DILIGENCE

When I returned to school at the end of the summer holidays after learning I had failed my Intermediate exam, I realised that I now had to make good my promise to start working when I was fifteen. I had no idea how I was going to achieve this. Nor had I any clue as to how difficult it was going to be.

Despite my failure I moved on into the fifth year with the rest of my class and began my climb back into working mode. I was never one to do things by halves and having made up my mind, I got on with the job.

I did not discuss my efforts with anyone. The work was incredibly hard for me. There was a backlog of years of idleness to be made up and I had more or less to teach myself how to concentrate again. Needless to say there was some occasional backsliding but on the whole I did get down to the serious business of study.

The nuns, I think, were wary but gradually accepted that I was actually working, though there were times when I myself despaired of ever achieving anything. Indeed there were so many occasions when I declared: "I can't", that Phil Guinan, one of my classmates, laughingly dubbed me 'Madam Can't'! I didn't resent the epithet because it was, in any case, precisely how I felt myself.

Fifth Year was Matriculation Year and the exam loomed always like a dark cloud on my horizon. However, compensations there certainly were. Our class was quite a small one and very congenial and we got on well together. Furthermore my teachers were helpful. Having once realised that I intended to work they did all they could to help me. I remember very well how Sister Mary Irenaeus, our Latin teacher, spent extra time doing Latin translations and grammar with me.

All this attention to study tended to give me in general a more serious outlook. In fifth year, in any case, we had moved not just into a different class but also into a different section of the school. We were now regarded as real seniors and it was taken for granted that we would behave responsibly. This sort of expectation on the part of one's teachers, more often than not, produces exactly the desired result in the pupil.

That year I became one of two readers at breakfast. Carmel Close and I took it in turns - one week on, one week off - to climb up to the rostrum and read aloud 'The Imitation of Christ' and the life of some saint. I never minded having to project my voice to the far end of the refectory; I seemed able to do it quite easily.

This facility acquired at that period stood me in good stead in later years when I worked as a PR for the Blood Transfusion Service. One of my jobs then was to go round factories at lunch time addressing workpeople in the canteen, in the hope of persuading them to become blood donors. Invariably I would have to make myself heard over a great deal of noise, with people talking, plates being stacked and cutlery clattering.

Meanwhile, on my return to school after the summer holidays I was very unforgiving to myself for having made such a mess of my Intermediate exam. In particular I felt I had let my parents down and although I had not expected to do well overall neither had I anticipated failing in French. Over that I could have made some excuse for myself since I was far from well on the day of that exam.

To myself, inwardly, however, excuses at that time were not the order of the day. In my new found serious mindedness I started analysing my weaknesses and making decisions for myself as to the best way forward to achieve success. For the exam some subjects, English, Irish and Maths, were compulsory, Latin also if one wished to go on to take a degree. Reluctantly I concluded I must discontinue one subject and decided to drop French and concentrate on Latin.

In retrospect this seems to have been an odd decision for me to have made. In reality I was not at all bad at French (because I liked it) but my Latin I had undoubtedly neglected. The odd thing is that on leaving school I got myself to Belgium, France and Germany and learned to speak both French and German fluently. But that was for the future.

There now began for me a year of exceedingly hard work, sometimes almost despair (poor Madam Can't!). Recreation times often became simply extra study periods which I would spend with my nose in a book. This is not to say I was never lighthearted. My own nature would not have allowed me to be exclusively earnest.

A snapshot of a friend, Pat Keaveney, and myself taken at that time, does show me in serious guise: in school uniform and blazer, and with centre parted hair demurely drawn back.

At the end of the school year, in great trepidation, I sat the Matriculation exams. The results did not come out until at least halfway through the summer holidays but oh, what a relief when they did. I had made the grade and could now sit back and enjoy the rest of the break before I had to go back to Dublin for a final year at school.

* * *

Relief at the results was undoubtedly my predominant feeling but nevertheless I knew there would be just as hard a year ahead of me in sixth year as in fifth. There was still another exam to get through; this was the Irish Leaving Certificate, and if I wanted to negotiate it successfully I would have to keep up the pressure on myself.

But first there was the carefree summer at home. That year Captain Wilson's family rented a house on the Laxey Glen road. It was a delightful spot where the Laxey river having wound it way down from the slopes of Snaefell and through Glen Roy, meandered gently past the garden. Mrs. Wilson and the children were to stay there and Captain Wilson would join them, between crossings in the Assaroe, whenever possible.

Unfortunately Mrs. Wilson was taken ill and had to go into hospital for an operation. As a result it was decided that one of the Wilson children would move to our house, whilst Nancy, the eldest, a girl of my own age, and I would look after the others in theirs.

It was a wonderful summer. The weather was perfect and time seemed to be divided between the beach, the Sycamores and the glen. One of my abiding memories of keeping house there was a feather mattress. Making the bed was not at all easy,, but oh, the bliss of sleeping in it!

I had always had school friends to stay during the summer holidays and that year my very first Irish friend, Evelyn, and her sister, Thelma, joined us for part of the summer. We were a large, noisy, very happy crowd; but summer does not last forever and eventually the time came when once again I had to get down to study.

Despite having to work for exams we still had extra curricular subjects, elocution for instance, but classes were merged for this. Joan McSwiggan from Fourth Year and, I like to think, myself, were good at it and that year it had a further interest for us. A competition had been announced and it was proposed to award a medal as the prize.

