{"id":1969,"date":"2023-11-14T13:17:43","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T13:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hilderstonecollege.com\/blog\/?p=1969"},"modified":"2023-11-14T13:17:44","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T13:17:44","slug":"daughter-follows-in-her-mothers-footsteps-to-hilderstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hilderstonecollege.com\/blog\/daughter-follows-in-her-mothers-footsteps-to-hilderstone\/","title":{"rendered":"Daughter follows in her mother’s footsteps to Hilderstone!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Dave McKenna<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The summer\u2019s sun has well and truly set for another year here in beautiful<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Broadstairs. This Sunday, just gone, marked the demise of the lighter warmer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

months with the clocks going back an hour. With that in mind, we decided to go<\/p>\n\n\n\n

back in time to the summer, to a brighter time, a time when Hilderstone College<\/p>\n\n\n\n

was a particularly thriving hive of students, classrooms were full of chatter and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

wonderful times were being had by all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those students was Fiona from Switzerland, who saw many new friends<\/p>\n\n\n\n

come and go as summer faded into autumn. Fiona was an exceptional student who<\/p>\n\n\n\n

cruised through her CAE, but that\u2019s hardly a surprise as she was taught by<\/p>\n\n\n\n

one of Hilderstone\u2019s key exam teachers, Mr Peter Lawson. The reason Fiona\u2019s story<\/p>\n\n\n\n

is a noteworthy one is not because she made lots of friends, had a wonderful time,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

bettered her previous standard of English and passed an exam – no, the reason Fiona\u2019s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

story is intriguing is because it\u2019s extremely similar to Susanne\u2019s story, who studied here<\/p>\n\n\n\n

forty years ago and just so happens to be Fiona\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

During the final week of Fiona\u2019s stay it was a pleasure to welcome Susanne back<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to Hilderstone after all these years, along with husband Franz. Entering the College,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susanne\u2019s first remark was: \u201cI think these are the same sofas we had in the \u201880\u2019s\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After checking with the College\u2019s Finance Manager, we can confirm they are not the same<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sofas that Susanne and friends would have sat on forty-odd years ago. However,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

those ones are still in use…. in the staff room. Susanne noted a few changes in the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

building\u2019s layout. Another absence was one of the dinner ladies, who had been an<\/p>\n\n\n\n

integral part of the college\u2019s set up back in the day, and Susanne was half expecting to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

be greeted by her old teachers whom she remembers so fondly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susanne tells us that \u201cHilderstone was more like Switzer-stone forty years ago. I<\/p>\n\n\n\n

came independently but there were many Swiss students. Thankfully there were<\/p>\n\n\n\n

many other nationalities from all over the world. I had the chance to meet and talk<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to lots of people. It was wonderful, a really positive experience.\u201d Susanne loved it<\/p>\n\n\n\n

so much that she returned again a few years later, along with her sister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susanne and her sister came to Broadstairs wanting their independence but also<\/p>\n\n\n\n

wanting to be close to each other. So Hilderstone\u2019s accommodation department<\/p>\n\n\n\n

then, as the team (accommodation and welfare department) would do now,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

endeavoured to house the sisters near each other. It\u2019s safe to say they managed it as<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susanne ended up staying with a lovely host family (who have since moved out of<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the area) and her sister right next door. So, when Fiona came<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to follow in her mother\u2019s footsteps it was only right to keep it in the family. Fiona<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ending up staying with the daughter of her aunt’s hosts, and she credits that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

feeling of \u2018home from home\u2019 heavily to her host \u2018mum\u2019 and how very welcome she made<\/p>\n\n\n\n

her feel. It\u2019s heartwarming to see this now generational friendship blossom and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

grow between the two international families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Susanne was never in doubt that Fiona\u2019s English would improve by coming to an<\/p>\n\n\n\n

institution as prestigious as our own. However, she also wanted her to have the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

same life-affirming fun experience that she had enjoyed back in the \u201880\u2019s, so she\u2019s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

delighted to hear of Fiona\u2019s fun and friend-filled summer. \u201cIt didn\u2019t feel like<\/p>\n\n\n\n

school, it felt more like a holiday,\u201d Fiona says, as the mother and daughter share a<\/p>\n\n\n\n

smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hilderstone thoroughly looks forward to welcoming Fiona\u2019s offspring in the future!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dave McKenna The summer\u2019s sun has well and truly set for another year here in beautiful Broadstairs. This Sunday, just gone, marked the demise of the lighter warmer months with the clocks going back an hour. With that in mind, we decided to go back in time to the summer, to a brighter time, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,401],"tags":[21,39,90,335,363,154],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilderstonecollege.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilderstonecollege.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilderstonecollege.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilderstonecollege.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilderstonecollege.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilderstonecollege.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1972,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilderstonecollege.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions\/1972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilderstonecollege.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilderstonecollege.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilderstonecollege.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilderstonecollege.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}