SOGA News - Shaftesbury Old Girls' Association - Issue 2021-2

SOGA NEWS 2021-2

Lady Briggs talks with Dee Webb Hugh Bonneville gets Covid jab from Madeleine Remembering Sr Louise Stephanie Wheen’s Gympanzees

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SOGA NEWS 2021-2

SOGA

www.shaftesburyoldgirls.com

Shaftesbury Old Girls’Association Relaunched 2020

Contents 16 Last Head Girl’s speech

Cover story: SMS in pictures by Stephanie Kalber p20 4 SOGA Careers support and finances

18 Sr Jane Livesey, SOGA President

5 Message from SOGA chair 6 SOGA Regional Reps and members worldwide 8 Dorset Council’s plans

24 Alumnae news and features 74 The Register 75 Obituaries and Tributes

12 Clare’s mission

82 From the editor

The SOGA Committee

Mission Statement and Rules of the Association

President Sr Jane Livesey (Campion) Chair Corinne (Simmonds) Gibbons 1969 corinnemgibbons@gmail.com or Chairman@shaftesburyoldgirls.co.uk

“Let your love at all times be rooted in God and then remain faithful to your friends”, Mary Ward.

Hon. Treasurer Vicki (Stringer)Atherton 1990 accounts@shaftesburyoldgirls.com

1) Maintaining and fostering connections among Alumnae.

Website & Publicity Chloe Battle 2005 chloeccbattle@gmail.com Miranda Litchfield 1972 mirandalitchfield@gmail.com

2) Providing and supporting a mentoring network for Alumnae.

Regional Reps Liaison Officer Gina (Mellotte)Marchesi 1990 gina@ginamellotte.com

3) Sharing Alumnae news and information.

SOGA News Editor & Designer Liz (Emberson) Moore 1971 liz.moore340@gmail.com

4) Arranging events and reunions on a national and regional basis.

Keeper of Memorabilia Bev Roberts beverleyroberts265@gmail.com Priscilla (Richardson) Sharp1955 psharp0112@aol.com

5) Reinforcing Christian values.

Keeper of the Alumnae Dee (Colclough) Webb, smsalumnae20@gmail.com Friends of St Mary’s Parent Representative Clare Young clareey@btinternet.com

Find us on Facebook www.facebook.com/groups/stmarysoldgirlsassociation/

Consultants to the committee Lucy Blyth, 2019 l.a.blyth@icloud.com Cassia Thackray, 2020

Find us on Instagram www.instagram.com/sms_oldgirls 3

SOGA careers support In this post pandemic era networking is even more

and former staff who have agreed to be contacted for careers advice and support. It is sorted by discipline and there are well over 100 different professions.

Go to: www.shaftesburyoldgirls.com/careers And check out the Business Affiliate Scheme on www.shaftesburyoldgirls.com/discounts

important and harder to do since we have all been working at home for what seems like an eternity. A huge number of Old Girls have signed up to advise and guide other Shaftesbury girls in a professional capacity.

On our website in the members’ section under Careers, there is a table listing the many Old Girls

SOGA’s finances

Since our relaunch, the SOGA committee has

installed Sage Accounts to manage the organisation’s finances. We have most gratefully received a small number of donations from Old Girls into the Association’s bank account, and funds from the sale of left-over school uniform. We have also lodged a financial claim with BDO, the school’s administrators for funds that were meant specifically for the school’s Alumnae, and we are hoping that this claim will be settled within the next 12 months.

We intend to launch the Association’s Affinity Scheme via the website. This is a scheme open to SOGA members to advertise goods and services at an exclusive discount rate to other Alumnae, which will hopefully provide a tangible benefit and value to our membership, and build new business relationships.

For details, go to: www.shaftesburyoldgirls.com.

SOGA is run entirely by volunteers. Our plans are bold, and, at the same time, we are waiving membership fees until the end of 2022, so if you could see your way to donating even a small amount, it would help enormously to support future events and activities. Unfortunately we are not a charity so cannot claim gift aid. Our bank account details are below:

£10

Pays for printing & posting SOGA News for an Old Girl who does not have a computer or smart phone.

£15

Pays for a month’s subscription for the website domain.

£43.20 Pays for SAGE accounts for the year. £185

Pays for a year’s subscription for the website domain.

£320

Pays for Squarespace website builder.

£1500

Would pay for hosting a reunion for the 2020 Leavers who were unable to say their goodbyes when the school closed.

Vicki (Stringer)Atherton 1990 Hon. Treasurer, SOGA

accounts@shaftesburyoldgirls.com

Account details: Bank: Natwest Bank account name: Shaftesbury Old Girls Association Account number: 87746859 Sort code: 55 70 34 Please reference your donation with your name.

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Message from SOGA’s Chair

Welcome to our second (bumper) edition

of SOGA News, which we hope along with the website, www.shaftesburyoldgirls.com will help you re-connect with friends old and new both socially and in business. I take this opportunity to congratulate and thank our indefatigable editor, Liz (Emberson) Moore on a truly first-class edition. Those of you involved in any kind of newsletter publishing know only too well how difficult and timeconsuming it is to prize ‘copy’ out of people and lay it all out, and hope you will agree that she has set the bar very high for us all.

When the news was confirmed in July 2020 that the School - a provider of first-class Catholic education for girls for the last 75 years - would close, there was a huge feeling of shock and sadness. Those of us who had been involved in the original SOGA, and several more former pupils since, decided to resurrect the Association. The new committee now includes representatives of former staff, parents and girls.

Although Coronavirus restrictions prevented us from holding a service of Thanksgiving at Shaftesbury this summer, we are planning to re-schedule this event and others next year and in the future, so I do urge you to register with us and contact your Regional Rep - contact details on next page.

We are delighted that the St Mary’s Dorset Centre of Excellence will re-open its doors in 2022, ultimately teaching 280 children with SEND. It is wonderful that the buildings and grounds will soon be buzzing with the happy sound of children once more, and we are very excited Dorset Council want to forge relationships with members of SOGA and we are exploring possibilities. So please contact your Regional Rep (see page 6) and watch our website www.shaftesburyoldgirls.com With best wishes to you all, Corinne (Simmonds) Gibbons, 1969 Chairman, SOGA 5

Flickr: St Mary’s School Shaftesbury. Courtesy of Dorset Council

Corinne (Simmonds) Gibbons1969

Regional Reps

When SOGA was re-established in 2020, we wanted to find a way of keeping the Shaftesbury spirit alive in all corners of the world. Below you will find a list of Representatives in different parts of the UK, Europe, and beyond to help you connect with us, wherever you are. And if you see your region isn’t represented and feel you’d like to volunteer as a point of contact, please get in touch with Gina Mellotte – gina@ginamellotte.com

The UK Region London (North) London (SW) Surrey Hampshire Wiltshire Dorset Dorset West Country East Sussex East Sussex West Sussex Gloucestershire & Heredfordshire Norfolk The North The North / Sheffield Scotland

Years at School

Rep Name

Contact

Priscilla (Richardson) Sharp Tammy (Barnes) Hunt Easter (Blake) Oxley Carolyn (Stringer) Guyer Jancis (Tagert) Henman Sarah Jane (Marshall) Chapman Guilietta Horner Gina (Mellotte) Marchesi Corinne (Simmonds) Gibbons Annie McManus Miranda Litchfield Suzyanna (Wright) Cocup

1948-1955 1989-1998 1950-1956 1980-1987 1965-1973 1985-1992 1972-1979 1982-1990 1963-1969 1963-1970 1964-1972 1979-1988

psharp0112@aol.com tammy.barnes@farrar.co.uk nfm_oxley@btinternet.com carolynguyer@aol.com jancishenman@hotmail.com sarahjanemarshall@me.com horner.gc@gmail.com gina@ginamellotte.com corinnemgibbons@gmail.com anniemcmanusisfield@me.com mirandalitchfield@gmail.com suzyanna@brooke-farm-ventures.co.uk

Anthea (Carton) Valdes-Scott Dee Webb Madeleine (Mimi) (Mason) Thomase Victoria (Torie) (Smallwood) Collins

1960-1968 ex-staff 1981-1987 1984-1992

anthea.valdes@gmail.com smsalumnae20@gmail.com rydalhouse@gmail.com victoriacollings@yahoo.co.uk

Europe Region

Rep Name

Years at School

Contact

Sweden France - Brittany France - Paris

Sara (Nicholson) Ingilby Clara (Moreland) Cronin Clare (Oxley) Gryzewski

1997-2004 sara@op-i.net 1977-1982 clara.morland@btinternet.com 1980-1985 clare.gryzewski@catalent.com

Belgium Luxembourg Eire - Dublin Eire Spain - Madrid Spain - Tenerife

Henriette tKint de Roodenbeke Chloe Lawday Jessica Eustace-Cook Naomi Williams Madeleine Legge Hannah (Nicholson) Pearson

2012-2014 1982-1988 1985-1990 1994-2000 1982-1990 1998-2003

Italy

Caterine Armanini

tel: 0033134488045 or mob: 0033685076010

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tkint.henriette@gmail.com clawday@hotmail.com jessica.eustace-cook@tcd.ie gnomesnw@gmail.com madeleine.legge@gmail.com hannahpearson1607@gmail.com tel: 0034664898074 1999-2003 caterina.armanini120517@gmail.com

Rest of the World Region

Rep Name

Years at School

Canada - Calgary Canada - Ontario Hong Kong Mexico New Zealand

Sarah (Kendall Tobias) Gaffikin Katie (Hawke) Dickinson Anna (Brown) Caldwell) Lucy Maynard Suzyanna (Wright) Cocup representing Suki (Stevens) Zoe Louise (Mellotte) McLean Adrienne (Drought) Brown Holly Millward Maria (Riveroll)Abdel-Musik Jane (Griffiths) Gibbens

Singapore Singapore UAE - Dubai USA - West Coast USA - Florida USA - Virginia

Alexandra (Church) Cherry Sarah (Knox) Reynolds Alexia (Barrett) Doherty Alexa (Tooth) Mothersole Maria (O’Brien) Drulard Tutti Foshay

Australia - NSW Australia - Canberra Australia - Sydney Australia - Southern Bali

1962-1968 1982-1991 1986-1990 1986-1992 1979-1986

Contact brighthelmjacks@gmail.com katiedickinson01@yahoo.co.uk anna.caldwell07@gmail.com lucymmaynard@gmail.com suzyanna@brook-farm-ventures.co.uk

1985-1993 louise_mellotte@yahoo.co.uk 1949-1956 drought1@gmail.com holly.millward@csm.com 1993-1994 maria.riveroll@gmail.com 1983-1988 rollpearls@me.com Tel: +64 27 345 9420 1987-1995 alex@lxrb.com 1983-1992 slc.reynolds@gmail.com 1983-1990 alexia.doherty@yahoo.co.uk 1983-1990 alexamothersole@gmail.com 1981-1990 mariadrulard@gmail.com 1984-1988 foshay@foshaydesign.com Tel: +1 646 2216333

SOGA members around the world We have over 1400 members on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/groups/stmarysoldgirlsassociation/ members, and 641 Old Girls have signed up to our website www.shaftesburyoldgirls.com. At the time of writing, September 2021, from our website, the data on who is living where is:

UK - 524 France - 5 Australia - 15 Austria - 2 Bahrain - 1 Belgium - 3 Brazil - 1 Canada - 6 Germany - 3

Hong Kong - 11 Ireland - 6 Italy - 3 Kenya - 2 Kuwait - 1 Luxemburg - 2 Mexico - 4 New Zealand - 3 Portugal - 1

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Singapore - 3 Spain - 11 Sweden - 2 Switzerland - 1 UAE - 3 USA - 16 Location unknown - 14

Dorset Council to open St Mary’s Dorset Centre of Excellence in 2022 Cllr Andrew Parry in a video welcoming viewers to Dorset’s “amazing St Mary’s Centre of Excellence for children with disabilities”

A new school with fantastic

facilities will improve the lives of Dorset children with SEND (special educational needs and or disabilities) and reduce future costs, after ambitious plans were given the go-ahead on 29 April 2021.

The new school will be for around 280 pupils with SEND, and a leading national centre All photos Courtesy of Dorset Council

of excellence. Dorset Council’s Cabinet carefully considered the views of local people, who overwhelmingly said it should continue to be used for education.

Cllr Andrew Parry, Dorset Council Portfolio holder for Children, Education and Early Help, said: “We have seized a unique opportunity to create something amazing for Dorset”.

“We have seized a unique opportunity to create something amazing for Dorset”.

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Cllr Andrew Parry, Dorset Council Portfolio holder for Children, Education and Early Help, said: “Our ambitious vision will reduce spending in the longer term because it costs almost three times as much to send a child away for private educational provision.

We currently have to do this because our own excellent special schools are over-subscribed”. “This site has wonderful facilities, it would have cost a great deal more and taken several years, to build such an amazing school.”

..it was one of those “too good to say no” opportunities.

Currently more than 250 Dorset children have to be sent away to independent special schools – at a cost of around £14 million a year. This is because it costs around £60,000 per child, per year for independent provision, compared to around £22,000 for high quality provision at one of Dorset’s own excellent special schools.

A wider ranging, ambitious £37.5m plan to improve the lives of Dorset children with SEND and reduce future costs was also unveiled by Dorset Council last month. This funding has been secured for the next five years to help deliver projects like St Mary’s, but also to create more provision in our existing high quality specials schools and new hubs at mainstream schools.

The St Mary’s site, which has extensive educational

facilities within 55 acres, was bought earlier this year after Dorset Council spotted its potential. The new school will be at the heart of a new centre of excellence on the site, with complementary facilities for vulnerable children, young people and adults.

The council’s plans to create a leading learning environment where professionals from across the region, and possibly nationally, can come together to learn, research and improve their practice. The centre will also be used to provide short breaks and respite care for vulnerable children and adults, as well as great facilities for our Dorset children in care and our care leavers.

Plans are also being drawn-up to try and create opportunities for local people in need to benefit from the site’s amazing facilities. Nothing has been decided yet, but it is hoped that people who have been prescribed activities by the NHS to boost their mental and physical health will be able to access some of the leisure facilities. Public access to the site will have to be carefully managed in order to safeguard the vulnerable children and adults who will be at the site, their safety and wellbeing has to be the top priority.

To see the video go to:

https://news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/2021/04/30/new-school-and-centreof-excellence-will-improve-lives-and-save-money/

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Clare’s mission

To rescue the uniform

Clare Young has raised over £800 for SOGA. 6 cubic metres of clothing will be making its way to a school in Kenya and a van load of essentials was donated to Afghan refugees in the UK.

Top: St Mary’s Bear in the latest kilt livery, above left: rescued uniform. Above: Cassia Thackray and her year on the day they got the long kilts back.

Like all of you, the shock closure of St Mary’s

completely turned our world upside down.

My two daughters, Mollie and Emily, lost their school and they were suddenly ‘old girls’… rather prematurely. There was a lot of scrabbling around and nursing wounds, it was a dreadful for everyone.

As Chair of the Friends of St Mary’s, I was allowed access to St Mary’s after its closure, it was a not a pleasant visit and you could quite literally feel the life draining out of the school. Where there was once laughter, there was emptiness, the echoing corridors were eerie and I longed to turn a corner and bump into a group of girls running for class. I found peace in the chapel though, your school is still a beautiful place and now it has a new role to play…in enriching the lives of children less fortunate than most. In our house, the news of the Special Educational Needs School for Dorset brought a sense of calm and relief. St Mary’s would once again work its magic…in a new chapter of its life.

On my tour of the school, I was overwhelmed by the endless piles of clothes, lost property, second hand uniform and rails and rails of kilts.

I could not stop thinking of it all and although I knew that it would be tricky trying to extract it all, I was determined. I could not let all of those beautiful clothes go to waste. I had to make something good happen from such a tragic situation.

So began by washing of shirts and selling them to a local private school, reclaiming things that the Friends of St Mary’s had not long purchased for the girls and selling them to claw back funds…I was determined to make some money for a gathering for all of the girls and staff that never had a chance to say goodbye. From that though came another mission…to find a way to

re-purpose the uniform and give new children some happiness. So, I set about gathering all that was left behind, and with the help of a few fellow parents and Bev Roberts, we managed to parcel up approximately 6 cubic meters of uniform which is destined for a school in Kenya. With the help of Old Girls Sophie (Sutton) Meeke and Hannah (Wolsey) Williams, we hope to get the uniform out there very soon. I cannot wait to see some photos of smiling children, wearing the beautiful new clothes. I hope that one day I will be able to share these photographs with you and that they will warm your heart as much as they are sure to warm mine.

I have also been giving you all a chance to get your hands on uniform that you perhaps lost along the way and of course, the St Mary’s Uniform bears promise to be very special indeed.

Once I have seen the uniform on show in Kenya and seen all of the school cohort upon closure say their goodbyes, I will finally be able to let go and be forever thankful that the St Mary’s spirit is in my girls, what lucky girls you all are.

However, does anyone have any bright ideas of what we can do with over 200 long kilts?!

