Just seen this so apologies for not replying before. Yes I did board at Townsend and although I was never thrilled by it, it was a lot less rigid and the food was 10 times better!

I think the food may have improved somewhat from the Cecil House days, but we certainly always had to eat everything, regardless of how revolting. Only starting to board at 12 I really loved it, eventually. It took me two or three terms to get used to it, and all the ‘Yes, sister’ ‘No, sister’ business, and the Angelus every midday. I don’t know how I would have felt if I had started as a youngster.

Derek, what an amazing memory, and thank you so much for sharing it with us. I bet you were taught well, in spite of the appalling conditions. The first school I went to, in Fort Jameson near the Malawi (Nyssaland then) border, had twelve pupils, one teacher and one classroom. The pupils’ ages ranged from six to twelve, with several Afrikaans children for whom English was a second language. Yet we we all loved school. Lessons were stimulating and fun and we worked very hard with great enjoyment. When I was nine my parents went to England on leave and we were all sent to a school in Paignton where to our surprise and discomfiture we were two years ahead…

Pat, that does all sound very sad – a good thing you’ve forgotten most of it, more than the hymns. I’m the other way around.
People these days just won’t understand, that being sent away to school was often pure necessity, and also, often, family tradition (both true in my case and I suspect yours). I remember telling people at work I’d been to boarding school. They were all politely horrified, and their immediate response was ‘Why?’ Almost implying it was a reformatory!! Did you board at Townsend?

I was sent to boarding school at St Peter’s Carnegie House at the age of seven in 1952. It was not seen in our family as cruel since my my father,aunt and uncles were sent away to St Peter’s at anything from age 4 to 7.

Fortunately, I have forgotten most of it. Memories that remain are of playing jacks and pick-up-sticks in the sand, being taught by Sister Jennifer to darn my own socks at 8, playing Mary in the house nativity play and a classroom with Sister Bertha (ancient and scary) in Fletcher House. I was totally miserable for the first three years. Was then transferred to Heyman House for two years, supervised by Sister Lilian Francis which wasn’t too bad.

I left at the end of Form 1 to go to Townsend. I was delighted to leave the regime of chapel twice a day, once on Saturday and three times on Sunday! To this day, over sixty years later I remember the words for many of the hymns we sang and all the words to almost every Christmas carol we ever sang.

Gill, I’m not really quite sure about the religious question. Constant church going certainly put me off but now I find a traditional service with all the music and responses can be very nostalgic and comforting. The Sakeji approach was much more intimate – we were constantly urged to be on the alert for a sign we had been Saved. It felt important and wholly desirable, but while I waited (in vain) I dreaded being called to the sisterhood at St Peter’s and for at least two years I thought that my fate!