects of their wonderful culture. I’m very grateful to them for allowing us into their lives when little was known about Bahrain; there were certainly no package holidays there and it was not commercialised in any way.
There were around 80 girls at Paddock Wood the year I was there; around 30 of whom were British.
Below a group photo of some of the British girls on the steps just outside School House: