Do you remember anything about the school that used to be in Abbey House? Oh, Lottie Ballard School.

Yes, yes, um, it was in the house in, in Abbey House, and it was a little prep school, only tiny, but there was, there was another one as well that was along the south end, and that was Miss Rowley's school.

So for um people who didn't want their children to go to the ordinary. Primary schools in the town, they had the alternative, and well they had two alternatives, um, and the Rhymel girls from New House at Lugwardine, they came in to Miss Rowley's school every day, came in on the 8 o'clock bus that I was travelling on when I was coming from Hereford to Ashburton, um, but Luttie Ballard was an absolute character.

She was the, um, President of the dramatic Society for years and years and years, and when she, when she gave up the school, she still taught elocution. And um in one of the reviews, they had this wonderful, wonderful little tale about Lottie Ballard and Barbara Hooper was taking the part of a Scottish lady.

And she needed to be able to speak in a Scottish dialect and she couldn't, couldn't do it.

And so the um the the story goes that the dramatic Society arranged for Lottie Ballard to teach her. And so up went Barbara to Lotty Ballard's and Lottie said, oh, what are you doing here and what do you want? I've got to do something for you, I hear. And, Barbara said, well, I've got this part of a Scottish lady in the play, and I've got to do the accent, and I can't roll my R's, and Lottie looked her up and down and said, I teach elocution, not deportment.