Boarders in School House in the 1970’s and early 80’s will be saddened to hear that Pam Field died on 21 January.
In 1972 Tony Field and his wife, Pam, and family took over School House (The senior boarding house) as only the second ‘Housemaster’ in over 300 years of boarding. For the next ten years they were to look after the senior boarders as well as many young assistant boarding staff, including myself. For Pam, in addition to bringing up her two sons, Robert and Jim, her primary role was to manage the domestic staff in the House, including the Matrons…of which there were several! For her the most bizarre part of the day occurred in the evening when Mrs Bennett would occupy her kitchen, at the same time as she was cooking for her family, to cook for the assistant boarding staff of all three boarding houses. For us, however, Saturday was the highlight of the week as Mrs Bennett had the evening off and Tony and Pam would entertain us in their dining room to a magnificent roast dinner that Pam had cooked.
For the boys she was the real ‘mother figure’ and the perfect foil for Tony. She immediately started to make the house more ‘homely’ equipping the common room with easy chairs, carpet, television and a ‘radiogram’. This was to continue throughout her time in the house, but her greatest challenge was managing the structural work necessary as dry rot spread through parts of the House in her final year.
Each Christmas, after the traditional Carol Service, she would provide the food for the House for the end of term party. Indeed in any House of young men seeing they never went hungry was virtually a full time job!
However her most important role was to be the sympathetic shoulder that boys, the majority of whom were having to deal with external exams, could ‘cry on’. In the very male environment of LGS during this period she was the most caring and compassionate of individuals, friendly and warm-hearted and many a boy was grateful for her support.
She was saddened by the loss of Tony, but took great joy in her boys, Rob and Jim, and their lovely families. She will be greatly missed by all who knew her.
-John Weitzel
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