We do not often hear from Convent Old Boys but I have had two contacts.

One is a very moving, nostalgic article written by JOHN LEESON, which I am including in this edition. The article, together with 2 group photos and one of a tableau from a pageant about St. George, can be seen on our website. www.rc-churches.net

GLENN has also put on a piece JOHN has written about his father Mr. CHARLES LEESON, who was organist and choirmaster at Corpus Christi Church, he also taught music at the Convent.

The other contact is from NIALL MURNANE, who with his brother CONN, now deceased, attended the Convent, leaving in July 1939. Their two older sisters were also at the convent. I shall ask him for more information about them. NIALL is in Harare, Zimbabwe, in the parish where FR. MARK HACKETT S.J. is Parish Priest.

When he discovered that Fr. Mark was from this area he told him about his time at the convent and was given a St. Peter's Past Pupils' newsletter.

From this he contacted the Secretary Terry Leonard, who passed the e-mail on to me. NIALL practised as an attorney in Umtali, now Mutare, from 1962 -`80 While there he met The Provincial Magistrate Mr. J.E.T. HAMILTON, who told him that he too had been at the Prep School for Boys at The Convent of The Cross, Boscombe.

NIALL also met the Headmistress of the Umtali Girls' High School, PEGGY ROBINSON, who is a distant cousin of Niall's wife, Joan. PEGGY was able to give him more up to date news of the Convent.

When Peggy came back on holiday she visited the convent and told one of the nuns that she had met an Old Boy called MURNANE the nun's immediate response was, " Yes, was it Conn or Niall?" What amazing memory! PEGGY later went to Salisbury, now Harare, as Head of a big Girls' High School.

We have now lost contact with her. Mr. & Mrs HAMILTON retired to Durban a number of years ago.

He lectured at the Durban University for some time but NIALL has had no news for some while. I shall be e-mailing Niall so may find out more.

Here is the article from JOHN LEESON.

"My brother TONY and I remember our Convent years as a generally happy time and a completely 'natural'-one might almost say `holistic' -introduction to the Catholic faith: learning our catechism by rote and making our First Confession and First Holy Communion, which was done so beautifully in the school chapel, itself a lovely building. Later we were confirmed at Corpus Christi where we had been christened at the age of three weeks.

The feast of Corpus Christi, which usually fell in June, was always celebrated with particular fervour and ceremony at the adjoining church of the same name. Clergy, choir, nuns and congregation would process around the grounds as the `Blessed Sacrament' in the best monstrance was carried high by the celebrant beneath an ornate canopy preceded by six convent boys in cassocks and ermine-trimmed capes scattering rose petals from little baskets, a role for which there was much competition. When it was all over we would return to the school for a special tea.

All holidays (holy days) of obligation were occasions for an extra mass, no school work and a special tea followed by games - similar to a birthday party. I also regularly `served' at mass which was celebrated daily at 7.30 in the morning by one of the priests from the church invariably, during my time, Father Weaver who was, I believe, the nuns' chaplain.

My years at the school included the whole of the Second World War and this had a dramatic effect on Chapel activities during the `blackout', and Tony and I vividly remember serving mass in almost complete darkness, reading the Latin responses with the aid of a shaded lanternl Benediction, usually celebrated in the afternoon, was then a regular and popular service and one which both Tony and I especially enjoyed - quite short, no sermon but the singing of traditional Catholic hymns, and incense!

The spiritual head of the Convent was Reverend Mother Mary Kelly. Her sister, also Mother Kelly, seemed to act as administrator and bursar and we always had to report to her in her office if we broke somethingl Head of the boy's department was Mother Howe, a firm but fair and friendly individual well liked by both pupils and parents. She was supported by a`team' of nuns and usually two or three lay-teachers.

Names that I readily recall are Mothers Pannell, Mary Thompson, Theresa Thompson, McCurry and Sisters Imelda [refectory] Joan [matron] and Philomena [linen room]. Sister, later Mother, Gillard was not in the boys' department but was a popular teacher of piano and also the chapel organist along with Mother Pannell.

The lay teachers I remember, apart from our father who, in my early years, took us for singing, were Miss M. A. Fagan, Miss M. Gobell, Miss Irwin and Miss Walsh who was the gym mistress for both boys and girls and easily identified by her gymslip!

During the first week of May 1941 Dad, who had just turned forty-eight, was very suddenly taken ill and, for no very obvious reason, Tony and I suddenly found ourselves having to board at school. A day or so later we were taken home to see him. I remember very clearly standing alone by his bed in the small back room at our home, not really understanding the significance of events but agreeing to his request to, "look after Mummy for me," Tony had seen him separately first.

We were returned to the Convent by Miss Gobell who had become a family friend. On 9th May we were summoned from the refectory at breakfast by an unusually solemn Mother Howe who took us into the adjacent boys' shoe room where both Reverend Mothers Kelly were waiting to tell us that Dad had died during the night and that we should go immediately to the chapel to pray for him.

The details of this bleak day in our young lives are better remembered by Tony; all I recall was locking myself in one of the toilets near the chapel and crying until a sister came to find me. I understand we attended the funeral at Corpus Christi in the company of a family friend Mrs Melting, but not the burial at Boscombe cemetery; Tony recalls that Sister Joan showed particular kindness to us both during a sad and bewildering time for two small boys.

Tony and I remained boarders at the Convent. The war seemed to cause little disruption to life at school. The only significant difference seemed to be the sleeping arrangements: because of the large dormitory windows, already displaying the familiar criss-cross pattern of sticky tape in the dormitories, beds were kept well away which meant that many overflowed into the lofty corridors that were comparatively safe from the effects of blast.

School routine continued, the only concession being the move out of the classrooms during the occasional air raid warning to once again `take shelter' in the windowless corridors. Apart from Sunday walks, we rarely ventured beyond the solid, high brick walls of the establishment. There were occasional stage productions as evidenced in the family photograph album in which I, and a number of others, can be seen dressed as knights in a production obviously associated with St George.

At Christmas there was the inevitable nativity play and I remember enjoying the limelight as the angel Gabriel, greatly envied for having the best set of wings and perched high over the crib scene!

The impressions I retain are more of sense than of substance: the coded ringing of the hand bell at the bottom of the boys' stairs to summon a particular nun (Mother Howe was 1-2-3(pause)1); the silent line of boys walking along the ornately-tiled corridor which, having passed through the frosted-glass door that divided boys from girls, led to our playroom, keeping to the left and always stopping at the `Lady statue', one of many religious effigies set in alcoves along its length; the distinctive tapping of Mother Howe's ring on her stall in chapel to signal an orderly departure by her boys.

When I was older, probably about ten, I slept in a curtained cubicle instead of an open dormitory. I remember ghost stories told by a boy called Charles Palmer about the mysterious `Grey Matron' [as far as I know it was a character of his own invention]: he would continue until the flickering lantern of Sister Joan signalled the end as she padded quietly along to her cubicle in the corner the lantern casting strange shadows on the ceiling and curtains.

Even certain smells can take me unfailingly back: toast reminds me of passing the Bishop's parlour after early mass where Father Weaver's breakfast, just removed from the trolley in the corridor, awaited his arrival - toast was never on our menul One refectory smell I have never since experienced was the strange mustiness of a nun's habit as her arms enveloped me from behind in order to cut up and `recycle' the meat fat I had hoped would not be noticed on the edge of my plate!

In 1942 Tony left to become a dayboy at St Peters. We had always been very close and his departure left me feeling very alone and unhappy. I was about eight and was allowed home on Saturdays. On one occasion after having been taken back to school I`escaped' and made my way back home. (cont.)