Old friendships

Apologies for my absence for 3 days. Once I have woken up properly (!), I will be back blipping and all will be revealed.

Today started with a Company Meeting for the Walking Festival. It was my first one as chair and I think we forgot to sign the minutes of the last meeting (Maureen).  All went well and we now know that we did better than break-even in the last festival. That augers well for the future.

Then Mum and I drove to Sunderland. She had an appointment at the Eye Infirmary about her double vision, but first we went to Oaklea Convent of the Sisters of Mercy for tea with some very special nuns.

My Dad became friends with Sister Mary Baptist and Sister Mary Dolores, (one on each side of Mum), when he worked as an Education Welfare Officer, many years ago. Sr Baptist was a very young headteacher and Sr Dolores was a novice nad teaching in the same school. They loved my Dad, who was full of fun and teased them.

Later they were introduced to Mum. Much later she went to teach at the local Catholic Girls' Grammar School in Sunderland. She was the only non-Catholic teacher there at the time, and sometimes a nun would come into her classroom to check she was saying the prayers at the beginning and end of lessons!

One of her pupils was Sister Mary Francis, at the right of the picture. She remembers Mum as her first class teacher. On the very first day of her time at the school, she left her dinner money at home in the new purse she had been given for it. She was very upset. Mum told her not to worry and paid the 5 shillings for her! They have not seen each other for more than 40 years, so it was a great reunion.

There other great memory was that they had a class project which was an embroidered picture. Every girl put stitches in and they gave it to the head teacher, Sister Mary Gabriel.

The other nun in the blip is Sister Mary Enda, who was on the staff when Mum was teaching.

We had tea, chat and lots of memories were shared.

And who knew? The nuns have email and Sister Mary Baptist is on Facebook!!

All too soon, we had to go to the hospital, where the estimable orthoptist, Mrs Bogie, spent an hour sorting out the prisms for Mum's spectacles. Superb service.