At Wycombe Abbey, the Great-Grandmothers Are Sixteen

The system is in the school’s welcome guide for parents, which I read first as a prospective parent and then as a genealogist. A new girl in a Senior House is given a House Mother, a pupil one year above who shares her dorm for the first term. The House Mother has a House Mother of her own. So does hers. The guide calls this a family tree. By the sixth form a girl can have descendants in three year groups and no driving licence.

Our family tree is a WhatsApp group called Family (New) that nobody reads.

Once a year the Wycombe tree turns out in full. The Upper Fourth, which is Year 9, dance for their House in front of the whole school. The House Daughters make banners for their House Mothers and wave them the moment they step on stage. Further up the generations, the great-grandmothers put down their A-level notes. Boarding staff and tutors arrive en masse in House colours, having sat through weeks of rehearsals.

In 2024 Wendover won with a number from Annie, praised by the Upper Sixth host for its props and levels. Some of its dancers had rehearsed before school, which she recorded as a House Dance first. I have never done anything before school that counted as a first, unless you include the toaster fire.

Now compare the turnout for our daughter’s dance show at the leisure centre in May. Me, in the wrong row. My husband, filming somebody else’s child for four minutes with great tenderness. Her grandmother, on FaceTime, held up towards the stage and showing the whole call the ceiling tiles. Her little brother brought a banner. It said HURRY UP.

I read the Wycombe blog out to my mother as a model for next year. She has been a grandmother for eleven years and has never been promoted. At Wycombe, I told her, the great-grandmother is sixteen, and she takes a break from her studies to come and cheer.

My mother has been retired since 2017. She said she would see if she could fit it in.