The Legacy of One Exceptional Woman: Miss Grindley
Liz Lister | Jaggy Thistle & Scottish Blethers
Like most, I can remember a few teachers who have been influential in my life. The skilled educator who was able to coach you into achieving that improved grade, the enthusiast who was able to instill a lifelong passion for their subject. Yet for me there is only one who, with hindsight, played a pivotal role in the direction my career would take—the Pole Star by which my life would be navigated.
Miss Grindley was my teacher in Primary 4, when, at the age of eight, I attended Kinghorn Primary School in Fife, Scotland. She was a tall, willowy figure—ramrod straight, with her hair worn up in a tight, top-knot that characterised her strict, no-nonsense approach to the education of her charges. She appeared to me to be at least ninety, though she was probably in her late-forties. Strange that however transient her presence in my life was, as I sit and reflect, I can still feel myself in her classroom. The position of my desk and chair. Motes of chalk dust suspended in the rays of sunshine streaming through the window. The smell of warm wood.
Miss Grindley in her twenties
Image | Kinghorn Past and Present
Miss Grindley was that most abhorrent of words—a spinster. Back then, over fifty years ago, the connotations with the word were all in the deficit. Someone who had been left behind. On the shelf. Somehow diminished by the fact that life hadn’t dealt them the acceptability of a significant other.
Spinster
Image | Lam Thuy Vo, Flickr
Today, attitudes have if not changed, then are at least changing, with single status increasingly recognised as a positive lifestyle choice. While most may aspire to be in that perfect relationship, the pressure to “settle,” to conform to the norms of others, has largely been eliminated. For some, a successful career is their consuming passion while others may simply prefer a solitary lifestyle and the associated freedom and opportunities that brings. Thankfully the word “spinster” appears to be disappearing from our vocabulary.
Miss Grindley was blessed with that rarest of gifts: the ability to capture the interest of young minds and inspire a love of learning. Every morning would start the same way with nature study, where her young charges were encouraged to bring in their latest discoveries. Frog spawn, an empty bird’s egg or nest…even the odd live specimen to really impress your classmates!
Miss Grindley in 1949 with her students. She taught me in 1965.
Kinghorn is a coastal town where the surrounding fields and shoreline offer an abundance of wildflowers that were to become my abiding passion. By the age of eight I not only knew the common names of most species but also their generic names and associated folklore. This love of nature was to lead in turn to the study of a science curriculum and ultimately to a degree in Biology with Education—not Botany but Aquatic Biology!
Wildflowers—a lifetime legacy
Image |
As an educator myself, I hope that I was able to impart some of the interest and love of learning that Miss Grindley had instilled in me. Those of you reading this who have travelled with me as a tour guide know well that my passion for Scotland’s flora and its associated folklore remains unabated today. A lifetime legacy due, in no small part, to one exceptional woman —Miss Grindley.
