Trafalgar School - Echoes Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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I am so glad that the school is still leading at basket ball, what exciting matches we had in those old, early days! Will all the girls please remember that it is a very real pleas- ure to me tx hear of, and especially from, them? With my love and renewed best wisjhes, I am, dear girls of Trafalgar, Your affectionate friend, CHARLOTTE G. GARSIDE. THE SONG OF A LITTLE RIVER Dedicated to the City Fathers Let poets sing of June the month of roses Or make verse about the joys of winter ' s snow, There ' s a time that ' s better yet. Through it ' s windy and it ' s wet. It ' s the month of March the happiest time I know. For it ' s then that I ' m a river A purling, prattling river Swirling along between my banks of snow, And many a fairy mannikin With boat made of an orange skin, Goes sailing down my current to the afterfall below. I am lost in the mighty St. Lawrence in the summer. In the winter I ' m the ice and snow you tread beneath your feet But there ' s just one time for me When I ' m happy and I ' m free, It ' s the month of March, when spring and winter meet. For it ' s then that I ' m a river, A merry, murmuring river. The giggling, gurgling river running down Simpson Street! E. S. J.— March 1918 14

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and things waxed interesting. Girls are girls in all ages and we sized each other up and broke up into groups, just as the following years have done Trafalgar on parade was growing to be something worth while, but alas, we were no longer taken to what we considered the interesting part of the town. Twenty girls in a crowded street was not to be thought of, and we were much grieved. Friendships were formed which have held fast. There was the usual competition in class, the girls who worked and the girls who came out at the top apparently without effort, for they never studied so far as we could judge. School life, I expect, was much the same as it is to-day, up to a certain point, but many things have been added to give interest and pleasure to the daily round. We all owe allegiance to Trafalgar and I may add, are glad to have been Trafalgar girls during the regime of our devoted friend. Miss Fairley. Market Drayton, England. March 14th, 1918 My dear Girls of Trafalgar: — I must first of all say a very sincere thank you to the Magazine Committee for giving me this opportunity of sending a word of greeting and best wishes to all Trafalgar girls past and present, and especially to those who were in the school during the two short, but happy, years of my principalshio. I am but an indifferent correspondent and the absorbing claims of these strenuous days have taken up much letter-writing time; but news of the school has often reached me and I have felt so proud and pleased to hear of the way in which so many of the girls have been devoting themselves to the different forms of service which we call war work. I am afraid that this cruel war has laid a very heavy burden of sorrow and separation on many a Trafalgar girl and I should like, if I may, to take this opportunity of saying how deeply I sympathize with those girls, they have been very often in my thoughts. It is a great thing to be Canadian in these days and one feels so thankful for the privilege one has had of working in a country that has sent such gallant men and women to suffer and endure for justice and liberty. Homes and schools are where such tradi- tions of service and sacrifice are fostered and never had we greater need of the finest and best of both than to-day. The strength of a school lies in its girls and p erhaps especially in its old Girls who are making the homes in which are to grow up those young lives who are to realize those ideals and high purposes for which civilisation is suffering and contending to-day. 13

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LONDON, 1916-1917 Very few cities look at their best at 2 o ' clock on a cold wet morning, especially when the observer is thoroughly tired, but London is an exception. We had docked in Liverpool early one Sunday morning, had spent the entire day answering questions put to us by suspicious government officials, and after landing, had s.pent several hours hauling our luggage about, and hunting for the right station to go to. There were a few very elderly porters who certainly did not look physically capable of moving trunks about, so we soon learnt the curse of possessions. We had travelled for six hours in a train with all blinds drawn to keep light from showing, for fear of transgressing a Defence of the Realm Act. But on arriving in London just before dawn we forgot our tiredness in the mystery of the place. The streets were so still and dark, there were hardly any lamps and, what was worse, very few taxis. It was the queerest sensation to drive through those dark streets, not knowing in the least where one was going, and having to trust the driver to land one at the right address, and then in the morning, to begin to learn the great city. And how strange it was scarcely a man of military age on the streets who was not in uniform, some in Khaki, some in Navy Blue, others in Hospital Blues. The blind, the halt the maimed; and all cheerful. Girls took, the place of men in countless offices, and banks, as ticket collecters, as bus hoppers , as conductors on tubes and trains, as window cleaners, as porters at stations, one saw them everywhere. Little boys were Scouts, little girls were Girl Guides, and older men were special constables. When leave was on, Picadilly and Regent Street were crowded with happy faces, but one could always distinguish those who had come from France. Their eyes had seen, and having seen could not wholly forget. The theatres and restaurants were full of soldiers and sailors. How they did enjoy themselves for that all too short respite. The raids began in June of 1917, and the first was a daylight raid. A captured Sea Plane got through the defences, and it gave one a sinking sensation to see the shrapnel bursting over St. Paul ' s Cathedral. Then they began to come over on moon- light nights, and for the week the moon was full, the tubes were full, mostly with foreigners. They brought their cats their dogs, their old people, their children and all their household goods, and camped in the Tubes all night. Under such circumstances, imagine the difficulties of getting home after a hard day ' s work. When the Take Cover warning sounded, usually at night, everyone was pulled out of bed and sent scurrying cellar-wards. The varieties of costume were amazing, great, tall grim-faced women in lacy boudoir caps, some in fur coats, all with rugs and shawls and sleepy faces. All yawning and very cross at being 15