Mrs. Gorse’s Golden Years

Mrs. Elizabeth Gorse’s years passed with Free Church orderliness, and what was once a dutiful if uninteresting character paste hardened into a Liberty-printed chrysalis of self-satisfaction, with room for only the occasional incredulous Daily Mail snort and maniacal bouts of gardening and laundry. Still, she developed these rhythms honestly over time, and before domestic chores prevailed, any twinge of Six-Form loneliness was cured by intense doses of field hockey and Pitman shorthand. Elizabeth was never, ever fun. In fact, once back in Mrs. Bagshot’s primary school her classmates attributed an awkward splosh of her milk ration to a missing humerus.

Photo: Laundry Line (Hampshire, England)