Writer recalls 'hum of lesbianism' at girls' school

Acclaimed English author Fay Weldon says there was a "hum of repressed lesbianism" at Christchurch Girls' High School in the 1940s.

In response to the comment, a former schoolmate said Weldon was "built on the lines of a Sherman tank" and was probably voicing her own desires regarding a "crush" she had on her best friend.

Weldon, 78, the author of over 20 novels, attended the school from 1944 to 1946.

She had incensed the school's old girls by writing in her 2002 autobiography Auto Da Fay that the school was "a deeply serious and miserable place" where "few of the teachers smiled" and the girls had "unexpressed and guilty passions" for each other.

She raised further ire at the weekend when Britain's Daily Mail newspaper carried a story titled "Fay Weldon remembers the repressed lesbianism that filled her New Zealand high school".

"It was an all-female place: not a male in sight," Weldon wrote. "There was a kind of hum of repressed lesbianism. We were very bright girls, and our unnatural unawareness of even heterosexual sex seems completely extraordinary."

Former pupil Nan Scoones (nee Fordyce), 81, said the comments were "highly critical and quite untrue".

"That's an extraordinary claim to make. I never even knew what a homosexual was until I was 20 years old and my brother told me."

Sexuality was never discussed, she said. "There very well may have been some very good solid friendships ... [but] if any lesbianity went on, I'm sure it was extremely well concealed."

Scoones said Fay Birkinshaw, as Weldon was then known, had a constant companion at school who was of a similar build to her.

"You have to remember Fay Birkinshaw was built on the lines of a Sherman tank.

"The way she and [her friend] went on, it was like having a crush on someone."

Dorothy Hunt launched an internet page in 2003 for Christchurch Girls' High School pupils who disagreed with Weldon's autobiography.

"We were all furious. What a writer wants to do is get people stirred up, and she's been very successful."

Hunt said Weldon may have been influenced by the publicity given to the Parker-Hulme case of the 1950s.

Weldon wrote in the Daily Mail article: "A few years after I left, the school became notorious as the one in the film Heavenly Creatures, where two girls killed the mother of one of them for trying to separate them.

"Remembering that oppressive, heavy atmosphere of unexplored passions, it was hardly surprising it happened."

The principal of Christchurch Girls' High School could not be reached for comment yesterday.

- © Fairfax NZ News