KILTS AND BEARS FOR SALE Long kilts £25 each bears £50 inclusive of p&p in UK

Long kilts and bears are available in old tartan (background) or new tartan (bear and background on opposite page).

The kilts are big enough to make 2 or 3 cushion covers approximately 44 x 44cms out of each kilt.

Please email Clare Young clareey@btinternet.com to pay.

All profits go to SOGA.

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Afghan refugees receive SMS clothes

From Clare Young: “I took a donation of

new uniform to the charity, Wellington College Afghan Refugee Resettling Project, on 4th September. The clothing is for the families who arrived in the UK during the airlift from Kabul”.

Above: unpacking the car at Teals Farm Shop on the A303. Right: the mass of clothing and kit which had been collected at Wellington College.

The last Head Girl’s speech Cassia left St Mary’s in 2020. Little did she know when she gave her speech on Parents’ Day via the ‘net, that it would be the last SMS Head Girl’s speech ever.

Cassia Thackray 2020 O

ur year group has never had a calm, normal year.

We were the first to test out year group boarding, we had new GCSEs, then new A Levels, and a change to our Head of school. It was pretty ridiculous of us to think that we’d get through our final, most important year without something happening. But never did we expect that it would be, not actually having to take our A Levels and ending our 14 years of schooling on a random Friday in March 2020.

But because of the unexpected and unique experiences that seemed to revolve around St Mary’s, we all used it to our advantage, and everyone in my year took whatever cards we were dealt and used everything the school could give us; we’d never miss a cinema trip, supporting each other in a concert, an impromptu rounders match in the summer term, a long walk around the grounds or late night chats with endless slices of toast. In U3 we were told by a very special teacher, that you get whatever you give to St Mary’s tenfold, if you throw yourself into everything. And I think that is the key to making the most out of St Mary’s, and in life.

If you can look back on your time at St Mary’s as we can, with the utmost joy and appreciation, it will be because you’ve immersed yourself into everything the school has to offer.

Focusing on school work is important, sometimes, but making memories is vital for any St Mary’s girl and becoming a part of the community is the only way you’re going to do that; then, if you have an unexpected end to your year, you won’t look back 16

just remembering hours spent looking over notes and essays, you will also have so many stories to tell, which you’ll gladly look back on in the future.

When you look at a year group who lost out on the end of their final school year, one of the last emotions you’d associate with that is gratitude, but oddly enough, that’s something most of us have felt. Gratitude for each other, that I don’t think we would have realised without having to spend three unexpected months apart. The first thing we texted each other when it dawned on us that we weren’t going back to school; was how much we were going to miss each other.

The adventures our year could have got up to in our final term, could have rivalled our iconic memories: from sneaking down to the lakes after GCSEs, the secret Halloween parties in Rookwood (that were gate-crashed by the teachers), the cowboy themed social in U3, dressing up as the teachers for cross country, any memory in Loyola made 10 times better with Mrs Watts, the TikTok frenzy that took over U6, the classic Disney themed party, and the final day of GCSEs. And now we have realised how lucky we are to have had the most amazing seven years together, that we want nothing more than to go back.

There are some very special people who we must thank for that. The students, for whom every single one is a piece that makes up the amazing puzzle of St Mary’s, whether you’re someone who always steps forward and is happy being front and centre, or just someone who appreciates being a part of something

I must also wish the best of luck to Alexa, who has already shown that she is perfect for the role of a leader. With the help of her amazingly organised prefect team, I know they will do so much for this school.

Now, I really, really hope that no other year ends as ours did, but if your final year comes around too quickly, think of this quote that I found by Dr Seuss, which I think perfectly sums up what our year now thinks when we remember our time at St Mary’s. “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened”. Thank you.

and likes being back stage, all students are equally important in making St Mary’s the way it is, and so thank you from all of us, to every student for being a part of our St Mary’s adventure.

The teachers, who are by far the craziest, most passionate mentors who have never failed to provide us with the most hilarious memories, and taught us life-lessons that no book can teach. The boarding and community staff who became our second families by being there for us 24/7, providing us with all necessary food and hugs whenever needed.

Dr Enos and Mrs Young, who not only showed us how important it is to be inspiring leaders whilst running this remarkable school, but also for always listening to us; (the return of the long kilts; need I say more?!) And finally Mary Ward, a woman who spent her whole life as an activist for womens’ rights, and if we hadn’t had the amazing opportunity to come to this school we never would have learnt about this spectacular woman, and been taught her ethos to face every challenge with courage and compassion.

We could never give you all enough to express our thanks, but I hope the memories we leave behind are enough for now.

Clockwise from top: rolling down the maths corridor, dressing up as the teachers for crosscountry, charity ball in 2020, the English group with Mrs Key and sneaking down to the lakes after GCSEs.

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Sr Jane Livesey’s virtual speech for St Mary’s Prizegiving on 4 July 2020 Hello to you all, and thank you very much,

Mrs Young, for the invitation to speak at today’s Prizegiving. Whatever else one might say about our current worldwide situation, one thing is certain.

Absolutely no-one, in any place, in any context, can in these very different times use that well-worn phrase – we’ve always done it this way. And that goes for today and this 75th anniversary Prizegiving at St Mary’s – one more thing we’ve never done this way before. I am sure that no-one at St Mary’s, given the choice, would want to be doing it this way today. But there is one small advantage to doing it this way – a shorter speech from the guest speaker.

I want to highlight just two things in what I say today – one universal and one particular. – or at least particular to one group of people. Of that more anon.

The universal first: when you only have a short time to say something it focusses you on what you really want to say. So here goes. It has always been clear to me that any school is first and foremost a community. And my definition of a community is that it is a collection of people who all feel that they belong. In a school that belonging has something to do with being part of a collective endeavour which engages mind, heart and soul. And that collective endeavour has at its heart the search for the truth – that is what education is about – the search for the truth in all its manifestations.

Many years ago, I read something which has stayed with me ever since. It was a review of a television programme in which a then very well-known politician had been interviewed, together with people who had known and worked with him. One of those people revealed that the said politician had lied about something very significant, from which this person had drawn the conclusion that for Mr X “the truth was like a second home; he didn’t live there all the 18

time”. Witty, clever and in my view about the most damning thing you could say about anyone.

But what does it mean if the truth is to be our first home? I am reminded here of the finest thing I have ever read on this subject, written by a Benedictine nun, in which she talks about the “call of truth”.

Of it she says, that “it called in every experience – from the most sublime to the most mundane and domestic. It demanded intellectual integrity, the willingness to go on growing and keep my mind open to new facts or ideas even when they were disturbing, and the refusal to settle down in one corner of reality and make that the whole. Equally, it demanded sincerity and humanity in relationships, self-acceptance, and obedience to the call of God in prayer…This awareness of the call of truth has never left me, however I have faltered or fallen short in my response to it”.

The truth – and the search for it - is at the heart of education. The pursuit of all learning is the attempt to find the truth – whether it is the truth of a mathematical theorem or the truth behind a great work of art. A value for the truth is a communal as well as an individual virtue and its presence (or absence) runs like a thread through everything that a community does and is, just as it does in an individual. What a school like St Mary’s is surely about is inculcating the truth in those who belong to it, at every level of their lives – the spiritual, the emotional, the intellectual, even the physical. It is the truth and our pursuit of it that brings meaning and integrity to our lives. A slight but important digression – the pursuit of the truth does not always bring success – which is why, even on an occasion such as this, it is important to say that success is not the only thing that matters – non-prize winners, take heart. We often shy away from that other F-word – failure - but we shouldn’t because those of us who are

more advanced in years can testify to the fact that it can, if we allow it to, often be our greatest, if painful, teacher.

Those of you who are leaving St Mary’s as of today will have received much in your time at the school.

One word to you as you leave this place which has taught you so much more than what you need to get GCSEs and ASs and A2s, or whatever they are called these days. Value the truth – do not be economical with it, do not abuse it or manipulate it or cheapen it and be prepared to stand up for it, hard as that will sometimes be. If you remember nothing else of what I say today, remember the words of Mahatma Gandhi – “If you are a minority of one the truth is still the truth”. St Mary’s and your parents, between them, have equipped you, yes to go to university, yes to pursue a successful career, yes possibly to make lots of money – but most of all they have equipped you to go into the world as young women who recognise and value the truth and have been given the tools to live lives that ring true – as a good crystal glass does when you tap it with your fingernail. Don’t betray either yourselves or that wonderful inheritance which has been bestowed on you. And lest you think that is all a bit heavy it is also the case that having fun and enjoying yourself is just as much a part of the truth of being a human being as its more serious aspects! It’s all a question of balance.

There is one further aspect to the truth with which I would like to end. I began with the idea of the school as a community. I would maintain that community is inescapably bound up with belonging, with human relationships and with the belief, and more than the belief, the truth central to a school such as this, that no one person in it is intrinsically of any more or less worth or value than any other person. Indeed each person is a sacrament for all the others – a sacrament being, as many of you will remember, “an outward sign of inward grace” – the inward grace that each of us is made in the image and likeness of God, with all that that demands of us in terms of our relationships. If school is not, like home, a place where children and young adults learn the truth of the supreme value and importance of relationships in their lives – with God through prayer and with others – then their school will have let them down. And I, like all of you, firmly believe that that is not the case at St Mary’s. It is surely fundamental to a school such as St Mary’s that it is a place, a community, which offers to all those in it, but especially its pupils an ethos of trust, and of unqualified respect for the unique and equal worth of each individual in it, within the context of 19

a collective quest for the highest of standards in all that is undertaken, for integrity and for truth. It’s a high ideal and one which we do not, any of us always attain – so to those ingredients must be added that other one distinctive of any Christian establishment and most of all a school where values are being taught for the life that lies beyond – forgiveness.

Because forgiveness is the compassionate face of the truth.

So, an end to the universal and now to the particular – members of the Upper Sixth, for whom this must be a bittersweet day more than for anyone else in the St Mary’s school community, this is my message to you. When Mary Ward, who has gazed affectionately on you from the chapel wall for so many years, was dying, in a tiny village just outside York in 1645, with the very few of her first companions who had stuck by her, she said to them “Cherish God’s vocation in you; let it be constant, efficacious and affectionate”. Yes, she was talking to them but I think she was talking to each of us, to you, too.. We really should cherish God’s vocation in ourselves – and in each other. Just by virtue of bringing us to life and creating us in His image and likeness God has given each one of us – each one of you - a vocation, a calling, to be the person He has it in mind for us to be. It’s the most precious gift and He has given you a whole lifetime in which to explore and discover it. You have been given a wonderful start to that exploration here at St Mary’s.

It is an exploration that requires constancy – for engaging with it even when it is hard and painful and for taking delight in it when it is full of joy. It is an exploration that can and should be efficacious – and a thing is efficacious when it does what it was created to do – living your lives to the full, not just coasting by or skating over the surface but really getting stuck in and making the most of every opportunity God sends. And finally, and most important of all, it should be affectionate – affectionate, loving of God, loving and accepting of yourselves and loving of the other people in your lives, not least your St Mary’s friends, who I know from my earlier incarnation here, are friends for life. If you can take with you on the next stage of the adventure of your lives those three gifts of Mary Ward – constancy, efficaciousness and affection – you will find, as life unfolds, that St Mary’s gave you even more than you know today.

Thank you very much for listening and I wish you all very happy summer holidays.

Sr Jane Livesey is General Superior of the Congregation of Jesus. She is based in Rome and was headmistress of St Mary’s 1985-1998.

St Mary’s 2021

Photographed by Stephanie (Gibbons) Kalber in January 2021

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Stephanie Kalber’s SMS in pictures In January 2021 professional photographer,

photographic record of the school as we knew it was vitally important.

She says “If you thought the junior school boot room and the under croft were creepy on a normal day, try walking around them in the dark in a completely deserted school! I had to take a few deep breaths and just feel into the darkness for the light switch. I was surprised by my own body’s muscle memory that on many occasions, if I shut my eyes and just reached out, I could remember exactly where the switches were in Mulwith House, my old home in the clock tower.”

“It was a hugely difficult thing to undertake alone, both physically and emotionally, it was lonely but also incredibly comforting to be ‘home’. I stopped on the way home for a bag of prawn cocktail crisps and a good cry. Both from exhaustion and also relief that after weeks of negotiating I had finally done it.”

A sample of the hundreds of photos she took are published here and more will be placed on the SOGA website with plans for a book to be published later in the year.

We are incredibly grateful to Stephanie, because due to the change of ownership, without these photos we would have no record of these familiar buildings which hold so many memories for us all.

Stephanie (Gibbons) Kalber 1997 was given special permission to make a photographic record of St Mary’s.

A false start in December had seen her drive the 3 hours from her home in Sussex, only to find the school in complete darkness due to a power cut covering the entire Shaftesbury area.

In January, (with even fewer daylight hours!) she made the trip again. Dorset’s winter weather was true to form, and with slate grey skies and snow flurries she arrived at Shaftesbury. Due to Covid restrictions she was working alone and was given just 3 hours access to cover every inch of the site. The offices near the Hatch that were being used by the site manager and his staff were heated but the rest of the school was dark and very cold. Luckily the first ‘recce’ had given her a glimpse of the enormity of the job and she’d come back prepared with a thermal base layer, strong boots and a few energy drinks.

Stephanie was able to gain access before we had any idea who the buyers might be and what the future held for the school. At the time there was a real concern that this would be the last time a member of SOGA would be allowed back inside.

With the Old Girls not owning the copyright to any previous images or promotional material, making a

About Stephanie

Natasha Cheek Photography

I live in Sussex with my husband Tom, our twins Grace and Luke, Tia the dog and Amelia the cat.

Originally both born and bred Londoners, Tom & I made the big move out of London at the end of 2016.

I now split my time between Sussex and London but find myself all over the UK for work.

I trained at Kingston University and then at London College of Fashion before going on to complete my MA in Photojournalism at Westminster Uni. specialising in natural/low light & documentary photography.

I have been lucky enough to work all over the world as a photojournalist including for the UN in Nairobi as well as UK news specialising in riots and political demonstrations at home in London. Since moving to Sussex I have stepped away from the fast paced journalism world & now focus on more lifestyle articles, corporate events & the occasional documentary style wedding.

www.stephaniekalber.com 22

23

Susan (Banwell) Lady Briggs 1951 in conversation with Dee Webb

Daughter of a Wiltshire farmer, Susan was the first girl at St Mary’s to go to Oxbridge. Mother of four and author, she was a tireless support to her husband, the writer and historian, the late Lord Briggs who was a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during the war. She lives in Lewes at the home she and her husband bought in 1972.

Dee: It is so good to talk with you today. Please tell me about the school’s early days, why you went to St Mary’s and the girls you remember.

Lady Briggs: During the war, American servicemen were at Coombe House, as St Mary’s was called before it became a school. The nuns opened it in time for the Michaelmas term in 1945. I had already been at the convent when it had been evacuated to Bratton, and I moved with all the school to Shaftesbury. I’d been a weekly boarder at Bratton, which was near to the village (Keevil in Wiltshire) where I came from. I had been doing quite well there and my parents decided to let me become a full boarder, despite not being a Catholic. The nuns were called “Mother” at that time, and Reverend Mother Imelda was at the head.

Ann (Barnett) Billinghurst 1952 was one year younger than me. She went to St Hilda’s a year after I went up to Oxford. Her friend was also a pupil, called Blanch (Gilbert) Mcsweeney, who was the niece of Reverend Mother Imelda and Mother Felicity. The Gilberts had 8 daughters, and after the girls left school their paths ran: nun, married, nun, married, nun, married, nun, married.

Dee: What did you study at university?

Lady Briggs: I read PPE at St Anne’s Oxford.

Dee: Did you have to stay on an extra year at school to sit Oxbridge entrance exams?

Lady Briggs: No, the nuns let me have a go in the 4th term. They had no experience of preparing people for Oxbridge entrance, so it was a dummy run, and it came off. I don’t think I could have put up with another year at school. I was absolutely ready to go.

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Dee: What was your favourite subject and teacher?

Lady Briggs: History and Mother Gregory who became Reverend Mother and Reverend Mother Provincial. My husband and I used to stay and see her at the Bar Convent in York. She was by then in her 90s. We stayed there overnight on our way to Scotland once or twice. We talked about old times.

She was a Cambridge graduate, and she and my husband, who had also been at Cambridge, had wonderful conversations about their time there in the 30s - they had had some of the same lecturers.

Portrait by Stephanie Kalber

Dee: What can you remember about arriving at school?

Lady Briggs: I remember the long drive – it was usually my mother who drove me – going up to

the front door. I think the worst of it had already happened - my nervousness was when I started at the convent at Bratton. So I was used to the nuns by the time Shaftesbury opened. I was 10 when I started at Bratton and 12 by the time Shaftesbury opened. I stayed until the UVI.

Looking back on it, the only subjects taught at St Mary’s were those where there was a convenient nun, who was qualified to teach it. There was Mother Gregory, who taught not only history but also geography extremely well. Mother Michael was the Headmistress, much feared and not much loved – she had been at Bedford College in London and taught English, I think, very poorly. We used to have a whole day holiday on the feast of St Michael on the 29th of September, which was really much too near the beginning of the school year. Then there was an Austrian nun called Mother Catherine, who taught German and French and a nun called Sister Clare, because I think she hadn’t yet taken her final vows.

