Memories Of St Anne's Convent School, Ealing In The 1970s
A Memory of Ealing.
I started at St Anne's in 1970, in Upper Transition and left in 1979 after taking my O levels. I took my A levels at Richmond upon Thames College. Being a Protestant in a Catholic school, the majority of whom were Irish catholics, at the height of 'The Troubles' could on the odd occasion be uncomfortable. This was not due to my classmates picking on me for being protestant (out of 32 pupils, 30 were catholic) but classmates repeating their parents comments/prejudices made during conversations around the dinner table.
My first teacher at St Anne's was Sister Mary Joseph and I have no real memories of her. My least favourite teacher was Sister Mary Marguerite, who I had in Prep 3 and thought my older sister could do no wrong and would often ask me why I couldn't be more like my sister - that was the only year I received detentions, the last one of the year was for swearing and lack of respect, when I finally snapped at once again being compared to my sister and decided to actually answer her 'I am not my bloody sister I am ME which is why I am not like her' - my parents had taught me to respect my elders so at 10 years old for me to respond in that way and to a teacher, was an indication of how often it had happened throughout the year and was responsible for me realising that no one had the right to undermine/belittle/bully me (or anyone else for that matter) regardless of who they were or their position of authority. It has made life interesting and not always easy!! My favourite was Miss Clayton, the maths teacher in senior school. Passing my maths O level was not only down to hard work but also as a result of her humour, patience and ability to make maths fun.
I will never forget the school lunches which were compulsory for the infants and juniors and as they were inedible, no one ate once they went up to senior school (age 11), preferring packed lunches. I remember spreading the mash potato (made from Smash) around my plate to make it appear that I had eaten everything and desperate to identify who liked spam and could eat gristle (no meat ever found) stew without heaving; if I was lucky I wasn't caught scraping the leftovers into the bin, on more than one occasion I was sent back to the table to finish my lunch! It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I could bring myself to even try and eat mashed potatoes and even now I very rarely eat it...
Some other memories:
The annual St Patrick's day netball match between Ireland and England and struggling to find enough English players - never celebrated St George's day ;
Having to wear my school hat when Miss Kay (Latin and classics teacher) and I were on the same train home;
Queuing in the school chapel on Ash Wednesday to have the priest mark your forehead with ashes and the first time it happened immediately wiping them off;
End of year mass, which unlike the mass at term end, included singing and guitars. It was compulsory for non catholics to compulsory attend all masses until the age of 13;
During school assembly one of the sixth form prefects who was supposed to help keep the younger years in order, sticking a plunger on her forehead and pretending to be a dalek;
Loathing netball when at the age of 13, following a growth spurt and becoming the second tallest (5ft8) in my class, I was only picked to play goal defense. Started to love playing volleyball and for the first time in any team sport being picked first! Luckily it turned out that in addition to my height advantage I was also good at volley ball!!
The annual school play performed when in your final year of juniors - we performed Gypsy Rose Lee, but I am pretty sure it was nothing like the Nathalie Wood film!
The end of year show performed by the fifth form after their O levels;
April fools day when we smeared honey on all the door handles and finding out how difficult it is to remove from door handles;
The annual school photo when the whole school (age 5-18) including teachers would gather on the front lawn and would have to sit still as the camera slowly panned round resulting in a photo about 18 inches long;
At the end of the school year cleaning our desks with wire-wool and polishing them with beeswax;
Ultimately having good memories of school and St Anne's in spite of its short comings.
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I attended St Anne’s from prep 3 and left in 1983 after O levels and attended Richmond college for my A levels .My younger sister also attended and finished her O levels in the last year it closed and went onto the London Oratory for A levels .
I joined in prep 3 with Sister Marguerite and English was taught by Miss Robinson who I remember being kind .My time in prep 3 was enjoyable with Sister Marguerite as she liked my dad as they came from same part of Ireland and he would bring her bottles of alcohol at the end of term (long before that was a thing )which went down well with her-although it was a shock as I came from a very modern local state school in Hayes in Middlesex and I did find it hard to adjust to a very traditional education but I think it helped shape my value system as it aligned more to my parents who were Irish immigrants .I had was given a hard time when I was in my old school being one of the only catholic kids of Irish decent at height of the troubles in Northern Ireland which had spilled into England so I liked that I could celebrate being Irish .
On the other hand my sister joined in prep 1 and Miss Bolger,Miss Wittington the prep 1 & 2 teachers who taught her were scary disciplinarians with shaved heads and no smiles that I remember.They made learning spellings and times tables the most awful thing as they would make you do it front of the class and given that these years were meant be nurturing -my sister cried for a whole 2 years and hated it until she also went to senior school .
The senior school was a good experience and I remember all of things Denise mentioned with such fond memories including the end of term concerts one of them was when we heard that John Lenon has been murdered and we had been coincidentally singing “Imagine“ .I remember lots of the teachers crying which was unusual in Saint Anne’s as it was not about showing any emotion .
The St Patrick’s day netball was always good fun ,the end of term ritual of cleaning the desks with wire wool and the all school photo with the revolving camera on the lawn I can remember so well -I liked the school dinners my favourite was sponge and treacle pudding and arctic roll.
I also remembered when sister Stanislaus died and we all filed past her body lying in her bed.That was the first dead body I had seen and at the time it was scary but it taught me one of the Irish traditions of open caskets and I respected it .
I also remember Miss Clayton and her humour very well and she was also my form teacher as well as my Maths teacher .
The teacher that had the biggest impact on me was the science teacher Miss Monteiro (not sure of exact spelling)She was my year 3 form teacher as well as my biology teacher and she really became my mentor and made me believe I could do anything and I credit her for getting me to believe in myself .
I too used to take the tube from Northfields to Heathrow where I lived and Miss Kay would often be on this line morning and evening and we had to make sure our uniform was correct otherwise she would come and tell you off and in the summer we had to wear a straw boater which would be hidden in my school brief case as soon as possible and only came in on last stop before school as where I came from the local state school kids would take it off me and use it as a frisbee.
I have seen a post from my former English teacher may Das Gupta who was also very good .
I have seen that a new free school is planned for the site which is great to news as it has been empty for a while and there are some pictures of the school on the internet which shows some of the rooms in the old building it hasn’t changed a bit inside but needs some restoration it a grade 2 listed building so thankfully it can’t be knocked down.
Overall I my school days were great and I enjoyed them .