This was Mother Mary Austen’s catchphrase. Oh, how we laughed at her. One of the most ancient of nuns in my convent school, she was big, ungainly and ripe for teasing at all times. Her innocence was immense. She had entered the convent before the first world war, and once admitted to us she had […]Read Post ›
Maja is my one of my oldest and best friends. I have known her since September 1965 when she started going to my school. I knew her father before then, as he worked with my mum, and her brother, Tom, and I knew of her- but had never met her until she started at my […]Read Post ›
George Sand has always been a very romantic figure in my imagination. Ever since I was at my boarding school in Ealing, when Mother Mary Dominic swore me to secrecy not to let the other nuns know that I knew, she divulged that Chopin’s lover, that very wicked woman, had actually been a pupil at […]Read Post ›
or: The asexual reproduction of plants. Miss Power was probably the least well-named teacher we ever had. Beige in dress, including the long bloomers she used to wear under her skirt (we could see whenever she sat at the desk on the dais, legs comfortably, yet still modestly, apart) and somewhat beige in personality. Certainly […]Read Post ›
Poetry Magazine set up, developed, edited and printed by Miss Royle St Augustine’s Priory 1969/70 The front cover a little the worse for wear. My daughter found this on Wednesday and was a bit bemused why I was so thrilled to see it again. I had been looking for it for some time – after […]Read Post ›
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For AAK My father passed his driving test when he was about 45 and immediately bought a car. Of course. An Austin A40: YMD 457 I think was the registration. Then he bought an Austin 1100 and we went to Poland in it. I have written bits about that journey. Six years later I was […]Read Post ›
Reading List Suitable literature for young ladies 1964 – 1971 Form III Mrs Nurse: 39 Steps; The Tempest Lower IV Miss Crowfoot: Great Expectations; Twelfth Night; Hornblower Upper IV M M Francis: The Rape of the Lock; Northanger Abbey Lower V […]Read Post ›
“Good morning, good yawning” – a memorable quotation from one of the very few books that we used to have when the children were small Yesterday Kasia asked me about some books that we used to read together when she was a small child. We didn’t have a lot of money then so I actually […]Read Post ›
MM Clare. Very old. Would look after the boarders at night before matron was installed. She would hang all her necessities on a cord round her waist underneath the top layer of her habit. These included nail clippers, scissors, and an exercise book full of sweet jokes that she had written down to entertain us […]Read Post ›
Life Through Basia's Eyes 