She had been at Reading University and had done a multiple – three subject course including Latin, which she taught. You had to have Latin to get into Oxbridge. You literally could not go to Oxbridge without it.

Dee: Can you remember much about sport?

Lady Briggs: Yes, I played hockey. I was captain of the 2nd XI. I was rather slow but quite well coordinated.

I was in the 1st Tennis VI and in the netball VII. I wasn’t bad at sport. But there was an Irish girl called June Dwyer, who was a brilliant tennis player and played at Junior Wimbledon, and she put the rest of us to shame.

We used to have a tennis coach who came over once a week in the summer term from Downside, called Mr Charles Roupell, who was a sort of figure of the ‘30s and wore elegant white flannels. He was a very stylish player, who was on the edge of being well known. Once a year in the summer term, the 1st tennis team played a mixed doubles tournament with Downside. The nuns behaved as if these shy boys were sex maniacs and would jump out of the bushes at us. We were hardly allowed to have a glass of lemonade with them after the match.

Curiously, and in spite of the distance, I remember more girls who had brothers at Ampleforth, than at Downside.

1948 was an Olympic year, and we were in the LV. The whole school was told that an exciting event was about to take place at the gates of the convent. We had to run down the drive to see a flaming baton change hands just outside the gates on the Dorset/ Wiltshire border. I puffed my way down there (being subject to respiratory problems, I always got out of breath). We found one scraggy middle-aged man in shorts hand over a sort of stick to another similar chap. Possibly the flame had gone out. Anti-climax!

Unmemorable, yet I do remember it.

Top: The tennis team and above: Mixed doubles tennis matches were played with boys from Downside in the summer term.

Dee: Do you remember many of the girls?

Lady Briggs: There were several girls I remember either slightly older than me or about the same age, who were going to become nuns. There was one called Barbara Barry, who was about a year older than me. Ailsa Le Marchand, she was a chatterbox, who became Sister Louise.

I think the nuns didn’t appreciate the beauty of Shaftesbury – the wonderful grounds. I don’t remember any nun teaching us the names of trees or flowers or birds. It was as if they weren’t interested.

Were they perhaps just looking inwards to their vocation? Looking back on it, wasn’t it such a wonderfully beautiful place.

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Dee: Do you remember anything about the buildings?

Lady Briggs: Of course there are very many more buildings at the school now than when I was there.

The Clock House was there. And we were taught

Dee: Did you have any responsibilities towards the end of your school-life?

Lady Briggs: They asked me to be a member of the Sodality of Children of Mary, but I said “thanks but no thanks”. I said that it is really something for Catholics. I was offered it, which I think was thought to be an honour. You had to be basically good.

I became a prefect, and in my last year there was an argument within the community, whether they should make a non-Catholic Head Girl. I didn’t want to be as I wanted to concentrate 100% on getting into Oxbridge. Some of the nuns said it might offend the more pious parents and others said that on grounds of seniority and ability, I should be. In the end, they came to a good British compromise and I shared the responsibility with my friend Ann (Barnett) Billinghurst.

There were only two houses, the Mores and the Fishers, after St Thomas More and St John Fisher. I was head of the Mores.

in pre-fab buildings, which each had a door to the outside and you had to step up into them.

We went through the extremely cold winter, which is still famous, of 1946-1947. And I remember we all tried to huddle round the radiator and we were told not to sit on it lest it would give us piles. We didn’t know what piles were! We certainly got chilblains.

Dee: What did you do in the evenings?

Lady Briggs: Mother Michael used to read to us in the Blue Common Room. She wasted what would have been a wonderful opportunity to introduce us to some of the not-too-long classics, like “Treasure Island” or “Lilliput” from “Gulliver’s Travels” and other really good literature, but she would read school-girl stories. There was a series called the Dimsie books. Early on we would find bits of old chewing gum stuck under the window seats, left by the Americans who had been there during the war.

The main hall was a splendid room. There was a very good grand piano, which I played. Music was one of the subjects best taught, by a tiny little nun called Mother Teresita, who also trained the choir and was an inspirational teacher. We took part in the Choral Festival at Bath some years, and she encouraged me to go through all the grades of piano.

Dee: Did you have any days off?

Lady Briggs: We were once allowed to go to the cinema in Shaftesbury to see a film about Chopin, “A Song to Remember”. The other place we used to go to, usually when our parents came to take us out, was King Alfred’s Kitchen. There was a little tiny room with good relaxing reading books, but it was only open on special days. The rest of the time we could only read serious literature from the main library.

There was nothing laid on in the evenings. There was no listening to music – there was no equipment to listen to it on.

Dee: Did you play later on in life?

Lady Briggs: I dropped it which was very foolish of me. But nothing in life is wasted, it enhanced my ability to appreciate music - even my general knowledge. Though I do regret having let it go.

Dee: Did your parents come often to take you out?

Lady Briggs: No, but other girls’ parents did and I think they also went to have tea at the Grosvenor Hotel. But we hardly ever went into Shaftesbury – we lived very isolated lives. On Sunday mornings we had to write to our parents. There was a post collection on Sunday afternoons. I only went to Mass when it was a sung Mass because I was leader of the choir. Not that I have a wonderful solo voice but I could sing in tune, and was a reliable sight reader. I practiced piano when everyone else was at Mass.

Susan’s class outside the huts, which were demolished only about 20 years ago when the Campion Music Centre was built.

Dee: Do you remember doing anything naughty?

Lady Briggs: I was quite well behaved, but every July 4th, Independence Day, I went for a walk on my own in part of the grounds which were out of bounds, the Coombe. It was usually during Mass instead of my piano practice. It was towards the end of the term. I remember it always being a beautiful morning, with 26

The school in the 1950s with the pre-fab huts on the left. Until 1963 when the new chapel was built, the lower buildings to the right of the main house above housed the Refectory and the Chapel. the sun shining and I felt excited and getting a bit of a thrill that I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be.

I also read “The Forsyte Saga”, which was on the Catholic Index. I put a brown paper cover on it and put my name on it as if it were a text book. I carried it around with me, and once I left it outside the Refectory with all the other books people left there, and I was worried it would be spotted, but it wasn’t.

But I was, I would say, extremely well behaved. I was very independent and very much a free-thinker and I was never on the verge of being converted. I went to our village church when I was at home, and was confirmed in Salisbury Cathedral.

Once a year on Corpus Christi we went to Wardour Castle and processed around the grounds. We wore the ordinary veils we wore in chapel.

The chapel was at the end after the Refectory. I was amazed when I went back about 20 years ago, that there was a completely new chapel. We had been staying with some friends in Sherborne. We were passing by and I said could we just go up the drive.

As we drove up the long drive my stomach went into that sinking feeling I used to have on Sunday nights, Monday mornings or at the beginning of term going back to school - it was absolutely on auto-pilot.

Dee: What did you go on to do?

Lady Briggs: I was married when I was 22 and I was working towards a higher degree. So I didn’t really have a career, but I eventually wrote two books and various articles.

My husband was made a peer in 1976 for his work in education. We started our married life in Leeds.

We were there for 6 years. Three of our four children were born in Yorkshire and the last one was born after we came to Sussex in 1961 when my husband was appointed the first academic dean at Sussex University. Eventually we came back to Sussex after 15 years in Oxford, where Asa had been Head of Worcester College.

After I left Shaftesbury they did get people into Oxbridge. They prepared people quite intensively and made sure they were teaching the right syllabus.

Dee: In your email you said that not all your memories were flattering.

Lady Briggs: I think the absence of any proper maths or science, really was disgraceful. No school nowadays could get away with it. I remember Mother Felicity giving us a botany lesson in LV on stamens and stigma, and that was about it. I think the lack of science and maths was to some extent sexist - it was thought not to be necessary for girls.

When I decided to read PPE at Oxford I deliberately chose a subject which would make me do numerate things, because I just fancied that I could have done it. So, I chose the economics special subjects. It was really quite masochistic in a way, but I wanted to prove to myself that I was numerate.

27

Dee: Were there many girls at Oxford when you were there?

think propinquity put us together, and now we get on better than we ever have.

We went to Paris together in the summer I had done A Levels before going to Oxford. There were four of us - one from Frome and the other from Devizes, but they were nothing to do with school, though we all went to Oxford. We stayed in a very cheap hotel and had a wonderful time. My parents let me go as a reward for getting into Oxford. It was a time when you were only allowed to take £25 abroad. That was the case after the war. I had to make £25 last a month and somehow we managed to sit it out eating very little. Ann’s father was a shipping broker and he managed to get us back on a boat going to Portsmouth or Plymouth. There was a photograph taken of me on the deck of that boat and I am skeleton thin. I was obviously suffering from malnutrition.

Susan in the middle of the front row on the lawn by the rhododendrons.

Lady Briggs: No, there was only about 1 woman to 6 or 7 male undergraduates in the whole of Oxford University at that time, and of course there weren’t any mixed colleges until the 1970s. In fact when we were at Worcester College, my husband presided over the admission of the first women in 1979. The place became much more normal and balanced.

Retrospectively, I would have loved the chance to go to one of the older and more beautiful, central colleges, but I felt perfectly happy and fortunate to be there at all.

When I first went to the convent, particularly the pre-Shaftesbury time at Bratton, I felt an outsider and very inferior because I had a real Wiltshire accent.

My parents were not well educated – my father had left school at 12 and my mother at 14. So we couldn’t have any kind of cultural conversation and I was very conscious of my lack, and would get embarrassed about reading in class. One day the word ‘chic’ came up and I just said “chick” and everyone laughed.

At Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Two friends from Wiltshire with Ann (Barnett) Billingshurst and Susan.

Dee: Do you remember other girls?

Lady Briggs: I had one friend called Judith White, whose father was a Cambridge don and he was the only contact I had in academic life. When I finished the Vth form and was going to do A Levels, I was desperate to go to university. I wrote to Mr White to ask him if he thought I should go to the Godolphin School in Salisbury. I really needed to go somewhere where they had Sixth Form scholarships. Mr White wrote back to me, the letter was opened by Mother Michael and I was summoned to her study. I thought I was going to get into trouble, but then I realized that my stock was high – and they would do almost anything to keep me – I was their white-hot hope.

After that I was allowed to keep my light on at night to study and a nun would bring up a cup of Horlicks for me.

I realized that I would never be able to get away. I didn’t regret staying, but I wondered for those two years whether it would come off or not.

Dee: Do any of your children live nearby?

Lady Briggs: My older son when he is in England.

His house is about 4 miles from here in a village called Barcombe going towards East Grinstead. But his job is in Monaco, so he is out there most of the time. Our younger son lives in London, my elder daughter at Epsom and my younger daughter is near High Wycombe.

I am in touch with Ann (Barnett) Billinghurst. She lives in a village called Charlwood near Gatwick.

We didn’t see much of each other at Oxford, but I 28

My A Level subjects were French, Latin and History and subsidiary subjects: English Literature and Greek authors in translation, and at the same time I was doing Grade 8 piano, so I really was busy. No wonder I did not want to be Head Girl.

Dee: Did you have any siblings?

Lady Briggs: No, my poor mother lost two baby boys one on either side of me. So I was the survivor and everything depended on me.

Dee: I am sure your parents must have been very proud of you.

Lady Briggs: Yes, but my father did not know how to express pride or encouragement. However he did a wonderful thing, when I was called for interview at Cambridge, he crossed the country in a snow-storm to get me there.

Dee: So you had an interview at Cambridge as well as Oxford?

Lady Briggs: Yes, at that time you could apply for both. Cambridge was the week before Oxford, and at Cambridge they told me to come back the following year. The interview didn’t go all that well, and I had got up from ‘flu to drive in this snow-storm.

In the middle of the night at Newnham College, I remember getting up and putting the hearth rug on the bed because I was so cold. It wasn’t really fit for human habitation. But then I went to Oxford and the whole atmosphere was different, lighter, brighter and somehow younger – less donnish and everything I had ever dreamed of, and they were prepared to take me that year.

Something – I think her mother had remarried as a widow someone who was no more than a “sir”, and they were bowing and scraping to this couple. The nuns who did the manual work were completely separated from the academic staff. There was absolutely no way that one of the domestics would climb the ladder and better themselves. It was a very static, hierarchical society.

There was one nun, Mother Stanislav, who was a sort of matron and she looked after people when they were poorly. I think the nuns were kind rather than over strict. But I don’t remember any of them telling a joke.

They had no visual appreciation of art and they gave us no introduction to it. They used to exchange those dreadful sentimental little Holy pictures with representations of the Sacred Heart and Our Lady, which even then I didn’t like. And all along they could have had reproductions of old masters.

But I was very lucky with music. Music was a different matter altogether. That was so well taught

by Mother Teresita. Miss Dalrymple came in once a week to teach the violin and Miss White, ballet. I had to do ballet as I had a slight curvature of the spine and they thought it would be good for me; and I absolutely hated it.

Going to St Mary’s was a good experience; it got me off the farm. I had passed the 11+, but my mother wouldn’t let me go to Trowbridge Girls’ High School, because she said there were too many rough boys on the school bus. So she sent me to the convent which was only 5 miles away at Bratton.

Did she secretly want me to become a “lady” or was she genuinely worried about those boys on the bus?

Dee: Did you meet your husband there?

Lady Briggs: Yes, but not until soon after I had graduated.

Dee: Can you remember much about the food at school?

Lady Briggs: it was very poor. I remember the rice pudding was like bullets in milk - I mean they really couldn’t cook. Just after the war there wasn’t much food about, but they didn’t make the best of what they had. The tables in the Refectory were set for seven, and when I was a more senior person, I learnt how to divide (the food) into seven by cutting two unequal halves – one into three and the other into four.

I do remember it was a class-ridden society – I think the nuns were quite snobbish. I remember there was one girl whose mother was Lady

Susan on her 60th birthday with Lord Briggs , their children and grand children.

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Courtesy of Dorset History Centre /D-1567/2/3

The Fifties

Eda Moore’s collection at Dorset History Centre

holds these photos taken on 28 May 1955 of a performance of ‘Twelth Night’ or ‘Taming of the Shrew’. Priscilla (Richardson) Sharp has identified herself (above left) leaning out of the window, and

writes: “I think Susanah Hills is on the balcony, with maybe Elizabeth Pinney as the Jester”, and (above) “Gillian Harding, Sheelagh Downey, not certain of the next two, then Elfrida Heath and Diana Stacpoole. In the back row: Tessa Longley and Vanessa Vassal Adams and Mary Putnam”.

We’d dearly like to caption the photos for Dorset’s archive. So if you can identify yourself and/or friends, please can you email me: liz.moore340@gmail.com

Netball team in 1953 Top left - Veronica Rigby, Mary Meaden, Priscilla Richardson, Margaret Greenwood.

Bottom left - Paulette Pennell, Erica House, Marcia Rimmington.

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Adrienne (Drought) Brown

M

1956

(6ft) and Sister Anthony (4ft 8in) were best friends and used to walk and talk together. My best friend Gillian Longden, 1956 drew a wonderful cartoon of them!

At a general election one year I was a runner for the Conservatives. All the nuns (being Conservatives) were listed by their original names and one address - the convent, which I copied. So Gillian and I would keep calling out these names around the nuns to try and identify them! I was in deep trouble! Mother Scholastica taught English Grammar and used ‘Box Analysis’ which I have yet to find on the internet. It was so easy to analyse English sentences.

I hope one day SOGA can have a reunion after COVID and I am still able to travel!

y daughter, Lizzie (Brown) Blackburn attended St. Mary’s for three terms in 1977 while we were in England for a short time. She now lives in Seattle.

My mother (a war widow) lived in Donhead St Mary and I was a day girl. I bussed to school walking up the beech avenue each morning. Mother Michael was headmistress for my early years, and I vividly remember her coming into the day girls’ lunch room telling us the King had died!

We have snow here now in January, but it’s still not too cold. In February we usually have temperatures around -20 to -38 degrees centigrade. I walk my dog, Maggie, (Springer Spaniel seen above with me and Tilly a guest), for an hour off-leash in a woodland every morning. I have been a widow for two years, so she is my constant companion especially during this COVID-19 lockdown.

My husband, Ronald, was very ill for three years and could no longer enjoy life, so it was a blessing when he died. We were married for 56 years and traveled the world as he was in the Canadian Armed Forces. We were in London for three years at the Canadian High Commission and I was able to attend one of the Old Girls’ functions at St. Mary’s. I saw Caroline (Brotherton-Radcliffe) Cardozo, 1956 She is tiny and had 13 children and at that time had 27 grandchildren!

I think the older I get, the more I like to remember the good times. I still have a couple of my old one-page school reports. One said I was often ‘troublesome’ - I think of them as good times! I remember so many of the nuns. They were so good and tolerant of us youngsters. Mother Scholastica

Adrienne - is SOGA’s Regional Representative for Ontario and would be delighted to hear from you.

