Sylvia talks about studying for a degree at Wensum Lodge and the positive effect that this has had on her life, working abroad and returning to Wensum Lodge as a poll clerk
I left school with just four GCEs and went to work at Bonds as a trainee buyer, but all the time I really wanted to go and train to be a radiographer, but I couldn’t because I only had four GCEs. So, I went to night school and got the fifth GCE, transferred to the hospital, and started working there as a clerk, waiting for the radiography tutorial sessions to start.
I started as a radiographer in 1963 at the Norfolk and Norwich hospital and continued to train as a radiographer for three years and was successful and graduated.
I then got married, had children and was at home for six years. After that we went to live in Cyprus for two years as my first husband was in the air force. During this time, unfortunately, my marriage broke down and I came back to Norwich as a single mother with two children. I had to find a job, and managed to find one, in a factory and that lasted for six months whilst I looked for something a bit better.
I applied to the civil service and was very successful to be appointed as a clerical officer. During my time there I found out that the civil service would pay for its staff to do a degree, an Open University degree. Well, I’d got a lot of questions in my life, things like, ‘What is the meaning of life’ ‘How do things work?’ and I thought that an Open University degree would answer those questions, so I applied.
I found out that because I was a mature student and it was a long time since I had had any education, I had to do a pre-degree course. That course was at Wensum Lodge, so I was very happy to do it. Two tutors from the UEA were in charge of the course and we were taught things like how to construct a bibliography and include references.
After I finished that course in 1977, I was able to start the degree with a foundation course in science – my preferred area of interest. The tutorials were held at Wensum Lodge and we would go there about once a month. I knew about Wensum Lodge, I had lived in Norwich since I was seven and it was a very well known place so I was very pleased to find that my tutorials were to be held there.
I had paid the first lot of fees but when I applied to the civil service, they said, ‘Ooh no, you should have asked us first’. Well, I gave that problem to my union, and they fought the case for me and I did actually get the retrospective fees paid.
You can imagine that was very important as a single mother, bringing up two children.
Courses and an Open University degree
With the Open University you had to do two foundation courses and I chose ‘An introduction to Science’ that was my preferred interest.
The previous year I had done the run up to starting the degree and then did the one year science course and that was when I spent the most time at Wensum Lodge. I did go on to several other courses, which spanned about ten years from 1977 right up to 1986.
However, once I had finished the foundation course, a lot of the scientifically based courses tended to be in places like Cambridge and we just met about four times a year. So that’s when I moved on to other academic places for my tutorials.
I did, however, have to come back to Wensum Lodge in 1981 to do the second foundation course which was ‘Science and Belief from Copernicus to Darwin’. It was very different to the first one, more essay based with discussions of the various different beliefs that covered that period.
I had different tutors and there was a dozen of us on that particular course which took a year to compete. I was very grateful that the course was still at Wensum Lodge because I was aware that it could have moved on.
We had to pay for the course material and we also had to buy various books which would support our learning and these were very expensive to buy new. So Wensum Lodge actually had a scheme whereby people who no longer needed their books brought them in and then we could buy them second hand and this was a great help.
The importance of having the free car park
It was useful having the tutorials at Wensum Lodge as I had a car and I could drive, and the car park was free. Now you can imagine as a single mother, money was tight and I don’t know that I would have been able to afford the parking. I was in my 20s and I would not have felt comfortable walking down King Street or even parking my car on the street. To those who don’t know, King Street at that time was the red light district of the city.
One of the students had their car broken into when it was parked on the street, so that made it even more important that you had the car park
I just wanted to mention, but those aware of Wensum Lodge will know that the car park slopes, towards the river. So, it was always a bit scary parking in there as you had to make sure that you were fully in control of your car, otherwise I can imagine that it would be very easy to have gone over the edge into the water!
Tutorials at Wensum Lodge
Tutorials were in the evenings, because of course everybody was working.
When we arrived for our tutorials there was a board listing all the tutorials going on, it wasn’t just the Open University, and you then had to look to see what room you had to go to. Well, that was easier said than done because Wensum Lodge is like a rabbit warren, tiny rooms all over the place, stairs going this way, stairs going that way. Many a time I’m afraid I went into the wrong tutorial, most embarrassing and I ended up backing out very quickly.
Having the found the room that I needed, there was about eight of us in the tutorial, along with the tutor. We had a blackboard, not the old style, more of a whiteboard I suppose. We had seats with writing platforms that swivelled round in front of you.
I asked the tutor if I could record the tutorials so that I could make notes afterwards and they were quite amenable and that really helped my studies. I think that if I hadn’t had the actual physical place to study and meet up with my tutors I would have found learning much, much harder.
Nowadays of course we have the internet, but I don’t think that I would have done so well in my degree if we just had the internet, it is so important to have that face to face, somewhere to get together and discuss things that crop up.
Jurnet’s bar
After the tutorials, we would go down to Jurnet’s bar and the atmosphere there really encouraged more discussion, more explanations. It was brilliant, a brilliant place because it gave you a much wider view of all the things that you were learning.
There was of course the bar, so you could get a drink, I remember that it was very basic but it also seemed really quite romantic being down there in the crypt with the arches.
