St Vincent's Open Air School 1959 to 1963

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TinaBrown
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Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2017 10:46 am

St Vincent's Open Air School 1959 to 1963

Postby TinaBrown » Fri Feb 24, 2017 1:43 pm

Anyone here that we're a child at the St Vincent's Open Air School during 1959 to 1963.
They would remember Sister Patricia, Sister Vincent, Sister Bernadette etc. I do have some photos of a group of us. Which I would gladly share.

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Geoff
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Joined: Sun May 08, 2005 3:39 pm
Location: Blacklands, Hastings
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Re: St Vincent's Open Air School 1959 to 1963

Postby Geoff » Sat Feb 25, 2017 8:56 pm

Hi Tina and welcome to the forum.

There's already a couple of threads on St Vincent's, including this rather long one viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2478

Perhaps adding your message to that thread would be a good idea as everyone who has already posted there will get a notification that a new message has been added.

Hope that helps.

Geoff

Mary Pegg
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Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2020 3:49 pm

Re: St Vincent's Open Air School 1959 to 1963

Postby Mary Pegg » Mon Dec 07, 2020 6:26 pm

My name when attending St. Vincent's between 1958 and 1960 was Mary Pegg, I'm now Mary Ricketts.

These are my recollections of St. Vincent's... On arrival I was confronted by nuns wearing ''butterfly'' hats, I'd never seen this before and was nervous, there were no visits until I was settled and I thought I had been abandoned until the fortnightly visits started by my family. Soon I began to love it there, the nuns and the carers were the kindest people you could meet.

I recall the full size statue of Mary in the chapel, I though the stones trailing down to the floor from her fingers were diamonds, processions around the grottos (I am not catholic).
I recall the verrandah which was later removed probably for health and safety reasons.
In the summer the picnics on the beach with banana sandwiches and lashings of home made ice cream, the visits to the green grocers to buy my favourite pomegranates.
One girl put her fingers in the power socket and flew across the room, she spent days in bed but recovered fully.
The fire in the boiler room which made the national papers.
Sneaking up from the dormitory and seeing the sisters with their caps and close shaved heads asleep in bed.
I remember Sister Bernadette, an angel and Sister Vincent the ''bad cop'' nun.
A little girl who I will call ''B'' who would wet herself and a puddle would appear under her chair which I would clean up so that she didn't get told off.
I remember a girl called Stephanie Longman, I think she came from Chatham, we exchanged letters for awhile after leaving.

I did return on a couple of occasions in recent years, the first time was with my brother, by then it was used as a college and we found the chapel was being used as a staff room to my dismay but a least it still had the stained glass windows. On the next visit I found the place had been demolished, I was bereft this was a tragedy.
Mary Pegg.


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