Her email is drought1@gmail.com. To find other Regional Reps, please see p6-7.

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1969

© Stephen McKay (cc-by-sa/2.0)

Self-isolating 355 years ago

Rosanne (Edge-Partington) Hodin 1969, recalls a student workshop at her Plymouth school

This year, last year, we all probably heard or were

wall. Tracy, Paige and Emma were a family unit where the father was sick with the plague and his reminded of the story of the plague at Eyam in terrified wife and daughter were trying to arrange 1665/6 where the newly infected village community decided to self-isolate to prevent further spread of the how best to care for him. Lorna and Debbie decided to be the undertaker and an impoverished elderly plague. My new drama intake of Y10 back a decade widow. Suzy, Danielle and Livvy wanted to be one ago, in our inner city all girls comprehensive, Notre spokesperson for the village and his two unhappy Dame in Plymouth, were about to learn about it. neighbours, while Jade and Abbie chose to be The drama studio always had a magical feel, Mompesson the priest and his wife. Chrissie and keeping quite separate from the hubbub of school Tanya were a frightened young couple who were activities, with blackout blinds, hushed voices. We expecting their first child. Donna and Juno decided were sitting on the floor in a circle with a candle in to be the most wealthy landowning and farming the middle, getting to grip with the basic facts of the couple and let Frankie in to their group to be their Eyam story. There were questions and ideas about daughter. There were others choosing to become what sort of lives the Eyam folk were living, what anxious and small family units. they were likely to be eating, wearing, what would My job was simply to circulate, prompting their normal workaday lives be, what housing they endlessly with questions and checking that we didn’t might enjoy. The students were eager to embellish the have too many similar scenarios. I was impressed as detail. they discussed the seriousness of the situation and Their tasks then followed: in pairs or threes they the absolute need to protect the wider community had to create an improvised scene involving the from the plague, regardless of the sacrifices and Eyam inhabitants as they responded to the idea of hardship it might entail. The lovers thought they plague coming into their community and its impact could deceive the village and arrange meetings but upon them. Twenty-four students of mixed ability, ultimately decided it was unfair and risky, so parted. aged 14 and 15, set off on a journey of unbelievable The hard-nosed undertaker devised a scene with imaginative power. Janine and Lucy decided to be the help of the widow to organise burials, and she lovers who had to part, each side of the separating 32

Flickr / Chris Hoare

became a voice of reason when deaths became too many and payment for burial became difficult.

The farmer was persuaded to share out his stored food, bereaved families elected to become nurses, the village leader attempted to get his wife and children out under cover of darkness and they were stopped and disgraced… the stories the students put together all involved ethical decision making and confronting some uncomfortable issues; there was conflict and loss and resolution.

Over several weeks the improvisations were polished and ready for performance. We had simple costume skirts or jerkins and white kerchiefs. None of the group had yet seen each other’s work but I had worked out the running order and the show was on.

The girls’ honesty in performance was wonderful, all were completely in character, man, woman, young, old, poor, disadvantaged, powerful.

And they were so moved to see the wider community of Eyam emerge before them, mostly selfless, focused on doing the difficult right thing whilst struggling with hunger, illness, personal tragedy, neighbourly resentment, neighbourly support, kindness, generosity of spirit.

Ten years ago. These are young women now, maybe mothers being driven crazy by home education, maybe on their own in a flat, maybe needing the food bank, delivering on-line groceries, suffering from the restrictions which make us all isolated, lonely, bored, frightened, financially compromised, unemployed.

I wonder if they remember their awesome work as villagers in Eyam. As children their instinct was flawless.

Above: The death of the tailor - the first plague victim at Eyam and Reverend Mompesson illustrated in the windows of St Lawrence Church, Eyam. Opposite: a plague cottage now Eyam Musem, Derbyshire.

Out Now

The literary agent, A.M. Heath writes: “Rosanne Hodin had an orderly childhood, a misspent youth and an overloaded adulthood.

She has been an office slave, a glassblower, a welder, mature student, teacher, volunteer in Africa, mother, farmer and ambivalent sailor”.

She is author of Growing Goats and Girls, Tales from the good life on a Cornish Farm, which, if you are in need of curling up with a book which is heart-warming, uplifting and a jolly good read, look no further. It lovingly and invitingly charts the rural, hardworking and joyfully haphazard lives of Rosanne and her husband, Michael, as they escape London to live off the land. It reminds us to appreciate the fleeting, timeless moments of beauty, nature and the simple comforts of family life.

Growing Goats and Girls by Rosanne Hodin is published by Hodder & Stoughton and is out now.

Available from Amazon, Waterstones and all good bookshops.

1969 Lesley (Salisbury) Sergeant

“So, how do you fancy a posting to Bangkok?” said

collecting the girls from school. Thai traffic is legendary; you could be stuck, totally stationary, for at least an hour, with pedestrians and street vendors weaving their way through the cars and buses. Traffic light waits could be 10 minutes or more, so people would usually jump the lights.

This caused even more chaos and gave opportunity for more street vendors selling roses or “perfume” or offering to wash your windscreen.

After I gave birth to Peter, early the following year, I was offered a job at a local Pre-school, Noddy, run by an English lady married to a Thai doctor. Pete used to come with me and I had a little class of eight children, aged two to two and a half. We teachers chose our own curriculum and I spent many hours looking for pictures to copy on the duplicator. Every morning, the children would raise the Thai flag and sing “Good morning, good morning, good morning to you, Good morning, good morning and how do you do!” Noddy is still going strong! Several of my little pupils’ mothers asked if I would teach them to speak English like me and so I had a few coming to my house.

I was sad to leave Bangkok and my little ones in 1985, when we returned to UK for a few years.

However, in 1993, having been living for five years in Barbados, again my husband said, “How do you fancy a posting to Bangkok?”

my husband, Martin, some time in 1982.

We were living in a house on the beach in Grand Turk; we had a cat, which we had inherited from the previous tenants of the house, and two local ponies.

We also had my son Robin, aged 9, who had recently started prep school in England, and daughters Cerian, aged 7 and Rosie, aged 4. Did I want to uproot them from their beach-side life . ..?

We arrived in Bangkok in August of that year, me newly pregnant, and were soon established in one of the many multi-storeyed apartment blocks.

Cerian and Rosie started at the local UK-curriculum international school and I signed up with the Thai obstetrician. We had a maid, Ja, and a minimaid, one of Ja’s nieces. Also a driver, Chamnong, so I didn’t have to spend hours in the Thai traffic 34

Pete was 10 by now and we decided to take him to Bangkok with us, where he spent a year, before going off to prep school. I took a morning job teaching 4-5 year olds at another International Pre-school.

I had got used to my children’s travelling back and forth between the UK and wherever we happened to be, but with the youngest now leaving the nest, I needed a bit more than the endless coffee mornings, lunches and cocktail parties that are so much part of the ex-pat life.

So, starting with the children of Thai friends, and a couple of my own class pupils, I started teaching English after I’d finished work. My collection of Thai children grew and by the time we left Bangkok in 1998, I was teaching 2 classes of 12 children on Saturdays and at least 2 children every day after school at my home, where I had set up a classroom.

By now, I had my own photocopier, which was much easier to use than the old Noddy duplicator! I roughly followed one of the OUP courses and there happened to be an OUP outlet not too far from our flat, so I was well supplied with teaching materials.

We had our cat, Bumble, who had travelled with us to Malawi and Barbados, before coming to Bangkok, and we had a couple of rabbits living on the balcony, as well as some budgies. The children were fascinated by our animals and spent a good deal of time drawing them and having English conversations about them and their care.

Teaching English to foreign children is very different to teaching adults (I had done a TEFL(A) course in England). Whereas with adults TTT (Teacher Talking Time) was to be kept minimal, with children it seemed the more I talked, the more they picked up. The older ones studied English at school, but although they generally had learned a fairly wide vocabulary, they were not so good at pronunciation, having been taught by Thai teachers who may or may not have been English speakers! One little girl hardly said a word to me in class for about 6 months, but then came out with a beautifully enunciated “I like Mrs Lesley’s animals so much” and after that there was no stopping her!

We left Bangkok for UK in 1998 and I had earned enough from my teaching to be able to buy myself Crunchie, a lovely horse, still in the family and now aged 29.

Teaching English to children in Oxford is not so easy to set up although I did eventually take on a couple of dyslexic children, alongside being a classroom assistant at a local primary school.

However, I think teaching may be in my blood, because, having moved in 2019 to Aberdeenshire 35

1969

to be near Rosie and her family, I now find myself teaching her 4 home-educated children art and poetry one day a week.

Although we managed 34 years in total, Martin’s and my marriage was not a happy one, but I have my four wonderful children to be thankful for.

I met and married Ian, someone I had known during one of our periods of living in Oxford.

We ran a small business together in Oxford, Mr and Mrs Fixit, doing home maintenance, refurbs, fitting kitchens etc, both hands-on! I was basically the decorating department and Flat Pack Queen.

However, I was finding I didn’t have the time to ride my lovely Dales pony and seemed to be working just to pay for his livery, so took the decision to move to Aberdeenshire, near to Rosie. Ian wasn’t really keen on the move, but seems to have become more adjusted to it, having had a few lockdowns. He has a rock band in Oxford - Asterox! We still have Mr and Mrs Fixit and he will spend time down in Oxford whenever he can, staying with the tenants in our old house there, being Mr Fixit and singing with his band.

Opposite page: above: The Sita family from Bangkok with Crunchie and me in Oxford; below: my children on our favourite beach in Grand Turk, and this page above: Ing in Bangkok my 7 year-old star pupil.

1969

Beyond the Dodo Years LucyAnn (Dorothy) Curling

Beyond the Dodo Years

‘What did Dodo do next?’ There is a recurring ‘one year’ theme: one year of a 2-year secretarial course at Hartwell House when it was a ‘beginning school’ (as opposed to a finishing school) run by Miss Dorothy ello St Mary’s friends. I’m LucyAnn Curling.

Neville Rolfe whose great niece Lucy was in my class When I was at St Mary’s (’63-’69) I was Dorothy Curling, afflicted with the nickname, imposed on me at St Mary’s. Then back into the secondary education from birth for more complex reasons than you might system to do A Level music in one year at Bryanston, where I was the only girl. I lived at my piano teacher’s imagine: Dodo. However, I looked forward to being house in the school grounds and loved the babymarried so that I could change my surname because sitting and the piano lessons and learned a whole that had been a cause of pain too. There used to be a new set of life stories. I didn’t have the flirting skills strip cartoon in the Irish Independent called Count to make the most of the boy:girl ratio, but I met some Curley Wee, about a pig. The similarity afforded the boys of the local area around our home in Waterford interesting young men who became professional musicians. Then I did a 3-year music degree at hours of merriment when I was tiny. When I did Huddersfield Poly, now a university, followed by a marry, as well as providing the traditional change of surname, my husband gave me for a wedding present one-year PGCE and became a Middle School class teacher … for one year. I found that teaching 36 a new first name. Of course we discussed the new boisterous 13-year-olds was less attractive than I name together and I was delighted with it. So for had thought it would be. I and my new husband about 30 years I was LucyAnn Palmer. There was a dropped out of the rat race, he to compose and I to tectonic shift at about year 26, when the marriage experiment with weaving and dyeing, settling down broke down and four years later I reverted to my to making batik lampshades for my own pleasure maiden name. The most lasting and very special and doing a little piano teaching. My first-born ‘possession’ I have from the marriage is my given name, although I am now reconciled to the Dorothy I arrived three years later and sixteen months after that once was. The deed poll certificate says I’m LucyAnn number 2 arrived – two weeks before we moved from Yorkshire to Cornwall.

Dorothy Curling.

H

36

School gives you friends for life, but the friends you share the child-rearing experience with are lifers too. I’ve moved home 14 times since birth and eleven of those were as an adult, but now aged 69 I’m still in touch with the friends I made at my children’s toddler group. I also signed up for another kind of teacher training, Suzuki piano teaching, which gave me a week-end away from home every 6 weeks or so to immerse myself in piano techniques and how to teach them. More life-time friendships made. It took me 5 years to complete the course, with a break in the middle because my husband was diagnosed with cancer. He recovered well and is still very much alive.

I taught Suzuki piano for twenty years, with various other mostly secretarial part-time roles in my portmanteau, before deciding I needed to earn more than pocket money. Our children were on the verge of leaving school. They’d been through two of the specialist Music & Dance Scheme schools and we became houseparents at The Purcell School, I becoming Housemother to 55 girls. That was quite a change! It was extraordinarily hard work. My hours went up from about 15 hours’ work per week in the portmanteau, to 160 in term time (including sleep time on duty), but I discovered I could do it and was reasonably competent, some of the time at least! That was 1997, ironically the year I was finally diagnosed with fibromyalgia which is a condition about which little is known, in which the ratio of widespread pain to low energy is a tricky balance to juggle and there’s little satisfactory treatment. I’d had it since my early teens and even had the old-fashioned diagnosis of fibrositis while I was at St Mary’s, along with a hefty cortisone injection to enable me to do my Grade VIII piano! But I’ve been lucky to have found a variety of methods of keeping it at bay in my working years.

Having come a bit late to the career woman party, I began to wonder how far up the ladder I could climb.

A Director of Pastoral Care role came up at another school and I was hired. The move coincided with the surprise marriage break-up and the following eight months were … difficult.

I moved back to Somerset at the end of the academic year, to oversee the sale of the family home and bought a little weaver’s cottage in Frome. There were some interesting temping jobs in Bristol. The highlight was definitely 3 months in the construction department of a Further Education College. I loved the brickies, chippies and plumbers and even got to mark core skills exam papers. I had acquired a bee in my bonnet about working outside education. Being involved in education one way or another from the age of 4 until my mid-fifties I thought it would be 37

nice to discover what life was like in ‘the real world’.

I got permanent jobs, first with a vision charity in Bath then with a concert artist manager, followed by a short spell with Social Services – all in the space of a couple of years. But none of them kept me in the style to which I wanted to become re-accustomed and when a residential pastoral post came up at a dance school in Birmingham I applied and was appointed. A year later the Yehudi Menuhin School advertised a post as Houseparent in their girls’ house. The last eight years of my working life were employment nirvana, working in a small school with tremendously dedicated colleagues and a wonderful bunch of young people aged 7-19. No uniform (huge sigh of relief); children and staff on first-name terms (phew). What would Sister Francis have thought – and said?

Retiring in 2014 I chose to move to East Kent to be near my ancestors’ territories. They had led me on an extraordinary series of paper chases, over 100 letters in several caches including the British and Bodleian Libraries. Their clear signal to write their stories has meant I’ve been working on a series of four books, the first two of which are in the pre-publication pipe-line. One day I will actually hold their story in my hands! I started working on it while I was still employed and have clocked up 15 years to date!

BC (Before Covid) I trundled up and down to London very regularly to visit my offspring. I have a grandson who’s growing up too fast! And of course regular visits to archives, galleries and museums are a necessary part of my present life as an (amateur) genealogist researcher so I’m looking forward very much to AC and a return to some level of normality.

Opposite top: Sixth Form at SMC, above: Lucy Patten and LucyAnn possibly in the UV.

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Marta Szabo 1969 Class of Wilfrid, attended St Mary’s Convent 1966-1969, Upper III - Lower IV, Wigmore

For the last 21 years I have lived in upstate New

York, in the Catskill Mountains, in a small town with a century-old reputation for the arts, Woodstock. Yes, the Woodstock. Although, as we frequently explain, the concert didn’t actually happen here. It was supposed to, but at the last minute the town revoked the license – suddenly afraid what they had signed up for – and the concert was held instead about 100 miles away. But the name “Woodstock” stuck.

Because even then it meant something.

I left St. Mary’s at the tender age of 12 and spent two more years in England before returning to the States. By then I already knew I wanted to be a writer. Virginia Woolf was my central inspiration. I wanted to write and live like her – and others – who wrote from a place inside that wasn’t on any maps, but which I recognized. I found in Virginia’s writing a way of perceiving the world that I understood but didn’t find anywhere else – not at school, not at home, not amongst my friends. I sensed these perceptions were in all art, but it was in books and writing that I felt most at home. I couldn’t imagine any better way to spend my life than to write.

I thought all I’d have to do was leave home and then it would all happen – I’d sit down at a desk somewhere and the words would pour out of me.

But it was a long hard struggle to find my writing life. Because in the end, of course, it didn’t look like anybody else’s.

From my twenties through my thirties I traveled a good deal, living in Los Angeles, New York City, Athens, Greece and in India for 18 months. I even found my way back for a couple of years to London.

All the time the yearning to write burned inside of me, but it was such a difficult flame to nourish, I would write and have no confidence in what I had created. I’d become discouraged, certain that I didn’t have the magic, and I would give up. A month or two would go by and I’d have to start again because it was still there: I must, I knew, find a way to center my life around writing.