At that time I had developed a rash on the backs of my hands and was sent to see a skin specialist in Dublin. Of all the times to choose for the appointment, the day of the competition was picked. Joan won and I'm sure she deserved to but I would have liked the chance to compete.

However there was one consolation. The consultant advised the nuns that I had bad circulation and should never wash in cold water. From then on I always had hot water and became the envy of the rest.

That year I was put in charge of a small dormitory, apart from the others. Although we were called in the mornings, we did not have a nun come round at night to say the prayers and turn the lights out. That was my responsibility.

As I recall we got up at 6.40 in the morning, washed, dressed and betook ourselves, in silence of course, to the study hall for morning prayers which were followed by meditation. We then went to Mass. After that there was breakfast with the usual religious reading. Carmel and myself were joined that year by two more readers, so it was only necessary for each of us to read one week in every four.

The regime was decidedly a rigorous one. Apart from the early morning religious practice, there were prayers before every class, the Rosary, the Angelus, collective night prayers, weekly confession, Benediction and of course classes began every day with the subject of religion.

Silence was more the order of the day than noise, though we could make plenty of that once we were let loose. We were still expected to walk sedately and silently along the corridors from one place to another. Except for myself we still washed in cold water.

Yes, it was a rigorous regime but there was no rebellion. It was a different age and although we children were virtually living a semi monastic life we simply accepted it as the norm.

We did not have school monitors as such, but the sixth years particularly were expected to keep order among the younger ones. We also had the Children of Mary Sodality. This is a worldwide Catholic society for women and girls whose members endeavour to take the Mother of God as a role model.

With us the first step to being admitted to the society was a pale blue rosette. This we wore at all times pinned to our uniform and with it came a sort of monitor status. I was given a rosette during the first term of the year, but before very long I lost it.

During the summer holidays my parents had decided I should have some extra maths tuition and for this purpose had enlisted the help of the son of a friend of my mother - a young schoolmaster. Also the daughter of another of her friends got married that summer and we were all invited to the celebrations which included an evening dance at a hotel.

I was sixteen and I went to my first dance in my first long evening dress, a very demure little affair in check taffeta; and my parents came too.

Later on at home I put the dress on again and Mother took a photograph of me sitting on the front entrance steps with my maths tutor who put his arms around my shoulders. There we sat on the steps smiling at each other and looking very happy. When Mother sent me copies of the holiday snaps, including that one, I showed them round the class as of course we all did. Fatal!

One of the sixth year girls, whom I did not know particularly well, was shocked and scandalised, took the photo from my desk and handed it to the nun in charge. That year we had acquired a new Mistress of Discipline. I'm afraid she was not a very wise woman. I was duly taken to task and had my rosette confiscated. I remember her saying disapprovingly that this 'could be an occasion of sin'. She would have done better to have used a little psychology.

In many ways I was rather young for my age. I had never thought about 'sin' in that context before but I certainly thought a great deal about it afterwards.

The school year progressed. The work went on. Exam time was fast approaching. Beforehand however, there was an occasion of great rejoicing. It was 1935. The school had been founded in 1717 in the west of Ireland but in 1835 it was transferred to Dublin.

The 1935 centenary was celebrated with great festivity. My mother, I remember, came over from the Isle of Man. We all had a special uniform of long ankle length summer dresses and for the great day the weather was perfect. 

As part of the festivities, of which there were many, I took part in a tableau in costume depicting girls from 1717, through 1835, up to 1935

The boys from St. Dominic's, dressed in white shirts and shorts, gave a drill display on the front lawn, beside the magnificent, enormous, extremely old chestnut tree. Indeed it was so big that some of its branches had to be specially supported. 

Before the end of term we had the annual prizegiving. That year there was an innovation. The nuns had decided to institute a new prize to be given to just one girl in the school. It was for 'Diligence' - and they gave it to me.

Finally the exams began and did not seem too awful. Then disaster struck. My last exan was a maths paper and I had developed an appalling earache. I remember sitting in the exam hall with a scarf wound round my head, feeling sick and dizzy and in pain. I did not answer even one question on that paper.

Two days later I was home again in the Isle of Man. My father took one look at me and promptly contacted Dr. Dorothy Pantin who came out to see me right away. Her diagnosis confirmed my father's - it was mastoiditis - and he drove me to Nobles Hospital in Douglas immediately.

He knew I was in a great deal of pain and took such care not to let the car go over any bumps. At one point where the Manx Electric Railway lines crossed the road the ground on one side was very uneven, but he waited till the way was clear and then crossed over on the wrong side. Even through my pain I was very conscious of his thoughtfulness and loved him for it.

The operation duly took place next morning. Nowadays, I suppose the matter would be cleared up easily enough by the use of antibiotics but at that time they had not even been discovered. The practice then was to remove a piece of bone from the skull, behind the ear, allowing the antrum to be drained.

Dr. Brennan was present during the operation. He told us that Dr. Pantin had asked him if all the Irish had skulls as hard as mine! I am not sure if that was a legpull or not. The whole business meant two weeks in hospital and quite some time for recuperation. Indeed for most of the holidays I had to keep on seeing Dr. Pantin to have the wound drained and dressed.

As before, at least half the summer was to pass before there was any news of the exams. I was waiting in trepidation but finally I had my results. Even without maths I had enough subjects and had got through the others. Once more I could breathe. Even my hair, which had been partly shaved off for the operation, had started to grow again.