St Teresa’s school, Minehead
I recently found the website of the first school I went to, St Teresa’s in Minehead. It’s Minehead First School now, but it was St Teresa’s in the early 1950’s. I must have gone there in around 1952 or 1953, when I was 4 or 5. In those days it belonged to an order of Roman Catholic nuns. One former pupil, whose reminiscences are on the school’s site writes:
The nuns belonged to the Order of St Louis, which was a French order. Many of them were French or Irish and even the English ones spoke some French. Our French teacher in the senior school was a French nun called Mother Marie Theresa. We called her Bonjour Mere. Ladies lived in the convent with the nuns. They were drearily dressed spinsters. Some of them had bedrooms in the school and in the houses next to the school. Miss Davis was one of them. They spied on us when we were in the town and reported us for not wearing our hats, eating in the street or bad manners (like not holding a door open for an adult, walking through a door in front of an adult or just being silly). Mother St Gerard gave out the bad reports in assembly - there were never any good reports!
I started in the kindergarten with Mother Joseph. Mother Joseph was very scary nun, who - allegedly - used to tell us about black angels and the devil. (My mother later said that Mother Joseph had been sent back to the order’s main house to be reprogrammed!) I don’t actually remember that, but I do remember being scared of her. She was missing a finger on one hand, something I noticed when she marked my exercise book. She used to write on the blackboard (it one was one of the old fashioned kind on an easel) in a hand that mimicked the Century Gothic or whatever the typeface was that was used in our reading book - supposedly easy for young children to read. Even now, seeing that kind of handwriting or typeface can give me a funny feeling.
We used to have to lie down for a rest after lunch. I thought that was deeply insulting. I never had a rest at home and, anyway, I was a BIG boy (all of 4 or 5) and I didn’t need anything sissy like a rest. We used to have to lie down on what my memory recalls as being like camp beds, but with red tubular frames. The bit we lay on was canvas.
It’s amazing what comes back in my memory (although I have a very patchy recall of my own past) as I think and write about that time of my life. The horrible, smelly plastic beakers that we had to drink our playtime milk out of. The 1/3 pint bottles with cardboard disks as stoppers that the milk came in. The stinking lavatories in a small brick building in the playground - I used to hold it all in until I could get home so that I didn’t have to use that vile brick building. The shifting alliances in the playground.
One thing I never found out is why my parents (mother was Church of England, my father was, I think, an agnostic) sent me to a Catholic school. My best friend was a Catholic and it is possible that her mother recommended the school to my parents. The Protestant kids had to go to a half-hour Bible class every day. These were taught by a small woman in a grey felt hat, who called the boys ‘little boy’ - very annoying. The Catholics would go off to Mass on various high days and holy days. I was very surprised one day when all my classmates came back from Mass with ash crosses on their foreheads. I had no idea what it signified, and I don’t think anyone ever explained.
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I must have been at school with you or there abouts I was expelled by Motor Joseph at the age of 4. My mum went back to her and told her that they preached tollerence so they should pratice it. I stayed there until I was 18.
Hi, Kathleen. I left when I was about 8 to go to boarding school, so my memories of St Teresa’s are from when I was very young.
Whatever did you do to be expelled at the age of 4?
The above sure brings back memories of what is LONG forgotten! I remember Sr Joseph & MSG (who was my great Aunt)
I can only remember three people from back then (1959/1960) two Susans, possibly with surnames Coward & Gates, and Julian Reynolds, who was more mischevious than the rest of us! He and I got disciplined for writing naughty letters to the girls, and ‘Sent to Coventry’ - how life has changed. I also recall one unfortunate girl slicing her arms open in the Gym when playing german rounders - she ran into the glass windows in the Gym door and had to walk to town to get stitched up.
There was also an aging lady with an equally aging (labrador) dog who taught music I think.
Actually, they were pretty happy times, and you knew where you stood with the nuns! - never a hair out of place!
Peter, many thanks for your reminiscences. Yes, it was Sister Joseph, not Mother Joseph - somehow my memory had attached the title of Mother to her.
So, Mother St Gerard was your Great Aunt. She always seemed a remote and austere figure to me as a 5 or 6 year, although many former St Teresa’s pupils have good memories of her.
My favourite teacher was Miss Passmore, who taught the class above Sr Joseph’s. Miss Passmore endeared herself to me by having a double-ended biro, blue at one and and red at the other. I had never seen such a thing before and I desperately wanted one.
The last class I was in before I left to go to boarding school was taught by Miss Barnet.
It all seems so distant now. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that the person who went to St Teresa’s evolved into the person I am now.
As Valerie Snook I was a boarder at St.Teresa’s 1945-1950. I have very happy memories of my life there. I am still in contact with several of the ‘girls’ ( not bad considering we are all into our seventies….)Anyone out there remember me? or my cousin Pamela Warwick ? ‘Mother’ Joseph ( of missing R.H. index finger) was definitely not a teacher - she was more to do with our pastoral care in the convent and was indeed a very weird person. I can well imagine her impact on 5 year olds!!!!she scared me.
I recall with pleasure our weekend walks - taken regardless of prevailing weather conditions.
Hi, Valerie. Thanks for your recollections. I’m afraid “Mother” Joseph was indeed very scary for me as a five-year old.
Hi Barney, Thought I might use your site to tell people about the re-union. It is mainly for people borne in 1947, but there are a few places left so anyone interested around those years can contact me my e-mail address is wd.scott@virgin.net. Oh by the way I never did say why I was expelled at 4. Well! In our day it was not the done thing to swear in front of the kids so if my mum did anything that warranted a swear word she would say “that was a crazy thing to do” so when Mother Josheph was pouring my milk into my plastic mugs from the milk churn, yes we had the real things mild churns and she spilt it, I said that was a crazy thing to do and she said that I had called he crazy. So I was expelled. I think the nuns used to expell people because they did not know how to handle the situation, heard of few that were expelled.
Mother Joseph lost her finger while she was nursing in France during the First World War
Many thanks for the info about how Mother Joseph lost her finger, Pat. I had no idea!
I read this entry and it bought back many memories long forgotten. I had a particular flash back seeing the stump of that missing finger!. Yes I was taught to read by Miss Davis with my hands on the desk in front of me always at risk of a downward strike of the edge of a wooden ruler.
Miss barnet was the art teacher. Separate play grounds for boys and girls with a walk in the convent garden past the fossil embedded in the wall to get there.
You may be interested in the pictures at http://www.ron.blundell.btinternet.co.uk/
I remember Miss Passmore and Miss Barnet. Miss Passmore was my favourite teacher at St T’s.
Ron, many thanks for your comments and for your link to your site. Fascinating!
Hi
Thought you would be interested in a website I set up two years ago Remembering St Louis about the convent and school in Glastonbury. Having recently been given some photos of Minehead convent we have added the convents at Minehead and Frome to the website. All established by the same Sisters who came to the various convent schools at some time or another. http://stlouis.atspace.com
Thanks.
Angela.
Angela, Many thanks for the link. I’ve had a quick look at your fascinating site and I shall be back for a more detailed look later on.
Hi
Just wanted to let you know that the St Louis convent has a new address http://www.stlouisconvent.co.uk
Cheers,
Angela.
Thanks, Angela.
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