In my early forties I was living in a yoga ashram pretty close to New York City. After 10 years, ashram

life was beginning to feel a bit cramped. I bought a beat-up Volvo and started hunting up writing workshops. After a few rounds of trial and error, I thought, “Let me take a look at Woodstock. Maybe there’s a good writing group there.” I picked up the local paper and checked the classifieds. “Authentic Writing” said one. “Sounds good,” I thought, and drove up for an all-day workshop.

Almost instantly, I knew I had found my writing home.

A few years later I married the creator of those workshops, Fred Poole. Together we facilitated Authentic Writing here in what was now our Woodstock home, in Manhattan, across the United States and a couple of times in Europe. (Once in Whitstable, Kent!). Lately, of course, the workshops have been on Zoom - which has opened things up so that people can participate at the same time from different parts of the world. I have written two memoirs, “The Guru Looked Good” and “The Imposters”, and am now completing a third.

I love the workshops. I love writing in them. I love supporting others to write their own stories from life. Because that is what we do. We write from life.

It is deep and profound, fun, and always enthralling.

Somehow, I found my writing life.

AuthenticWriting.com 39

1974

Hugh Bonneville’s Facebook page

Vaccinating in Midhurst

Madeleine (Litchfield) Douglas 1974

I

left St Mary’s in 1974 and went to St Mary’s (!)

Medical School the same year. Having qualified, I finally ended up in general practice and worked for 28 years alongside my husband in a smallish practice in Petersfield in Hampshire where I had a specialist interest in adolescent health and well being.

Within the practice, I set up a drop-in teenage clinic which proved very popular with local young people, although funding it to provide services for all the young people of the area was problematic over the years.

I retired from the practice in 2016 although I carried on working both as a locum and for our local CCG until 2019.

Last year I was granted emergency registration of the GMC to enable me to help out during the pandemic which I did firstly at my old practice and since early January in the vaccination clinics both here in Petersfield and also in Midhurst at a pharmacy led clinic. Although the work is repetitive,

there is a huge sense of achievement in these clinics as people are by and large very grateful and we are glad to be doing something that helps with moving us forward towards ending restrictions.

The atmosphere in the Midhurst clinic in particular is wonderful and the recipients of the injections are always highly amused to have been greeted and entertained by Hugh Bonneville sporting his high viz jacket in the car park outside, as he is a regular volunteer at the clinics.

Top: Madeleine (Litchfield) Douglas vaccinating actor Hugh Bonneville with the AstraZeneca vaccine at Midhurst, West Sussex in January 2021. Above: Madeleine on duty at the clinic with her husband, Andrew. Both GPs came out of retirement to help with the vaccination roll-out.

40

1976

From Bristol, Rhode Island Jennifer (Hartley) Cavallaro 1976

I have been asked as a Shaftesbury old girl living

in the US to write a few words about how I ended up here and what I have been up to since I left Shaftesbury in 1976.

A Levels taken at Dordogne College in France (experimental school, Arabella Laing was there with me, social life great, teaching not so much). Went to University of Kent for Politics, graduated in 1982 and went to work for Red Ken at the Greater London Council. Left there to “find myself ” on a world trip with a bicycle in 1985. Epic tours of Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, Thailand and India. Met my husband, Chip, on the way (American, obvi) got married in France where my parents lived. Came to Bristol, Rhode Island in the US in 1987.

We settled into suburban life in gorgeous Bristol, raising two children. Davina is 33 now and is a plastic surgeon in UK. Our son, Hartley, 29, just finished a master’s degree at Bath Uni (interrupted

by Covid, he had to finish from home). Note the migration back to UK by my kids!

In 2007 I opened a café in our town, called The Beehive Café. Somehow it morphed into a restaurant

sold we will be hopscotching from Central America to Europe. Davina is settling just 8 miles from Shaftesbury with her significant other and my son is looking for work in the UK, so in a way it’s full circle.

Such is life.

I have never got the hang of Facebook, though I dip in occasionally, so I miss a lot of interactions. My email is jennifercavallaro@mac.com if anyone wants to get in touch.

I am very sad about St. Mary’s closing and I have such fond memories of everyone. I still ride horses, and galloping up Zig Zag Hill is my favorite memory of all time! I went to the Bede and Aelred class reunion in London a few years ago and have been in touch a bit over the years with Kate Ross and Lolly Walters. Hopefully once I can get away from work I can reconnect more.

and now we also have a bakery/café in another location. It has been a wild ride, not least because of a serious bout of breast cancer in the middle of our biggest growth period as a business. The business is still thriving even despite Covid and we are now looking to sell so we can move on to a new phase… (managing two small businesses with 28 employees is really a young person’s game!)

Next phase…after years of holidaying in Costa Rica we bought land and are now building a home there. Meanwhile I inherited a house in France from my parents so once Covid is over and the business is 41

Love to all.

1976

Fun and Friendship

Jenny Worstall 1976

Iwas sent to Shaftesbury aged 11 in 1970 when my

parents moved to Naples. I’d already completed the first year of secondary school at La Sainte Union Convent in Bath, so joined the Lower IV as the smallest and youngest girl in the year. As for many, homesickness loomed large...but more of that later.

Suffice to say, Reverend Mother once said to me that “for many, school days are the happiest days of their lives, but in my case, fortunately that wouldn’t be true”. I felt incredibly cheered to hear this.

Fast forward to the long hot summer of 1976 and after years of fun and friendship with the odd bit of education thrown in, my cohort escaped the convent walls.

I studied music at college then embarked on a career as a music teacher (including seven years as Head of Music in a convent school – the apple

doesn’t fall far from the tree). I’ve always been a keen choral singer (chapel choir with Sister Miriam remains one of the musical highlights of my life) and have sung with many ensembles, including ten years with the BBC Symphony Chorus (the one you see singing on the telly at the Last Night of the Proms).

There – drum roll, please – I met my husband. We married in 1993 and have two children.

I enrolled on a creative writing course when I was on maternity leave. Publication of a short story in The People’s Friend followed. Oh, the thrill of seeing my words in print! I was hooked. Busy years of childrearing and piano teaching followed, but I snatched writing time when I could.

Now retired from teaching, I write stories for magazines, and have self-published several novels and short story collections on Amazon. I’m a member of the Romantic Novelist’s Association and the Society of Women Writers and Journalists, both wonderful tribes of encouraging and inspirational people.

My first novel, Make a Joyful Noise, is about – you’ve probably guessed – a music teacher who joins a choir. Sadly for her, but luckily for the plot, she falls in love with two men at once and so we have conflict and obstacles to overcome. Spoiler alert: everything works out in the end and the heroine achieves her HEA (Happy Ever After).

The Funny Business of Life, is also chock full of comedy and music. I often say that my writing reflects my love of music – and a tendency not to take life too seriously.

Three Hundred Bridesmaids was originally published as a People’s Friend Pocket Novel, then a Linford Romance library book (renamed Love and Lies), before I published the book on Amazon. It’s a fun read with nuns, cakes and lashings of music.

I have recently turned to crime and experimented with leaving out the HEA – my story Mortal Sin Isn’t

Final months in the Sixth Form in the sizzling summer of 1976. Already plotting and writing. and it was mentioned in the Judge’s Report which encouraged me to continue. The article became a novel and was published by the People’s Friend in the summer of 2021. Happy Days can now be found on Amazon. The first chapter’s a true account of the day in 1970 when I joined St Mary’s Shaftesbury, but from chapter two onwards, it’s fictional. More or less...

Background photos of St Mary’s, courtesy of Dorset Council

What It Used To Be won the Best Magazine crime competition in the spring and I thoroughly enjoyed writing in a darker style.

When Shaftesbury closed, I wrote a memoir of my first evening at school, when I went outside in my dressing gown and slippers and contemplated running away – told you we’d get back to the homesick bit. I entered this into an SWWJ (Society of Women Writers and Journalists) competition

Recollections

by Lucy Carp 1990

I arrived at St Mary’s as a day girl aged 9, at the start

of the summer term of 1982. At that time, my family were living in Singapore, and my 3 older sisters were already boarding at St. Mary’s. My parents and I had meandered our way towards the UK on the SS Canberra. From South Africa my mother and I flew on to England to meet up with my sisters for the Easter holidays. I heard the top 10 for the very first time listening to the ship’s radio, and sat in the little cinema on-board with my mother watching ‘Flash Gordon’, clutching her hand during the scary bits.

Little did I know that some weeks later the Canberra would be refitted hastily as a troop ship, and packed off to the Falklands.

During my first term all 3 of my sisters and myself were at school together. Sr Louise was headmistress, and I was the very youngest member of the school. I was perhaps not quite as young as my mother before me, who beamed in her pigtails from a 1947 school

photograph at the ripe old age of 7 (below).

I was put into the second form with Mrs Collins and shared classes with the Lower Thirds who had Sr Teresa. I remember embroidering a peg bag, reading “Toad of Toad Hall”, and picking Ragwort on Salisbury Plain. Sr Daniel had rescued a pair of baby squirrels that used to visit the lower school huts, they chattered at us reprovingly as we played and romped around the buildings. Occasionally Moses the Cat would put in an appearance and deign to be stroked.

We put Orange Rise N’ Shine powder into the ink chamber of our pens to suck sneakily during lessons, and I remember being utterly disgusted when someone tried Hedgehog flavoured crisps. We wore the 70s inspired summer dresses made of transparent cotton in crossing lines of mustard, brown and yellow cinched in by our brown purse belts and made more modest with the wearing of our brown knickers. We drew our chosen wildflower (mine was a primrose) and galloped happily through the rhododendron bushes by the huts, making jumps with pampas grass and pretending to be ponies.

Sr Martha at that time was often on duty in the refectory. I remember her holding me back one lunchtime because she felt I wasn’t eating enough. I was made to stay at my table during the whole of my lunch break, unable to adequately explain that my life up to the point hadn’t involved liver and bacon, and that I couldn’t make myself take the plunge now, however sad it was to her that I wouldn’t try. I looked up at the ceiling while Sr Martha spoke to me, and I could just make out the twinkle of tiny foil packs little butters with their papers opened and thrown to the ceiling to see if they would stick.

Despite our food differences, I liked Sr Martha very much. I remember asking her why adults Left: my mum ready for her first day at St Mary’s in 1947 aged 7. Opposite page bottom right: ? and me having a hair moment, c 198??

school with a high number of children with parents in the armed forces, I suspect there was rather more concern about it than was obvious to me at the time.

After the end of the summer term I prepared for boarding. I remember reading many ‘The Naughtiest Girl in the School’ books and watching the BBC series of ‘Quiet as a Nun’ with my family. Those of you familiar with Antonia Fraser will know she was a Convent Girl herself, having been to Ascot. This meant the thriller series with the murderous Black Nun in a Convent school was rather closer to our experiences than it might have been, and it had more than a few passing similarities with our nuns and school rituals. Throughout my school career the scenes would often came back to me late at night when I couldn’t sleep and I imagined the murderous

Background: Courtesy of Dorset Council

thought saying ‘Bloody Mary’ or ‘Bloody Hell’ was so very wicked. While I can’t exactly remember her explanation, she took it on gamely and didn’t flinch.

When I hit boarding the following term Sr Martha was the nun who helped us with weekly hair washing in the boot room, and we chattered away to each other happily as I was always the very last girl to get under the dryers.

In that summer term, I remember arriving for school one morning to hear that the whole school had snuck out of their dormitories before breakfast.

One enterprising sixth former had ‘borrowed’ the key to the school gym and the entire school had managed to tiptoe past the night staff and had hidden in it.

The last laugh I think was from the nuns who showed no reaction, and finally hungry girls were driven to sing ‘Rule Britannia’ in order to be discovered and make it in time for breakfast.

Sports day was a bit of a trial for a new girl who was only used to hot temperatures and small concrete playgrounds. Miss Dickinson and Miss Everly were the games mistresses in charge - and each girl was expected to run in form races and complete a field event. In my case they randomly put me down for the high jump. I know this was not based on any talent I had because I had never seen a high jump before in my life. I was one of the very smallest in the school, only pipped by one or two, and I rather suspected I was there for the comedy factor. Clad in my yellow Aertex shirt, brown skirt and sensible brown knickers I observed the challenge. Not having been schooled in what to do, much less been shown the art of the frosby flop, I relied solely on a last minute pep talk from my sister, Vicky. It remains one of the more excruciating memories I have of school, trying it out for the first time in front of hundreds of parents on sports day - and refusing on the approach rather like a horse that doesn’t like its jump. It caused much laughter and merriment in my family. I did rather better at swimming, and I think, despite the utterly frigid temperatures at which we were expected to jump into the outside pool, I even made the swimming team on one occasion.

Much was made that first summer term of the visit of Pope John-Paul II who came to the UK. For a short time there were fears the war with Argentina would see the long planned for visit cancelled. It was therefore with much celebration that the trip was saved. To resolve matters the Pope added on an impromptu trip to Argentina in order to avoid being seen to take a side in the war. Outside the school I remember there was patriotic avoidance of corned beef and lots of news references to the ‘Argies’. As a

Courtesy of Dorset Council

black nun scooting past. I was very grateful to be surrounded by other girls snoring away as I tossed and turned on our foam mattresses. I never equated our nuns with the story but thought they might somehow be overpowered by her when I allowed my mind to wander.

Despite my lack of prowess at the high jump, my term as a day girl was successful enough to see me progress into the Lower Third ahead of schedule.

This was lucky for me, as it meant I didn’t have to make new friends in class. Arriving for my second term as a boarder felt very different than the first.

The weather in England had turned cold and wet and having visited England on many occasions in the summer months, it was a bit of a shock to the system. Trunks were dropped in the undercroft, and belongings unpacked onto a blanket the next day and carried up to bed with the help of an older girl. At that time Maseeiso Maseeiso helped me and it was many years after I left school that I heard from my sister that she had been killed in a car accident in Lesotho. I was very sad about it. She deserves some special mention because she was the only ethnic minority member of the school I can remember at that time - I remember her being staunch to accepting the role of one of the three kings on the Nativity play.

As a member of the Lower School I slept in the Ark. (The Ark was a dormitory in the attics of the main school building and accessed by way of a tiny wooden staircase above the main stairs). It would in fact have been very at home in Hogwarts. Girls slept in cubicles in pairs - one bed either side of a tiny wash basin. We learned early to undress in the dorms with almost total modesty - a school talent prevalent among St Mary’s girls. Some sensible Upper Fourth or Lower Fifth were volunteered as chaperone, and slept in a cubicle of their own with curtains for

privacy. If chosen well, they ensured that late night talking was kept to a minimum. In my later school career I found it was a pretty rotten deal as you had to tiptoe in each night and couldn’t talk without inciting chattering anarchy.

We were shown by Sr Teresa how to fold a hospital corner for our sheets, and washing was organised and sent on set days to the laundry. Most clothes were picked up from a shelf with your name on in the sorting room under the watchful eye of Mrs Cruikshank. Beware the girl who entered the sorting room scruffily attired or with clothing too small.

All underwear was sent to the laundry in huge string bags, pants were washed and then dried, and sent back in the bags for sorting. I remember dreading it being my turn to sort through them searching for name tapes and delivering them to the right rooms or beds. Handling someone else’s pants felt like an intrusion.

Baths happened twice a week and you had about 15 minutes to both wash and clean the bath for the next person. If you missed your allotted time the next girl, likely older than you, would be rapping on the door to get their turn. On one occasion I found a bath full of champagne and strawberries, and happily accepted a punnet in return for my silence. At night my toes froze and I discovered the red itchiness of chilblains for the first time.

If you felt ill, in the morning after breakfast you went along to the dispensary. You stood lining the corridor awaiting the call to come in from the infamous Nurse Coles. When beckoned down the stairs into the dispensary you would go across to her and explain your symptoms. It was a bit like queuing for customs at the airport, whatever your situation you felt guilty and ready to be exposed as a total fraud. If you passed questioning you were inevitably presented with a small dark brown pill with white numbers on. Years later Nurse Coles would laughingly confess to me it was just a vitamin. The cupboard in the dispensary was stocked with cough sweets and glucose tablets, hairbrushes and any of the other things you might need from a chemist.

Once chosen anything you wanted was carefully recorded with its price in a text book and added to your bill at the end of the school term.

Outings throughout the year were pretty standard.

One theatre trip such as a pantomime showing at Salisbury Playhouse, the Steam Fair, Badminton Horse Trials, The Bath and West show. But in the Lower School add to that the Young Ornithologists Club run by Sr Teresa and a trip in the minibus to see starlings or a late night badger watching expedition.

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Many involved a bus journey, a packed lunch of an apple, a grated cheese sandwich, a carton of very sweet orange juice and a penguin. For my first boarding term it was also my inaugural trip to the steam fair, there was oodles of mud to slip about on in your boots, running steam engines to see, sweets galore including enormous sweet sugar dummies that got sucked and saved for later.

My birthday was in September. The birthday list was pinned to the wall outside the refectory so you knew whose birthday was on or around yours. Sr Anthony was in charge of birthday cakes, and you could order one of two kinds, but everyone always chose the chocolate biscuit cake. You could ask for your own topping and the trick was to think of something that had the most sweets you could - in my case I had an early brainwave and asked for a log hut made of flakes. There were no flies on Sr Anthony who fixed me with a hard stare as she wrote my request down slowly in the birthday cake book, but she let me have it. On the day of a birthday you opened your post from home and all your presents at breakfast. In my case my parents could be rather eclectic, and I was given a yoghurt maker one year and a little portable stove another. Neither of which I could easily use or even explain to friends at school.