I remember that there was a very small staircase that you had to go down to get to it. We used the bar most nights after tutorials, which started at 7pm and finished at 9pm, our tutors would join us, and we would often not leave until 11pm.
When the course was finished, we organised to have a buffet down in Jurnet’s bar to say goodbye to everybody, including our two tutors, who were a married couple, and were tutors at the UEA.
Gaining my degree and life after Wensum Lodge and how having the degree really affected my life and work
Once I got my degree in 1986, it enabled me to get a promotion at work. I was still working for the civil service and I got promotion to an executive officer and I am quite convinced that that promotion was down to me having my degree.
I worked as an executive officer for a few years and then met my second husband and we moved to Saudi Arabia. Now, in Saudia Arabia it’s very difficult for women to have a job, you either work in a hospital or in a school. Well because I had my degree, which really affected my life, I was able to get a job in a British international school in Al Khobar as a teaching assistant.
I worked there for a couple of years and decided that I wanted to be a teacher. I had always been involved with young people, Brownies, Guides, Red Cross that sort of thing and because I had already got the degree, I could go on to do the Post Graduate Certificate of Education, again with the Open University.
I was able to do distance learning and whilst it wasn’t based at Wensum Lodge, having been at Wensum Lodge had given me that opportunity. I got my certificate and the school that I was working at employed me as a teacher. I was there from August 1991 to 2000.
After nine years we moved to Mexico, and because I had my teaching qualifications, I was able to get a job there, again at a British international school in 2000 and we were in Mexico for six years. Initially I worked at an American school for a year and then was lucky enough to get a position at Greengates school in Mexico City. Going to Mexico, not speaking Spanish only English and trying to find a job was difficult and it was necessary for me to have some very good qualifications.
I am quite convinced that if it hadn’t been for Wensum Lodge and the convenience of that for me, as a single mother of two children, trying to work full time, I would never have had these opportunities.
After leaving Mexico and coming back to England I worked in a school but found that it wasn’t quite the same, so I applied for a position at Norwich City Council as a clerk and continued there until I finished my working life.
Return to Wensum Lodge as a poll clerk
My next contact with Wensum Lodge was in about 2012 and I was working at the City Council. An opportunity arose to become a poll clerk, this meant that you still had your wage coming in, but you got extra money. So, I asked that I could be considered and I worked at Wensum Lodge as a poll clerk on election days for the next ten years.
Wensum Lodge was an ideal place to be a polling station. The room that we were allocated was very large and could accommodate the voters so that they had privacy for their voting. It was also quite an interesting room for us because it was where the stables used to be. It had pictures of the horses and dates on the wall and the iron rings that the horses used to be attached to were still in place.
Across the yard was a room that we could use, because obviously we were there from 6am right through to 11pm, setting up at the beginning of the day and dismantling at the end of the day. The room had comfortable chairs, a table, a fridge and a microwave, and this was so important to our wellbeing as during the day we could have a warm meal, You might think it strange, ‘Well why didn’t you go out and get a warm meal?’ Well, we were not allowed to leave, once you were there for the voting you had to stay. So, it was very important that it was comfortable. There was also an area where you could go and sit just to get away from the voting situation for a little while.
Voting was every year, around May time for the local elections. You didn’t get such a turnout of voters in local elections but of course during the ten years we did have a couple of general elections, so then it was very very busy and really exciting. People would be coming in and they’d be going out with their fingers crossed.
We had some very interesting characters, one gentleman, I particularly remember, was really annoyed that he had to give his name and details and wanted to know what authority we had to insist on that. There were always three of us there, two of us were poll clerks and one person in charge and she had access to City Hall and she simply passed that particular problem over to City Hall and let them speak to the gentleman in question on the telephone.
The area that we dealt with was really quite large and quite spread out. Sometimes people would come to the wrong polling station, which they were not happy about. So if people had walked all the way to Wensum Lodge they were not then very happy to walk to somewhere else in the city. Wensum Lodge is really quite central but it was on the edge of the particular voting area, and there were a lot of students which reflected that there was a lot of rented accommodation in the area.
Closure of Wensum Lodge and how my life would have been different if Wensum Lodge hadn’t existed
Now, I have recently heard that Wensum Lodge is going to be closed and I am devastated.
I really feel that if it hadn’t been for the existence of Wensum Lodge my life would have turned out very very differently.
I would not have had the opportunity to have taught children, a lot of whom I like to think, benefited from that teaching and went on to have successful lives themselves.
I certainly would not have been able to stay in Saudi Arabia or Mexico as I long as I did because if I didn’t have work I would have been very very bored.
It is vital that we still keep these places, because although the internet is wonderful you still need face to face, you gain so much by having a physical place where people can meet.
As you know Wensum Lodge has a vast history, the wonderful buildings that are there. At once upon a time it used to be a brewery and then the adult education centre, it is such a valuable thing for the city of Norwich.
I never had the opportunity to go to university when I left school, so the second chance in my life to get a degree has been very very important to me. This would not have happened if I hadn’t had somewhere to go to do the tutorials, hence Wensum Lodge was a very important thing in my life.
Sylvia Mak talking to WISEArchive 11th November 2024 in Felthorpe.
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