“Ill take your little girl into my class, if you dont mind,” said the teacher, who had overheard the conversation between my mum, the headmistress, and another teacher.
The teacher whose class Mum had been trying to get me into absolutely refused to have me. “Shell barely scrape by in your lotcant read a word, cant even string letters together,” she argued. “Since when do A stream classes have stragglers?”
She wasnt wrong. I couldnt read or write, and Mum hadnt the time to drill me with a primernot that Id have sat still for it in summer anyway. I was far too busy exploring every nook of our estate, climbing every tree in sight. “Out from dawn till dusk, that one,” Mum would sigh. And really, who could blame me? There were far too many adventures to be had before bedtime.
But Miss Eleanor Wilkins must have seen *something* in me. Thats how I wound up in the B class. My behaviour was, frankly, appallingbut academically? Top marks. Lessons were a breeze, and more importantly, *fun*. She had a knack for unlocking every childs curiosity.
How we adored her! By Year 6, our class hadnt a single pupil below an Anot because she demanded perfection, but because learning any other way under her simply didnt cross our minds.
Miss Wilkins was already retired by the time we left primary school. Never married, no children of her ownjust decades spent shaping young minds. Weekends at her house were pure magic: vases bursting with fresh flowers, bowls of sweets (proper ones, toono mean feat in those days), and always some former pupil dropping by, regaling us with tales of class trips and mischief. Wed daydream about returning one day, arms laden with chocolates, to spin our own stories for wide-eyed kids.
Her three-bedroom terraced houseinherited from her parentswas modest but charming. Every shelf held trinkets from past students: hand-carved keepsakes, postcards from abroad. One room was nothing but floor-to-ceiling books, a worn armchair tucked between them like a throne. Thats where shed settle, while we flopped onto the Persian rug like a flock of drowsy ducklings. Shed read aloud, then wed tumble into debates about pirates or planets. Some days, shed play classical records or tell us about Turners landscapes, and just like that, wed be lost in art.
Every season, wed troop to the park near her house with easels. Summer leaves, autumn bonfireswe painted them all, though winter sent us back indoors to sketch frost-framed windows. Her own watercolours were breathtaking; shed gift them to us after. Wed play draughts after, the winner pocketing a sherbet lemon.
Even after secondary school, wed visit. She taught a few more rounds of children privately before passing at eighty, book in hand, in that same armchair. One of her first pupilsCatherine, now a GP in her fortieshad been reading to her.
Ive never seen so many tears at a funeral. Flowers piled high, anecdotes spilling overdecades worth of lives shed touched.
Miss Wilkins never raised her voice, never *needed* to. Her family wasnt blood, but generations of us whod learned, under her quiet guidance, that the world was kinder and wilder than wed dared imagine.
As one former student put it: “She wasnt just a teacher. She was our first real compasspointing us toward curiosity, and the stubborn belief that lovely things were worth chasing.”