Friends got you presents which were often wrapped in the tracing paper style ‘loo sheets from the bathrooms. Sweets and rubbers and other things like that. At tea time you had your cake. Plunging your knife in and squeaking at the end to let the devil out.

During my year in Lower Third we watched ‘Will

o’ the Wisp’, and the raising of the Mary Rose. At weekends we had to write our weekly letter home and then we painted plaster of Paris Beatrix potter figures. We watched films like ‘Annie’ and we were allowed to watch ‘Fame’. Leg warmers were a vital piece of equipment and my lovely Granny bought me some to wear at the half term. In the evenings Father Simon offered us sanctuary in his room with comics and biscuits in a tin if we felt hungry.

Upper Third was a bit more serious. Sr Anna was my form mistress and she was the singing nun. She showed us round the stations of the cross in the chapel and told us we must always sing loudly for the greater glory of God. I’m not sure God would or

47

Opposite page: St Gertrude serving tea during the 1980s; above Sr Anna, Sr Jane Livesey (Campion), Sr Daniel and Sr Elizabeth, top: Upper 5 Philip & James after public exams in 1988.

will fully appreciate the sounds that I have to offer.

We sat in mixed form pews in the chapel, and sang hymns lustily. These ranged from ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’ to ‘I vow to Thee my Country’.

The choir, run by Miss Radford, had some small successes in Choir of the Year, and almost every week someone soloed with ‘Pie Jesu’ or something equally memorable.

There was a stationary cupboard in the hall near the refectory and on certain break times you could queue to get extra exercise books, ink cartridges and other stationery. Sr Ursula presided over English lessons, writing sentences on the board and making us come up in turn to write on parts of speech.

We drew a wheel barrow and used it to illustrate prepositions. We watched films in our common rooms - things like ‘the Champ’ and ‘the Killing Fields’. ‘Dallas’ and ‘Dynasty’ were stalwart friends and we had moved residence from the Ark to the cubicles, the temporary accommodation in the 1940s that my mother remembered, and which kept on giving.

Sr Ursula grabbed me one day and said “Come with me” - she walked me to the middle school library and showed me the books. Apparently I had taken ‘The Wolves of Willoughby Chase’ out so many times she was graduating me to the middle school library early.

As we progressed up the school we celebrated feast days by fasting with soup and bread (a lovely food day). My sisters left the school one by one and I was introduced to school dances policed by Albert Clamp who gamely checked out the bushes for wayward couples.

Sr Anthony manned the telephone boxes, rapping hard to make sure calls stopped to allow maximum throughput. She also continued to sell tuck to all of us, and teach a small select group the art of playing Bridge.

As I progressed up the school Sr Campion became headmistress. She was young and clever, and helped prepare the school to run with lay staff alone. During my time at the school she remained the youngest member of the order for many years, if not until the final year I was there.

As I reached the sixth form I embraced the new brown kilts and the donning of home clothes in the summer term. The house system was introduced and I got the splendid job of reading out lavender tickets.

This was quite fun and I’m pleased to say Mulwith had a good streak for Sr Elizabeth.

Blockbusters, ‘Neighbours’, ‘Home and Away’ and ‘Going for Gold’ were firm common room favourites.

Mr Mills kept us motivated with termly science

parties where we bubbled up punch using our Bunsen burners and ate tortilla.

Mrs Jolly gave some light relief in LAMDA exams and plays. I got to sleep in the nuns part and secretly watch movies on a tiny portable telly given to me by my dad.

At the end of my school career I was ready to leave St Mary’s but I never forgot the people I shared rooms with, the mischief be it dangling empty champagne bottles behind Mr Mills’ head as he was teaching about alcohols, to moving stage blocks during assemblies. The smell of beeswax and wood, the buildings and the people will live with me even if the buildings are now re-purposed.

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This page top: Upper Six in 1990; above left: Sixth Form; right: Tanya Marks our Head Girl and opposite: ‘The Champ’, Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and Guy Pearce from ‘Neighbours’, and bottom: Henry Kelly hosting the first epsode of ‘Going For Gold’ in 1987.

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As for me, I studied Computer Science combined with Psychology followed

by Law. I am currently working as a Programme and Change Manager, running a portfolio of business change projects for a company which is based just outside Cambridge. I have one son, Jack, aged 15 who is excessively pleased that he is now taller than me.

Lucy Carp 1990

Annie Bennett 1997

About me:

I loved every day of my 7 years at Shaftesbury and still cherish the happiest of memories and the best of friends. I now live in Spain with my husband, 3 children and 2 ageing labradors.

I have a passion for running, good coffee and sunshine.

My running story: I was NOT a runner at school!

I started to run-commute when I was working in London after university and found hitting the pavements after work was a great way to clear my head and get some exercise. We moved to Hong

Top: Running up Table Mountain in Cape Town, my husband took the children in the cable car and we met at the top for breakfast. Above: my super supporters. Above right: Half Way happiness at Tower Bridge during the 2017 London Marathon, and right: Running the “marathon” in my garden during lockdown.

Kong in 2006 and it was a huge surprise that as well as the hustle, bustle and skyscrapers of Central, there are miles and miles of breathtakingly beautiful country park on your door step.

The hiking trails were my happy place for over 10 years, walking with my dogs, kids strapped to my back, and running and racing at any chance I got.

I had a brilliant running buggy and wherever we were in the world, from the lakes of New Zealand to beaches California, I ran with the children. Now they are bigger they bike alongside me and chat away, I cherish the chance to hear their news and share the beautiful outdoors with them.

I have my trainers with me at all times, so I can fit a run into my day, it’s the perfect way to reset my body and mind and often a good opportunity to sightsee!

Inspired by a great friend and run buddy, I signed up for my first London Marathon for Children with Cancer UK, raising money to make the lives of children with cancer longer and better. I loved the structure and challenge of a training plan and being part of a team was so motivational, even 50

...when I am running I feel free, I feel strong and I feel happy

on soggy, wet mornings. The actual event was extraordinary, the atmosphere is electric and the sense of achievement when you cross the finish line is overwhelming. I LOVED it and have run every year since for CwC and raised over £10,000 for them.

During lockdown I even ran the marathon in circles in my garden!

I run because I love it, I love to be outside and I love that when I am running I feel free, I feel strong and I feel happy.

The Wheen sisters

One of only two sets of five sisters that went

through St Mary’s, the Wheen sisters have a French mother and a British father who was in the navy.

They also have a younger Downs Syndrome brother, Jeremy, whom they adore. Having grown up travelling around with their father’s job, St. Mary’s gave them the stability and happiness of a wider family and they all have wonderful memories of their time at school.

The eldest of the five Wheen sisters, Roni (Wheen) Huntington, left St. Mary’s in 1996 and then studied Spanish at Edinburgh. After meeting her husband Charlie (below with Roni and their children) in

London, she convinced him life abroad would be a fun adventure. After six extremely happy years in Switzerland they now live in East Sussex with their children Oscar (15), Amelie (13) and Inca (11) who are at Wellington College (or going). Roni spent most of her career in Travel PR but is now a pre-test, maths, French and Spanish tutor but has itchy feet to go abroad again!

Steph lives and works in Bristol. She has gone from being an NHS physio specialising in working with disabled children, to opening her private practice in 2012 and then starting up a charity called Gympanzees in 2016 (see page 56) – aiming to open the UK’s first, fully inclusive exercise and play centre for children and young people with disabilities. She has won a multitude of awards for her work and is hugely passionate about what she does.

After graduating in languages at Newcastle, Julia moved to Turin in the north of Italy. Here she found her dream job working as a study trip organizer at

the University of Gastronomic Sciences (in Pollenzo), travelling with her foodie students all around the globe to get to know all kinds of food cultures and products. Julia and her Italian husband Claudio have 3 children; Carolina (13), Giacomo (11) and Oliver (7). She still works at the same University and is head of Executive Training and Innovation projects.

After leaving St Mary’s in 2000 Alexine studied Physiotherapy at the University of Northumbria.

She worked in the NHS in London (house-sharing with Gemma Holloway) and then Surrey, ultimately specialising in neurological physiotherapy which she still practises in a private capacity.

Alexine Santamaria, her Australian husband Ben and their children Henry (10), Ivo (8), Edmund (6) and Olive (3) now live in Shepperton, a stone’s throw from Helen (Weir) Collingridge, whom she still sees regularly on the school run!

Leaving Durham in 2009, armed with a degree in Natural Sciences, Caroline went to work in Paris.

Expecting to stay a short six months, plans changed when she met her French husband with whom she moved to Singapore a year later.

There Caroline set up a company teaching business English to French speakers and then was head-hunted as a recruitment consultant. After five exciting years as ex-pats and visiting much of South East Asia, Caroline and Ben are now in Belgium with their children Romélie (2) and Felix (3 months) but hope to move back to the UK before long.

Opposite page: Top: Lex, Roni, Caz on her wedding day, Steph and Judes. Below: Roni and family on holiday this summer. This page: clockwise: Alexine and her family, Caroline and her family, Stephanie and Jeremy with Clifton Suspension Bridge in the background and Julia and her family.

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Helen Sampson Photography

1998

Stephanie Wheen’s bold plans to help disabled children

St Mary’s (1990-1998) seems a long time ago now

but at the same time that is where my passion for working with disabled children began and I look back with pleasure and gratitude.

As some of you may remember, my brother, Jeremy, has Downs Syndrome. He used to love coming to St. Mary’s where he would spend the whole of Mass facing backwards and waving to everyone – insisting on smiles and waves back – not great for concentrating on Mass but I don’t think too many people complained! The girls and staff were all so gorgeous with him – which is such a great indication of what a lovely school it was!

Jez sparked my interest in working with disabled children and for my D of E Gold, I went to Lourdes with the Handicapped Children’s Pilgrimage Trust – a life-changing week looking after disabled children in France. It brought home that each child had their abilities, gifts, sense of humour and love to give and receive – so much more than can be obvious on a first encounter. It challenged my narrow perceptions and made me want to make their lives as happy and fulfilled as possible.

I qualified as a physio - specialising in working

with children with disabilities in 2002, and have never looked back. After a decade working in the NHS, I set up my private physio practice but was very quickly fully booked, and looking for ways to get my children to do exercise in the community so I could see more clients. I was shocked to find out how little there is for them. In fact, 84% can’t access regular leisure and their health and well-being massively suffer.

This is how my Bristol charity called Gympanzees was born. We are opening the UK’s first, fully inclusive exercise and play complex for children and young people with disabilities, to improve their physical and mental well-being and to take their families out of isolation.

As this has never been done before, we have been running Pop Up Gympanzees centres – smaller versions of the permanent centre. We have had 3 Pop Ups over 58 days and have welcomed almost 8000 visitors – some making a 5-hour round trip for their 1.5-hour session. We have also had some incredible

We launch our capital campaign to build the UK’s first inclusive leisure and exercise facility for the 66,000 disabled children and young people (0-25 year olds) who live in and around Bristol in September 2022. To read more go to www.gympanzees.org health and well-being firsts, including a 6-yearold who took his first steps, a 5-year-old who slept through the night for the first time and 2 three-yearold boys who had their first ever laughs. The charity has won numerous awards – most lately the Queen’s Award for Innovation 2021.

We are now ready to launch the capital campaign to build the permanent centre, which will welcome 70,000 children with disabilities per year.

To follow our story or see how you can support us visit our website at www.gympanzees.org or sign up to our newsletter at http://eepurl.com/gT7TS1.

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Stephanie Wheen, 1998

Two sisters

Sotonye, a teacher and founder of a botanic Tea company and Nengi an artist.

Sotonye (Omuku) Odugbemi 1999

Stephanie Kalber Photography www.stephaniekalber.com

St. Mary’s made me believe we could change the

world. When Mary Ward said “I hope in God it will be seen that women in time to come will do much,” surely she was talking about us - generations of girls that have come through the doors of schools like St. Mary’s and left with the hope of being a light to the world around them. However, in the monotony of daily routine and the valleys of life’s disappointments, it may feel like we are merely existing. Not really changing the world with the grand gestures we had imagined.

But maybe changing the world can be done by simply saying “yes”.

Every day for the past few years I’ve said yes to being a mum to my beautiful son and daughter. For the past four years I have said yes to being a French teacher in a secondary school in my neighbourhood.

About thirteen years ago, I said yes to writing a PhD dissertation on Legacies of Slavery and the Slave Trade, and twelve years later I said yes to facilitating sessions for a television documentary on Race, that was being filmed in my school. And of course, there was that time two years ago when I said yes to creating a herbal tea to help my cousin who felt bloated!

What do these yeses mean in my everyday life?

They mean that my days are filled with the laughter of children, at home and at work. They mean the privilege of facilitating significant conversations with my students around race and unconscious bias in the now BAFTA winning Channel 4 documentary, “The School That Tried To End Racism”. And the immense honour of watching my students ‘change the world’ with their insight and compassion. It means using that experience to advocate for racial literacy in Education. And as for saying yes to Tea, that was the beginning of Daughters of Botany - a botanical Tea company that celebrates my Nigerian heritage, by creating beautiful botanical teas from Hibiscus flowers grown by Nigerian farmers.

I have come to appreciate the simplicity of a yes, the undeniable power of a three-letter word so full of promise and so resplendent with faith, hope and love.

So, I’ll continue to say yes to being a wife, mother, teacher and small business owner. And hopefully, together, with all of our yeses, we will “do much” and we will change the world.

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2005

Nengi Omuku 2005

The immensely powerful works

by Nengi Omuku at the Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery in London in 2020. Following the exhibition’s success it moves to Paris this year.

This page: top: “Gathering” at the Kristin Hjellegerde Gallery in London 2020. Right: “Funke”, 2019, and above: “Small Chaos” 2020 Opposite page: top left: “Technicolor”, detail, 2020, above: Nengi stands in front of “The Sit Down”, 2020. and below: “The Gathering”, detail, 2020.

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Nengi’s work is inspired by the politics of the

body and the complexities that surround identity and difference. With every journey, she considers how human beings position themselves in space in relation to other beings.

She paints on sanyan, a vintage handwoven silk fabric, passed down as an heirloom in south western Nigeria. The images created, have both a contemporary and timeless quality.

Born in 1987 at Asaba, Delta State, Nigeria. Nengi joined her sister Sontoye at St Mary’s in 2004, and graduated from the Slade in 2012 with an MA in Fine Art. She has received numerous awards including the British Council CHOGM Art Award, presented

by HM Queen Elizabeth in 2003, and has held solo exhibitions in New York, Lagos, Atlanta, London, .and, this year, in Berlin at the Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery.

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Flora (Tolfree) Richardson 2007

Flora set up The Forest Foodie, a Hamper and Picnic company based in the New Forest, by the sea in Lymington last year. and Christmas Hampers, packed with local ‘nonperishable’ products such as honey, jam, shortbread, fudge and lots of yummy wine & beer, to anywhere in the UK. We meet the farmers with the cows who produce milk for the cheese. We work with commoners who have the right to turn their stock out into the New Forest where their animals graze the open land, and we buy beef directly from them, charcuterie made from Pannage Pork (pigs are let out in the Autumn to eat the acorns which are poisonous for the cows and ponies). We work closely with the fishermen who line-catch local bass, sole, skate, and we source lobster and crab from the Solent - on our doorstep.

We would love to hear from any St Mary’s Old Girls visiting The New Forest, and if you are further afield you can have a taste of The New Forest with our gift hampers.

We set up to bridge the gap between many incredible local suppliers, producers, growers, farmers, makers, bakers and fishermen – with those visiting our unique area of the UK, as well as those living locally.

We work as sustainably as we can and in telling their story and extolling the virtues of these brilliant people, we are encouraging more people to shop locally and to have a positive impact on the circular economy of The New Forest.

We deliver Hampers & Picnics to holiday cottages, homes, visiting yachts and charters and fellow locals which range from Fruits de Mer, Surf and Turf with Lobster & Beef Fillet, Cheese & Charcuterie paired with New Forest Wine. We can send our gift 60

www.theforestfoodie.com hello@theforestfoodie.com 01590 674 395

2009

to get new business for the company and, at a time where finances were at an all-time low, the stress of it got to me. I quit and started freelancing. I quickly realised how enjoyable it was to work with clients on my own and make decisions without approval, so decided to make a go of it. My business, FWD-Comms, is a PR and consultancy based in Dubai and London.

Fiona Wishart 2009 Hannah Baker, who left St Mary’s in 2004 and is now a business editor, speaks to 2009 leaver Fiona Wishart about launching her company, FWD-Comms, during the pandemic

How did St Mary’s shape you and influence what you are doing today?

I was not in the top set for anything! I was in trouble all the time, but I think that pushed me to prove everyone wrong. I took risks (like smoking in the woods), and I did get caught, but I had fun.

