Busted!

My mother was quite a conventional, church-going woman but one story indicated that she was not always so well-behaved. Her story was that her best friend at school was an only child of a wealthy (Jewish, if that's relevant) family: I think her name was Ida. Mum's story was that Ida was quite neglected, so when she decided to tell the family's chauffeur to collect her early one afternoon and drive her to the pictures and back, no-one in her family knew. Ida persuaded Mum to play truant too. It meant they would miss scripture but they decided that would not matter as it was taken by a visiting clergyman who would not notice two missing girls. Mum and Ida soon worked out that, if they asked the chauffeur to drive through the school gates and pick them up in full view of everyone, no-one would question it. The dodge worked for years until late secondary school. One day the chauffeur could not pick them up and it was raining so heavily they did not want to catch the bus. So, fatefully, they decided to attend scripture class. Alas, the venerable Deacon conducting the class warmly welcomed the “new girls” - they were busted! I'm don't recall what happened to Ida, but Mum's mother was summoned to the Shirley where it was decided that she would be best off finishing her schooling at another school. And that, Mum confided, was why she attended SCEGGS in her final year/s of schooling.