In celebrating 50 Years of Girls at Rugby School, we recently caught up with Jill Rogers (St, Cr 75-77) for the latest edition of the Floreat, where she offered a rare and deeply personal insight into what it mean to be among the very first girls at Rugby School. 

If you drive about a mile along Dunchurch Road away from town, you can still find the house where I grew up. Rugby School was a mystery behind massive, Butterfield walls, the Close glimpsed through the fence, the Old Quad from the High Street. As I walked into The Crescent School, where I was a pupil, I hardly noticed Stanley House opposite. It was a different world, cut off from someone like me, because I was a girl. 

I think the invitation was made to my mother as she played in an orchestra with musicians from the School community. My father was a local GP and was thrilled. It seemed too exciting an opportunity to miss, but none of us were prepared for how difficult a challenge it would be. My parents were told that the first intake would be a dozen girls. That dwindled to three and then to two: Alison Parker and me. 

Two girls and more than 700 boys. I have sisters but no brothers. I was just 16 and had been at an all-girls boarding school. Most of the boys acted as if we were from a different planet and had no idea how to interact with us. 

Even the staff were unsure how to address us. One of my Mathematics masters insisted on calling me ‘Rogers’, which I objected to and so I used to ignore him. When I asked him to call me ‘Jill’, he quite reasonably said that was unfair as he called all the boys by their surname. We agreed a system whereby he would look in my direction if he wanted to ask me a question. My Physics teacher solved this by calling all the boys ‘Fred’ and me ‘Fredess’. All the teaching was excellent, but his lessons were inspirational. His name was Geoff Foxcroft. 

But I never fitted in. Even in class I felt isolated and alone. I enjoyed the classical concerts and the trees in The Crescent, but I had no close friends. Even though I was involved in some plays, I didn’t feel fully accepted by the cast. I knew that if I made casual conversation with a boy, it might cause him to be teased mercilessly. The only place where I was treated normally was in the Christian Union. I am grateful to another master for his lead in this – Dr Eric Morgan. 

The second year was so much easier because I was last year’s news and was no longer directly in the spotlight. Crescent House became a refuge for me and Town House a much more natural environment than Stanley, because I was a daygirl. I’m so thankful that I could escape home every evening. 

Rushing from the Science Block to the Old Quad between lessons, I would pass boys swaggering like John Wayne or shooting an imaginary smoking gun. Some wag had nicknamed me Roy Rogers and I became acutely aware of my awkward gait. On at least one occasion I arrived at class in tears. 

Yet the solitary walks around the Close were times when I felt the presence of my Heavenly Father and heard his still, small voice. So, if you remember my lone figure or recognise yourself, remember that you were very young. But if you want my forgiveness, it’s yours. 

Rugby School helped organise my gap year with Church Missionary Society. On my 18th birthday I travelled to another school, high in The Aberdares, with spectacular views of Mount Kenya. Despite being in the minority of two again and the only white girls for about 10 miles, I felt more accepted by the community and supported by CMS than I ever had at Rugby. 

Looking back over 50 years, I can see my compassion for the marginalized and the outsider was formed at Rugby and in a remote Kikuyu village. I have befriended and helped refugees in Teesside and Turkey and have taught ESOL as well as Mathematics. I have helped found a charity called Open Door NE, which supports refugees. 

At 40 I learnt to paint, inspired by my mother who had learnt to play the cello at the same age. In my fifties I studied Turkish and Farsi and during COVID I started to write. Because my husband is preparing to retire in December, we have recently moved to North Yorkshire to be closer to our three children and our grandson. 

Returning to the School, I am relieved to see the changes for girls at Rugby, but if you were to ask my advice about sending a teenager to any school where they would be in the minority of two, I would reply clearly and emphatically, ‘Don’t do it’. 

Teenagers need the security of a peer group more than they want to be pioneers of social change.