I knew whatever was going to happen was going to happen when I left. I would rather have left school with amazing friends and memories than grades that really don’t mean anything. My results were super average, but it hasn’t stopped me once from succeeding.

When you left did you have aspirations to go into business?

I had zero aspirations to set up a business. I studied Theatre Arts at university, but as soon as I got there, I knew it wasn’t for me. I got an internship at a financial PR agency one summer and the firm’s partner told me I should go into lifestyle PR, so that’s what I did.

What inspired you to set up your own company?

When Covid hit I was working as Business Development Director at an agency. My job was

What house were you in and what is your fondest memory of the school?

I was in Mulwith when Mrs Roberts and Mrs Hawkins were the house assistants, and they were amazing! My fondest memory was going to Paris on a photography trip with Mr and Mrs Rowland. It didn’t feel like we were at school, it was like we were their children, and we were on a family holiday. Poor Mr Rowland let us loose in Paris one night and we went to a bar and drank about 10 shots. He knew what we had done but didn’t say anything, bless him.

He was the best!

Which teacher inspired you the most?

Mr Sykes who taught drama, because drama was the one place where being myself wouldn’t get me in trouble. He was always on our side and I felt he understood me. The night of my 18th birthday we went to the pub and used my ID (legally) for the first time. The next day I said to him: “I have such a bad headache, I don’t know why.” He replied: “It’s called a hangover darling.”

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced since founding the business?

It can be lonely when you start out. Equally, when you are the final decision-maker, it can be extremely pressurising. The hardest part of the journey was when I made my first hires; you hold people’s livelihoods in your hands.

What’s the biggest lesson you have learnt in business?

Speak up and say what you need to say. I am a chronic people pleaser; I always need to be liked, but in business I’ve learnt that not everyone is going to like you and that’s ok.

What advice would you give to other St Mary’s old girls about going into business?

Take risks! Some will pay off and others will flop but be bold. Don’t ask permission for anything, just do it and everyone else can get stuffed.

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1997-2012

Alex (Irven) Argles 1997

On 29 February 2020, I had a second baby, Jessica Argles. who joins her sister Elena (right) who was born on 1 July 2018.

Maria Pottmeyer 1999 I got married to Johannes on 9 May 2020 and had baby Leopold Ernest on 17 September 2020. Leopold is a very happy baby and quite a few espressi have been consumed to keep up with his late night partying! Next month, Johannes is taking over at home when I go back to working part-time as a judge at the Court of Appeal for Administrative Law of North Rhine Westphalia.

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Alice (Carter) Long 2003

Our fifth son, Sebastian, was born in November 2020 joining Francis, Edmund, Ambrose and Fabian. We are living in London and lots of lovely ex-SMS girls help us with the boys!

Hannah (Nicholson) Pearson 2003

Amelia (O’Reilly) Thomson 2003

On 21 January 2021, Raife Mark Robert Thomson, was born. He is a great younger brother to Phoebe.

We moved from London to Trent in Dorset during lockdown 2, and I am working part-time as a primary school teacher

I had my third daughter, Amalie Lily Pearson on 27 June 2020. I was in More and Givendale House.

Above, my family at Christmas 2020 with husband James and daughters Arabella and Aurora.

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Cosima (Roberts) Axford 2003

New arrivals for the year of 2005 Isabella-Mae Mellotte, a girl, born to Harriet (Barkes) Mellotte and Ollie, 23 October 2020, a sister for Rafferty.

Honor Rose Stapley, a girl, born to Naomi (Davis) Stapley and Chris, 1 February 2021, a sister for Kit and Margot.

Matthew Antony Player, a boy, born to Pippa (Burch) Player and Charlie, 3 January 2021.

Isaac Khan, a boy, born to Laura (Wishart) Khan and Taimoor, 23 November 2020.

Ruben John Slater, a boy, born to Catherine de Meillac and James Slater, 21 August 2021.

Alice (Scott) Guerin 2008 My third son, Sebastian Odysseus Lechmere Axford, was born on 10 April 2021. A brother for Archimedes and Tassilo.

Caterina Armanini 2004

Caterina Armanini had a baby boy, Lukas, on 3 February 2021.

My husband (Ally) and I had a baby boy, Hugo Robert Templer Guerin, on 25 November 2020.

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Julia (Huntley) Wakefield 2008

Emily (Jago) Dudgeon 2012

On the 21 July 2020, my husband and I had a little girl called Alicia.

I married on 18 September 2020.

Louise (Waddington) Saunders 2011

Emily (Lewis) Cashmore 2012

My husband and I have a beautiful baby boy, Edward Peter Saunders, born on 13 March 2021 at 10.28pm at 6lb 10.

Claudia Temple-Pedersen 2011 I got engaged to Tom Vickers in December 2020. We live in Perth, Australia and are hoping the wedding can be in Sri Lanka next year with our families.

Clare Webb 2012

Ollie Lobo and I got engaged in the Peak District in August 2020 and are planning on marrying in Oxford in Spring 2022.

Adam and I married on 31st July 2021 in the village of Kingsbury Episcopi, Somerset, where we live.

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Liv Atkins 2013

Liv Atkins founded Okia Food in 2020 after

spending five years as a private chef travelling internationally with her clients. She trained at Leith’s School of Food and Wine after growing up being inspired by the food grown in her mother’s vegetable garden and cooked for dinner the same day. This has had a lasting effect on the way she has developed as a chef, with sustainability and provenance at the heart of her cooking.

OKIA food is a boutique catering company that was born from a dream to own my own business and the unfortunate toll of the Coronavirus pandemic on my job at the time. It started in earnest during the November ‘20 lockdown, where OKIA started selling mail order brownies and other confectionary items to help perk people up throughout those dark months and to get our name out there. This was through word-of-mouth growth, as well as setting up a website with e-commerce to be able to sell through, this not being my normal area of expertise!

Since then and looking forward OKIA’s focus has changed somewhat. Whilst still selling brownies and the like through the website (okiafood.com), we are now expanding to doing drop-off food for families and offices around London and catering events such as weddings, christening parties and exhibitions and not forgetting travelling abroad to give people the OKIA experience wherever they are in the world!

There is much to look forward to now that we have exited lockdown, with many excitements on the horizon! okiafood.com

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Rebecca Rickards 2013

fashion brand, I discovered I had more time in my day as I wasn’t commuting! I spent my time drawing Cornish scenes which I printed on greeting cards and sold as a hobby on Etsy. As lockdown went on and people couldn’t see each other on birthdays, greeting cards sales increased week by week! It’s always been a dream to have my own small business and I told myself if I can keep this up for 6 months, I’ll leave my 9-5. Six months came around and I found myself handing in my notice, and started building my small business. I am now stocked in 31 UK retailers and sell globally online.

Hello, my name is Rebecca and I left St Mary’s

eight years ago. Since then, I went to Falmouth Art School, worked in London at a Fashion brand and during the Pandemic I set up my dream business I’ve always wanted to do. From spending a lot of time in Cornwall I always felt so inspired from the surroundings, from the historical fishing harbours to the beautiful beaches.

In the first lockdown, whilst still working for the I’ve recently just designed a whole lobster kitchenware range inspired by the lobsters at Cadgwith Cove in South Cornwall. Everything has been designed on my kitchen table here in Cornwall and all made in England. I’m so excited what the next 12 months has installed for my small business - and I can say that without an amazing art department at St Mary’s, I wouldn’t be where I am today, drawing for a living!

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www.rebeccarickardsdesign.com

2014

Making a difference at ICRC Gabriella Morgan 2014 Yemen, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, Nigeria, Gaza, Democratic Republic Congo, Central African Republic, the Sahel “...all contexts of devastating armed conflicts in which civilians: ordinary men, women and children are shouldering the brunt of suffering”.

I became interested in humanitarian work during

my undergraduate studies; especially whilst studying feminist political theory and noticing the injustice of regular people whose lives are turned upside down by governments or Non-State Armed Groups (NSAGs), deciding to wage war, or criminal gangs deciding to militarise local communities to profit from illegal trade of drugs, munitions and people.

Shortly after completion of a two year Masters degree in Humanitarian Action, I joined the Policy team at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) UK and Ireland delegation.

Established in 1863, the ICRC is an independent, neutral organisation ensuring humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of war and armed violence. There are ICRC delegations in over 100 countries employing over 20,000 staff.

In addition to providing emergency aid, the ICRC conducts forensics work to identify the dead, ending agonising uncertainty for family members with “missing” relatives. The ICRC also provides family tracing services to reunite families separated during conflict, and carries out detention visits to ensure

humane conditions for persons deprived of liberty.

Perhaps most importantly, the ICRC is mandated to uphold adherence to International Humanitarian Law (IHL) also known as the Law of War which forbids the targeting of civilians, civilian infrastructure and requires military attacks to be proportionate and avoided unless absolutely necessary to accomplish a legitimate military purpose.

The ICRC UK and Ireland delegation operates akin to a diplomatic mission. Lots of our work involves influencing the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence, Cabinet Office and Parliament to make decisions that will improve the humanitarian situation in conflict zones. The UK is a key target for the ICRC to engage with: a country with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, a large aid budget (although recently reduced following the government’s decision to depart from its legal commitment to spend 0.7% Gross National Income on aid), and a fair amount of soft power and influence.

I feel very privileged to apply political analysis,

something I greatly enjoy, to work out how to gain traction with civil servants, parliamentarians and ministers to spur action on humanitarian issues that I greatly care about. I also enjoy following and contributing to discussions on key contemporary issues, such as equitable Covid vaccine distribution, climate change as a threat multiplier to conflictaffected states and the future of warfare, following the development of autonomous weapons systems and offensive cyber operations.

I have no doubt that the compassion and concern for others instilled by St. Mary’s and a Catholic education has led me down a fulfilling career path, for which I am deeply grateful. I am wishing the community all the very best, especially at this uncertain time.

For any old girls who may be interested in a career within the humanitarian sector, I am more than happy for a chat and can be contacted on: morgangabriella523@gmail.com

Background photo: Thousands of displaced families on Sinjar mountain receive emergency assistance 16 March 2020. Copyright: Muyassar Mansour / International Committee of the Red Cross.

2018

Kirstie Stage 2018

In March, I was delighted to represent the National

UN Women / Ryan Brown

Council of Women of Great Britain at the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) this year. I also co-authored the Youth Statement to the UK Mission to the UN. Although CSW was held virtually rather than in New York, it was an exciting opportunity which connected women from different backgrounds and allowed them to be at the centre of policy debates.

From digital safety to political representation to health equity, I was fortunate enough to attend a range of different events, listen to some top-of-theirfield experts and contribute by sharing my own thoughts on proposed amendments. Engaging with diplomats, heads of states and prominent academics, it was a brilliant opportunity to understand their roles in policy making and develop further knowledge through their insights – even on Zoom calls at 2am!

This year, the priority theme was: “Women’s full and effective participation and decision-making in public life, as well as the elimination of violence, for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of

all women and girls.” The review theme considered “Women’s empowerment and the link to sustainable development”.

As many of you know, standing up against Violence Against Women and Girls is an issue which I am passionate about from both political and personal perspectives. I have been involved in several grassroots campaigns, edited a book which shared accounts from domestic abuse survivors and been quoted in a parliamentary debate on the Istanbul Convention.

Moving forward, I am hoping to set up a largescale research intersectional project on gender and disability. It would be great to reach out to a range of women about their experiences of disability – whether this be mental health, physical impairment, sensory impairment or learning difficulties (although this list is not exhaustive). Through this project, it would be fantastic to amplify as many voices of disabled women as possible and make recommendations to the UK government and international bodies, like UN Women. It is also an idea to share the findings with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Women and advocate for the social model of disability.

I would love to hear from any SOGA members who are interested in NCWGB, CSW, UN Women, the intersection between gender and disability or other related topics. It would be fantastic to use this as an opportunity to pass on information and promote open discussions. Please email me on stagekirstie@gmail.com 70

2020

Cassia Thackray 2020

Well it’s been very odd since July, after lots of tears

with my year in 2020 finding out about the school we were all so excited to see what each other we’re gonna do. I was very lucky that I’ve been able to go to uni, I’m at St. Andrews studying Geography and Social Anthropology and loving it, despite the Scottish weather, I’ve even been able to brave a North Sea swim! But don’t think I’ll be doing it again any time soon! I’m also so lucky that I have two other St Mary’s girls with me: Mima Baring and Anastasia Compton, so having them in town is like having a bit of home with me!

Before the second lockdown I was able to join quite a few clubs including Netball and Geography society as well the dog walking society which is a personal fav! I’m loving all of them but can’t wait until things are really open next year to be able to do socials and pub nights with the societies and friends! Hopefully this summer it will just be meeting up with people who I haven’t been able to see for a year, and I’m going to a few concerts and festivals so just hoping they don’t get cancelled again! I’m also very excited because I’ve been living overseas in Brussels for the past 7 years, but my family are finally moving back, and very close to SMS as we’re moving near Marnhull, so I’m very excited to be so close to all the SMS girls! That’s most of my plans but can’t wait to be able to make more!

Top photo: © The University of St Andrews

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Shaftesbury Old Girls’ Association www.shaftesburyoldgirls.com

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Alexa Gibb 2020

2020

Alexa was in the Lower 6 and Head Girl when the school closed

July, I joined the upper sixth of St Mary’s Calne to finish off my A-levels in September 2020. They have been incredibly flexible and supportive in carrying on my existing exam boards in History, Art and Religious Studies and helping me settle into a school community. Going into a longstanding close-knit year group was daunting to say the least, but it has been a positive experience having met so many new friends.

Obviously, the last year has still been restricted because of the ongoing pandemic. But I have still been able to get involved in sports teams, choir, drama, house activities etc, that was until a Covid outbreak at school in November meant I unfortunately ended up catching the virus. Two weeks of recovery later I got back to school briefly before Christmas, little did I know we all wouldn’t be returning for quite some time - Lockdown Three.

For me, lockdown three was quite busy. Obviously online school, but also preparing for my future. In the summer of 2020, I decided that after my A-levels I wanted to pursue my passion for performing. So, throughout the lockdown I was creating online digital audition videos in my bedroom for different specialist musical theatre courses. Hundreds of singing, acting and dance recordings later, I am on track to go to University of Chichester Conservatoire

to do their BA Musical Theatre and Cabaret Performance course.

I am very excited to be going off to university and as hard as the last 12 months have been, I think I have gained some resilience which will serve me well for a life of auditions! Looking back, after my exams are now finally finished, I feel very lucky for my 6 years at St Mary’s Shaftesbury which taught me the values of kindness and determination and gave me friends for life, all of which were things I couldn’t have got through the past year without. It was so sad for our LVI year group to go our separate ways but we still all remain firmly in touch, our St Mary’s Shaftesbury bond is forever strong!

Background; Courtesy of Dorset Council

After the devastating closure of St Mary’s last

The Register Linzi (Collins) Smart 1970

9 March 2020

Sister Anna Hawke, CJ

16 March 2020

Rosie (Rose Marie Beverley) Haines 1957

16 August 2020 15 February 2021

Janet (Bannister) Rodgriguez 1958

1 April 2021

Sister Margaret (Alban) Leedal, CJ

11 September 2021

Copyright Stephanie Kalber

Sister Louise (Ailsa) Le Marchand, CJ

Sister Anna (Anne) Hawke CJ

4 January 1935 - 16 March 2020 Anne Hawke was brought up in Cambridge where she and her sisters Nonie and Mary were pupils in St. Mary’s School. Nonie later became the bedrock of the Maths department there, but Anne joined the novitiate in Ascot as Sister Anna. After studies, she began her teaching career back in her native Cambridge where she was head of the Junior School from 1964 to 1971, also running the school Guide Company and annual summer camp.

Her religious life was marked from the beginning by her apostolic zeal and her creative enthusiasm.

A move to St Mary’s Shaftesbury, where her brother Mike’s daughters Rachel and Katie (Hawke) were pupils, offered space for her flair for creating special liturgies for various school occasions. Anna’s welcoming liturgy for new staff and pupils was still in operation in 2020. After a sabbatical year at the Irish Institute for Pastoral Liturgy in Carlow she took up parish duties in St George’s Norwich as part of the CJ community there, and then returned to Cambridge, studying Ignatian spirituality and spiritual direction in London.

Anna experienced a ‘call within a call’ to look for a new province mission on the margins. This led her and Sister Josie (formerly Teresa) Bulger to spend over 17 years in East Hull, on an outer

city housing estate called Greatfield, where they were joined by another Shaftesbury stalwart, Sr Elizabeth Anne (formerly Martha) Aldworth. St Stephen’s was a priestless parish of which they took on the leadership, with liturgical celebrations and initiatives to benefit the local community, especially young people. The charitable trust of St Stephen’s Neighbourhood Centre grew from this with the aim of identifying the needs of the local community and acting as their advocates, raising self-esteem and social inclusion and encouraging volunteers to develop their skills in a diversity of groups. Anna’s family experience of cherishing their brother Tiggy, who had Down’s Syndrome, underlay her sensitive care for all with special needs.

