The School Of The Holy Child, Laleham Abbey

A Memory of Laleham.

heads the label in a dictionary of music that I received as a prize in Upper IA. No date. It must have been 1955. My name was/is Margaret Morley. I joined the school on my return from Malaya in 1951, followed by my sister Tania the following year.

Names I remember: Gillian Yarham (thanks to another post; a dark-haired girl with black eyes), and my classmates: Rhona Gracie, Elizabeth Boddington, Veronica Locke, Barbara Algy (my best friend), Penelope Snedden; also Patricia Heathcote, Michele Tooth and Julie Firth (red head) (thanks to posters); Elizabeth and Priscilla Kerin and Faith Kerin, Linda Taylor, my cousin Shauna Hippisley, Valerie Mackintosh, Helen Pearce; the "big girls" Dawn, Lisa, Patsy Gentry; the "little ones" with whom I played a lot, Jennifer Wild, Janet......, Caroline, and a Moira and Lesley; Verity Bargate. I can see nearly all their faces and other faces to which I cannot put a name. My sister had friends I remember, Fenella and Auriel Anderson. Staff and nuns: Father Joblin, Sister Marianna (the best piano teacher I ever had), Sr. Constantia (scary Maths teacher), Sr. Catherine Mechtilde (English?), Mrs.Judd (drama, lived in Sunbury and wore red lipstick), Sr.Mary Philippa, Sr. Florence (? a very gentle, kind lady), Sister Barbara, a novice on whom I had a "pash", strict Sr. Pauline Mary who would look over the top of her glasses at you during prep, Sr. Pringle at the surgery (thanks to a poster) and again, others to whom I cannot put a name. And of course Mother Sarah.

If anyone wants to contact me, I now live near Guildford in Surrey: margsmorley@hotmail.com or find me on Facebook.

Memories: I have so many! I will try not to repeat what other people have recalled, but just to agree that we did indeed live the life of the nuns.

I remember the large dormitories with rows of beds, tickling each other's arms in the dark, the huge clanging bell that woke us up every morning, folding all eight blankets one by one to place on the locker at the end of the bed, all to be made up again after breakfast; moving to "over the bridge" to the cubicles. My first period, a wad of newspaper appeared in my chest of drawers, clean ST's and a bag in which to put the soiled ones which mysteriously disappeared. But how often did we get to change them? Horrid plastic over knickers which did not protect extra soiling anyway. Ugh! I remember being called to my sister's dormitory in the night when she was crying. Poor little girl, only six years old! Baths on certain days only, and I seem to remember sharing the water. Did we ever wear mufti?

Piano lessons in the basement of the Abbey, past the Bakery. I also had practice upstairs in the Abbey, opposite the Sisters' Recreation room. Sr.Marianna would play the piano for us when she was on duty, we all crowded around the piano. She was such a good pianist. We sang in two parts from an early age. I remember all the songs she taught us.
The Nativity Tableau: how holy it felt! As angels we slid sideways in socks across in front of the altar in the chapel to form a semicircle round the Nativity scene and a sister from the Abbey sang Ave Maria by Gounod which carried me to heaven, it was so beautiful. She died of cancer later.
I played for school chapel from an early age; the first hymn I played was O Happy Band of Pilgrims, looking up at the picture of the Sacred Heart above the piano. Sister Marianna took me all the way to Grade 6 and today, when I still play some of those pieces, I think of her. I inherited a lot of her music when the school closed. I ended up being a music teacher!

Play times: in the winter in Cana, the cold playroom where there was a cupboard with all our toy cases in it. We played Monopoly, cards, jacks, gave concerts and did a lot of knitting mittens for our cold hands, and outside we skipped, played two and three ball, hopscotch outside St.Scholastica, the top form room, we had little gardens, and ran around being horses on the Crucifix Lawn which stretched down from the Abbey to the fence. There was a cedar copse, out of bounds, but one big cedar tree which we could climb. Once or twice we met a man behind the crucifix, an "uncle" of one of the girls......I wonder. We had to stop whatever we were doing for the Angelus. One girl, Valerie Mackintosh, was mad on Shakespeare. She used to spend ages in the lav reciting Shakespeare! I loved poetry and organised dramatisations of narrative poems with friends; their initials are still written next to their verses in that poetry book!

Lessons: we were well-educated, both my sister and I a year ahead of our ages when we moved on. I developed a love of literature there from a reader we had with extracts from the classics in it. Lower down the school we had very cold green metal desks, but higher up we had wooden desks which opened, and had an inkwell at the top. We traced maps and outlined the coastlines with a mapping pen dipped in the ink. I got a fountain pen for a birthday present.

We had chapel every morning and twice on Sundays in the Abbey, lining up for our freshly-washed and ironed veils. On special days, like Mothering Sunday or the Sunday when you get Simnel cake, we received a piece of cake from Mother and knelt to kiss the ring on her hand. We hardly ever saw her otherwise. She entertained her friend Princess Marie Louise who came every year to present the prizes. We wore white dresses and sat on the lawn, no fidgeting, outside the Abbey veranda. We performed for the Princess. I usually played the piano, we had ballet demonstrations, poetry recitals, singing. Everything was very thoroughly rehearsed. We felt perfection was expected.

Confirmation was preceded by Confession. Oh how I dreaded that! Then Penance. First Communion in white dresses with white veils pinned on our heads and strawberries for a treat. There was no option as far as I was aware, but my parents were far away in West Africa so they left us to the mercy of the school. Mercy it was sometimes. We had no one to love or to love us. If you were unhappy you learned to cope with it. I remember my first term playing hockey. I had no idea about this game which we had not played in Malaya! I was put in goal. The whole field was covered in fog so I could hardly see the game and it was freezing cold. I thought they had all gone away and forgotten me. I just cried all alone in that goal. I hated hockey for ever. Just as I hated Maths because we had to learn "theorems" by heart which made no sense whatsoever and I could never memorize them. Our letters home were read so we could never write anything private. We loved getting letters. We had no contact with the outside world, just one visiting day a term, two in the summer. My uncle would pick me and my cousin up and drive us back to their home for the day as they lived not too far away. Otherwise one just stayed at school. Lonely.

I could fill a book with memories! When all's said and done, I was very happy in that little school. I suppose it was for me, a displaced child, a safe environment.

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