Age and health concerns called for a return to Cambridge, but Anna took up various pastoral and spiritual ministries, notably the Weeks of Accompanied Prayer organised by the local Ignatian Spirituality Network, continuing this ministry well into her 80s. She was also an enthusiastic member of the Five Alive folk choir.

Many of those whose lives she touched were present at her memorial Mass and others wrote movingly about the difference she had made to their lives. When a move to St. Joseph’s York was required in February 2020 it was with our hope that she would later return home to Cambridge, but God had other plans and Anna died peacefully on 16th March.

It was ironic that the province’s one professional liturgist was buried without a requiem Mass because of the coronavirus lockdown. She would have been delighted to know that her beloved Five Alive Choir would sing for her at her memorial Mass, which eventually took place in July 2021.

Anna was a person of great apostolic sensitivity and enthusiasm who will be remembered with love and gratitude by her former pupils and colleagues, the St Stephen’s Community in Hull and the many whose spiritual journey she accompanied with gentleness and great kindness. Her gift for welcoming others into our community house was expressed in her beautiful smile – a smile which I feel sure was waiting for her on her arrival in Heaven. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.

Sister Gemma Simmonds CJ (adapted from notes by Sr. Patricia Harriss CJ) 75

Rosie (Rose Marie Beverley) Haines 2 March 1941-16 August 2020 of ‘lines’. A born performer, she sang a memorable Hansel to Caroline Brotherton-Ratcliffe’s Gretel and starred as The Pied Piper of Hamelin”.

After school, Rosie studied in Rome, Madrid and at the Cordon Bleu in London. She married Anthony de Crespigny in 1970, and had three children: Emma, Becky (both St Mary’s alumnae) and Edward; living in turn in London, Cleveland Ohio, Cape Town and Shaftesbury. After divorcing, she ran her Old Rectory as an upmarket B&B and in 1990 married Dr Tony Haines, a sublimely happy marriage. They moved to Angoulême and eventually in 2003 to Hermanus, Cape Province, South Africa where sadly Tony died in 2013.

Rosie never got over his death but made the best of things with her wide circle of interests and friends, and with Emma and her daughter Posie who moved to Cape Town from USA. Shortly before she died, Rosie was delighted by the birth of Edward’s daughter, Sienna Marie, in Melbourne.

Emma writes: “Mum was very dear to us all and fortunately I and my daughter Posie, who she absolutely adored, were able to live with her in Hermanus for the last six months of her life. This filled her with joy as she was not someone who liked to live alone. Sadly, her exuberant and very social nature was dampened due to Coronavirus and her over-zealous children

St Mary’s 1951 - 1957

Classmate, Gill (Comyns) Halliday remembers

Rosie at St Mary’s:

“Rose Marie Beverley was such a bright light, bringing laughter and hilarity into our lives. Funny, clever, outrageous and generous to a fault, often taking on teachers if she deemed something unfair and at times cheeky in class, she earned herself plenty

76

My brother Edward and I loved her annual visits to Melbourne to see us and thanks to Zoom we all kept well in touch. Her warm nature meant that she had kept in close contact with a host of friends - 200 people all over the world attended her Zoom Memorial. It was strangely fitting that because of Coronavirus, so many far-flung friends and family, including all of us in Australia, were able to participate in her moving and beautiful Memorial Celebration.”

Rosie’s flamboyant and generous nature will long be sorely missed by all who knew her. She lived her life with gusto, a tremendous sense of humour, courage in adversity and constancy to her family and friends.

Her schoolfriend Elizabeth (Pinney) Constantine writes for all of us: “She will live on in our hearts and fill them with colour and warmth”.

insisting that she protect herself with vigilance. But in spite of this she spent her last months cooking up a storm which was her first passion; and in painting, which she took to very easily, was very good at and much enjoyed. She died very suddenly but peacefully, in the beloved company of Posie and me, in Hermanus - a place dear to her heart and which had made her very happy.”

“She will live on in our hearts and fill them with colour and warmth”.

This page top: Some of our year group in London in 2019. Left to right: Jane (White) Shenton Kent, Caroline (Brotherton-Ratcliffe) Cardozo Wiltshire, Patricia (Horsley) Harmsworth Dorset, Mary (Lambert) White Birmingham, Gill (Comyns) Halliday Sydney Australia, Betsy (Mills) Tucker Paris, Veronica (Pender-Cudlip) Goodenough Somerset, Rosie (Rose Marie Beverley) Haines South Africa. Bottom right: Rosie greeting Sue (Porteous) Holland at the 75th reunion at St Mary’s. Opposite page bottom right: Rosie in ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’ and the school photo in 1953.

Veronica Goodenough, 1957

Courtesy of Dorset Council

And Becky adds: “We had all loved living in South Africa for many years when I was a child, so I was pleased when Mum and Tony moved to Hermanus, where I could visit.

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Linzi (Collins) Smart, 1970 30 October 1954 - 9 March 2020 Some of her year pay tribute

Linzi sadly lost her fight with cancer in March last

year. She had intended to come to the Reunion at Shaftesbury in 2019 but had messaged me to say that she was not well enough. We missed her!

My first memories of Linzi are when we shared a dormitory in Upper IV. I think she came in the summer term (although I would not swear to that) and had the bed in the bay in what was then dormitory 2 on the first landing. She introduced us all to Kenny Everett, of whom most of us had never

heard at that point – an element of our education she considered extremely lacking! I remember most her smile, her sense of humour and spirit of adventure.

I longed to be adventurous but did not know how.

It was second nature to Linzi. She was only at Shaftesbury a couple of years but she certainly made her mark.

Latterly we kept in touch via Facebook where I marvelled at her photographic travelogues, and on one occasion met briefly at Goodwood Revival – with camera attached of course. And of course at Shaftesbury Reunions…..

Miranda Litchfield 1972 Linzi and I shared a room number 40 something. I remember she had a huge round Union Jack alarm clock with an extraordinary loud tick. I made her put it under her pillow to soften the racket !!

She left school before I did and often came to stay with me during holidays. I was so envious of her bright ORANGE Datsun car. (Only Linzi would have dared to be so bold. This is circa 1970).

Her parents Brian and Lily ran Alton Towers Amusement Park in its infancy. It was such fun to go on all the rides with only a few of us. No queues anywhere.

Above: Linzi track side, (From Linz’s Facebook page) left: on the city walls of Dubrovnik c1972.

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She was always so happy and cheerful, and became a vegetarian before it was known as a dietary alternative.

Her untimely death seems so cruel. She was a great friend and I miss our long chats.

Linda (Henderson) Hancock 1971 Linzi was full of fun and could always laugh even when she was going through the toughest of times. She never needed a phone book - she just remembered numbers. Hum her a couple of bars of a song and she would tell you the title, who sang it, where it got to in the charts and when. She had an extraordinary memory and was an extraordinary woman.

When she came to St Mary’s, she was by far the youngest in our year. She made friends very easily and I remember Clare Asquith, Linzi and I decided we just had to see the cowboy movie, ‘Blue’ at Shaftesbury cinema. As I was a day girl and therefore couldn’t be grounded, it was agreed that I should seek Sister Clare’s permission. I duly presented our case that the film was educational as it dealt with American history in the 1880s. Sister Clare was having none of it, but she let us go anyway.

By the Upper Fifth, Linzi wanted to “get on with living life”, have adventures and so left school after O Levels. But her father insisted she study A Levels,

They shared the love of cars. She said she “began photographing cars when Sam started racing”. Selftaught, she was an Accredited photographer with the Motor Sport Association and could invariably be found track-side at Goodwood, Silverstone and all tracks Europe-wide. Her skill and natural talent was recognised by the industry, and, after a while, Linzi would be commissioned to shoot a race or motoring event and Sam would tag along to carry her camera bag.

Adventures continued to be a part of Linzi’s life and in 2016 she and Sam drove a Ford Mustang across America - 28 days, 12 states and 6281 miles. In spite of her adventures, she invariably found time to go to reunions at Shaftesbury.

For someone who was a vegetarian, didn’t smoke, and hardly drank, it was cruel she was struck down with such a dreadful disease.

Liz (Emberson) Moore 1971

I remember most her smile, her sense of humour and spirit of adventure. which she did taking a correspondence course. Linzi being Linzi, she passed with flying colours - she said partly to prove her father wrong, as he had been against her leaving school.

It was about then that we took holidays together, Jersey, Rome (having had such a great time on a school trip to Italy) and Dubrovnik and Yugoslavia.

She would come to London for concerts - I remember seeing Rod Stewart and Elton John, ‘Hair’ and ‘Godspell’ with her, and I would go to Stoke or Birmingham for theatre and to help out at her parents’ amusement arcade at Alton Towers - an eyeopener for a naive Wiltshire teenager!

She married Sam a few months after I had married - she had been my bridesmaid, but I was not hers as she did not want anyone taller than her! She and Sam first met when they were very little, but only met up again later in life.

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Top: Linzi and Sam on their wedding day 29 January 1978, centre: a Shaftesbury reunion, from left-right: Jancis (Taggert) Henman, Miranda Litchfield, Anne (Dessain) Hughes, Linda (Henderson) Hancock, Linzi (Collins) Smart. Photograph: Sally-Anne Doyle-Jones

Sister Louise Le Marchand CJ 1947 22 March 1930 - 15 February 2021 CJ 1948-2021

From some former pupils She had a great sense of humour when you got past being scared of her as headmistress. I remember the way she used to blink.

Harriet Blanco I will always remember her coming down to the Lower School and explaining the plot line of ‘Nicolas and Alexandra’. Lots of discussion of Rasputin whom up until that moment I only knew through Boney M. Lucy Carp I was fairly terrified of her, History not being one of my strong subjects... I also got separated from the group on a trip to the V&A Museum in London. She was blisteringly furious, but I realised this was partly down to the worry of losing a pupil!

Claire Squibb

Mimi (Madeleine Mason) Thomas

Sr Louise interviewed me for St Mary’s (in the blue parlour!). She was only headmistress for my first year there but still made a huge impression. 15 years later I was in the bar at the University chaplaincy and she walked into the room and I automatically stood up – pure reflex action, I couldn’t not do it!

Remembrance Day in 1984, Sister Louise invited military parents who could attend Mass to do so, and requested they wear their full dress uniform.

Outside the chapel the senior Naval officer instructed

all Naval officers (my father was one) to remove their swords before entering. Sister Louise observed this, and quietly said to them, “Swords on I think!”

No arguments, they all immediately picked up their swords and attended Mass with swords!

Thank you for admitting me to the school that had such a formative impact on my life.

Fiona Smith Sr Louise and Sr Christina inspired me to take Latin A Level at Sixth Form college and instilled an enduring fascination with the Latin world!

Noel Reeson

From former Head, Sue Kirby

She was so kind to me when I became headmistress.

I remember her telling me that she should have done her addiction counselling course before she became Head as she would have done the job better!

From an interview with

Sr. Pat (Camillus) Robb CJ Ailsa le Marchand (later Sister Louise) was

born in Madras, India in 1930. Her grandfather, whose family had been in India for several generations, was a director of the Indian railways.

Her mother hated India and Louise and she returned to live in London. In 1936 Ailsa went to St Mary’s in Hampstead where she became a happy boarder.

She moved to Ashburnham with the school, in the freezing cold winter of 1940. In May of that year the school moved once more to Lady Seymour’s house in Bratton. It was a very happy place where the nuns lived simply: the parlour was their community room, and if the front doorbell went, all their personal things were pushed under any available sofa or chairs to make way for visitors.

When the war ended, the Bishop of Clifton did not want the sisters to leave his diocese, so the Bratton community moved to Coombe House in Shaftesbury.

Meanwhile St. Mary’s Hampstead was reopened in London, where Ailsa attended the opening Mass for the chapel which had been built in 1939 but never used until after the war. In 1944 Sister Catherine Tittell gave her a copy of Bede Jarrett’s ‘No Abiding City’, which remained a lifetime favourite book.

Ailsa left school and began training to be a ballet teacher, while also feeling that she had a vocation 80

to religious life. She didn’t complete the course, however, feeling, ‘if I haven’t got a vocation the nuns will know it and so will I…’ In September 1947 she entered the novitiate at Ascot, joining the VI Form to continue her studies and receiving the habit as Sister Louise in 1948. Her biggest surprise was how very like VI Form the novitiate was. She loved the silence and contemplation but later in life looked back at a life punctuated by endless hours of washing up and laundry, and thought how narrow it was.

In 1951 Louise went to Queen Mary’s College at London University, where the history professor recognized her extraordinary gift for history. After graduating she went back to Ascot to teach history from 1956-1969.

In 1969 she moved to Cambridge where she enjoyed the freedom of cycling around the city and was greatly inspired by Sister Christopher Angell, headmistress of the school and a missionary in Zimbabwe aged 104 at the time of Louise’s death.

A further transfer took place in 1972 when Sr. Gregory Kirkus was moved from the headship of Shaftesbury to being provincial superior. Louise went to Shaftesbury where she lived from 1972-1990 and was headmistress from 1977-1985. She often commented on the freedom she enjoyed there.

Throughout her teaching life Louise was known as a brilliant teacher who had a great sense of humour.

The songs that she wrote for various feasts and jubilees in the community always had her audience doubled up with laughter.

On ending her term as headmistress, she had a sabbatical year in which she studied pastoral theology at Heythrop College in the University of London, followed by a three month spirituality course at the Jesuit retreat centre in St Beuno’s, North Wales. From there she went into addiction

counselling training and went to work at Clouds Rehabilitation Home, East Knoyle. She stayed there for three years before moving to Cambridge to take up counselling and spirituality work, which she continued from the novitiate house in Kentish Town, London, until its closure in 2001. This brought about a final move to York, where she was superior of the St Bede’s community for seven years, continuing her counselling and spirituality work, and running the Pastoral Centre for two years while its director, another Shaftesbury alumna, Sister Cecilia Goodman, had an extended sabbatical. Louise continued seeing clients in both York and London and giving input on prayer at the Pastoral Centre until age and infirmity caught up with her.

The many testimonies received after her death spoke of how much she was valued by a wide variety of people as a spiritual director and companion.

She once said: ‘Looking back, I realise that my time at St Beuno’s was hugely important for my personal spiritual life. Clouds was like another novitiate, but very secular and tough. When the congregation went back to living the life that Mary Ward wanted for her sisters, it was wonderful to be working alongside, working with, and being more open to the realities of life. I would find it too difficult to give advice to a young person wanting to enter religious life today, but I would say that Scripture is central to our lives. Now that I am older, I am conscious of my limitations and face the fact of death. I have had a wonderful life. I have been able to use my gifts and am still doing so. I have been blessed.’

May she rest in peace and rise in glory.

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Opposite: St Louise and Mimi (Madeleine Mason) Thomas in 2015 at the Bar Convent. Above: (left to right) Sr Anna, Sr Mary Ann, Sr Louise, Gr Gillian, Sr Jane Livesey (Campion) and Sr Lizzie (Ann).

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From the editor

SOGA NEWS

I am so grateful to the many people who have

2021-2

contributed to this issue to make it a lively and interesting read. Thank you! Without your contributions it would be a very dull read!

Next year’s issue will be published early autumn 2022, so if you are planning a wedding, reunion or any gathering which Old Girls will be attending, please remember to take photos and send them in for publication together with details. And of course we are keen to include your own news and stories. So please email me on liz.moore340@gmail.com The newsletter is prepared by a group of volunteers who work together via email. If you can spare about 8 or 10 hours between March and July to source and edit articles and/or to write, I would love to hear from you. I am hoping to find an Old Girl for every decade so we can improve our coverage.

Lady Briggs talks with Dee Webb Hugh Bonneville gets Covid jab from Madeleine Remembering Sr Louise

If you know of anyone who has not received the newsletter, please urge them to sign up on www.shaftesburyoldgirls.com/membership. Also if you know anyone who does not have a computer, but who would like to receive a copy, please let us know as we want to make sure that all Old Girls can stay in touch.

We have one advertisement in this issue, and we are hoping to take more pages next year, which will provide much needed funds to support the website and contribute to the cost of a national reunion. If you are interested in advertising your company or services, please get in touch.

Stephanie Wheen’s Gympanzees

For SOGA members the rates are: £100 per whole page, £60 1/2 and £30 1/4. For non-SOGA members £200 per page, no smaller size.

Meanwhile, please contact your Regional Rep (see page 6-7), and soon after Christmas we will be sending round an email with details about the planned reunion at Shaftesbury in 2022 together with information about local get togethers in your area.

Liz (Emberson) Moore 1971 liz.moore340@gmail.com

Find us on Facebook www.facebook.com/groups/stmarysoldgirlsassociation

Find us on Instagram www.instagram.com/sms_oldgirls SOGA News is published by SOGA - Shaftesbury Old Girls’ Association. Opinions expressed in it are not necessarily the views of the editor, SOGA’s committee or representatives.

Whilst every effort has been made to trace copyright holders, we apologise in advance for any unintentional omissions. Corrections will be published in the next available issue.

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Shaftesbury Old Girls’ Association www.shaftesburyoldgirls.com

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