The Best of Times

St Joseph's Convent (primary school, Sidcup)

 

Entries on this page: St Joseph's Convent, Sister Marie Claire's age, Award winning poet remembers her time at the Convent, A term spent in a girls class

   Part of this article originally appeared as a Wikipedia entry I wrote. I hope this is also useful for researchers on oral history,cultural studies, and religious education In this article: St Joseph's,St Lawrence's Church, Loreto Ladies,Marist Fathers,St Mary's Grammar school, St Peter Chanel school, Verona Fathers (Comboni Missionaries)-

 

St Joseph's Convent, Sidcup was a Roman Catholic  mixed infant and junior school from 1901 to 1989. Comprising a convent and Preparatory school. For a few decades it also taught girls in Secondary education. The school was located on Hatherley Road, Sidcup, Kent in the London Borough of Bexley, England.

Very early photo of the Convent, the card is titled St Joseph's but the boards on the railings says 'St Gertrude's Ladies School'


The school underwent a number of name changes since its inception. Officially called St Joseph's, the plaque on the convent building was originally "English and French School" . The diversification into two schools introduced a second school name. For the final 40 years of the school's existence the name plaque at the apex read "St. Joseph's Convent and School."

St Joseph's Documentary

The actor-director Stephen Armourae who was a pupil from 1975 to 1981 has recorded an interview with a former pupil and is in preproduction for filming a documentary on the Convent.

Early years

The school was founded by three French nuns who were members of an order in Normandy France. It was commonly believed they were members of the Soeurs-De-L-Education-Chretienne in English known as Religious of Christian Education , since their mother house was in Briouze prefecture of Normandy.





Hatherley Road in 1903. On the top left is number 2-8 which was the Convent, a little further the junction onto the Main Road


However further research by Stephen Armourae with help from the Southwark archives established the Order was Sisters of the Immaculate Conception originally called Loreto Ladies.

 A branch of the Institute of the Holy Family, founded in 1820 by the Abbé Pierre Bonaventure Noailles, Canon of Bordeaux. They arrived in 1901 during a period of anti-clerical legislation in France. The Order itself had been opening overseas convents since the 1880s in response to the Third Republic's anti-clerical legislation.

 Sister Marie Claire Villette was aged 16 (born 1884) when she arrived in Sidcup and was the sister superior of the convent. Accompanying here were Rosalie Noel born 1883 and Anna Benchard born 1882.


Aerial view of the Convent late 1960s


The name St Joseph's Convent was chosen from the saint sacred to the Order, as the orphanage division of the Loreto Ladies are named Sisters of St. Joseph. A third branch is the Sisters of Hope who are nurses.

The Order was founded during the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty and the rule of the Ultras in France, less commonly called Ultra-royalist. They had seized power shortly after Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. A number of nunnery orders were founded to educate girls to uphold Catholicism and Ancien Régime, and to oppose the radicalism of the French Revolution and especially the women of the French Revolution.





Class photo 1980 in the assembly hall, the ground floor of the girls senior block also used for PE. Age group uncertain. To the left the girls' playgroud, coal bunkers, school morning entrance & kitchens. To the right, the piano, large canvas mural of the Last Supper and the sports/tennis court - see photo below of the girls block c.1940

Founding of the Convent

With the help of the mission priest at Chislehurst, the Sisters of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception of Briouze opened a convent in Sidcup in 1901. On 2 October 1902 they opened a convent school at Hatherley Road.

The Convent was instituted in response to the rise of Catholic residents who had relocated from the poorer parishes of New Cross and Camberwell. They provided free education to the children of these low income families.






1910 photo. Class uncertain, possibly the same room as used for the final year girls class at the top back end of the girls block.  The desks were still the same in the 1980s


A stable was converted into a chapel, where the first Mass was said on the feast of St Lawrence of Canterbury on 2 February 1902.
Census records for 1911 list more than 8 nuns plus a child named  Jean Schmidt living at St Joseph's.
Census 1911, sister superior, Sister Marie has the following colourful description:
Marie Villette, 27, Mistress, Kent ,1884 Resident, France
Marie Villette ,1884 , France, Resident Bromley Foots Cray Kent

Another nun,
Augustine Forget 39 Mistress Kent 1872 Resident, France




A junior class in 1972 with Sr. Antionette. The bench  was taken from the assembly hall. Behind them are apple trees & a very smelly chicken coup. To the left was a statue of Jesus on an elevated mound. To the right a statue of the Virgin Mary

British Headquarters- 

The Loreto Ladies had a motherhouse at Rockall in Cheshire which trained some of the nuns who were born in Britain, eg Sister Theresa.  Sr. Eileen & Moira were took their vows in Britain or Ireland

Social changes result in name changes

It is believed that St. Joseph's began admitting boys in 1902, and in its first year it had been exclusively girls, however this remains a point of debate. The school was known as both "St. Joseph's" and English and French School, the latter being displayed on boards on the convent gates while St Joseph's Convent was carved on the apex with a statue of the saint holding the infant Jesus.

 In the 1920s the English and French School name was replaced by St Joseph's for the boys' school and St.Gertrude's for the girls' section; named after Gertrude the Great.

Later St Gertrude's became "St. Gertrude's High School" when the schools were reorganised into St Joseph's for primary education and St Gertrude's for girls' secondary education. Around 1965 the two schools were amalgamated under the name of St Joseph's as a mixed primary school.

St Josephs class with a male teacher in 1917 

St Gertrude's added St Gertrude's High School for Girls due to a rising demand of for school places as a consequence of the increase in size of population of Sidcup. Sidcup was rural town, but this began to change following the opening of the Sidcup railway station as part of the Dartford Loop Line.

The first major influx was from the slum areas of New Cross, this included an increase in Roman Catholic people which encouraged the building of St Lawrence's Church to meet the growing population spiritual needs. This led to a surge in pupil numbers at St. Joseph's.

The senior girls block  c.1940 at the period when St Josephs was called St Gertrudes

Classroom at St Josephs around 1906. Likely to be a ground floor room which in the main block of the building due to the  glass wall in the background. Animal education pictures are on the wall.The nun is possibly
Sister Marie-Claire (b. 1884) or Rosalie Noel (b.1883)

Following the electrification of the rail line between London Bridge Railway Station and Dartford, property speculators purchased farmland in Sidcup and built more expensive properties attracting middle class residents. The new populace having more disposable income were able to enroll their children in fee paying schools. To meet this demand, the nuns opened a fee paying secondary school, St Gertrude's High School for Girls for this demand.

 None of these have the habit worn by our nuns, the cornice style on the far right would have jazzed things up

Connection with St. Lawrence's Church

The nuns and the pupils used the local Roman Catholic church of St.Lawrence named in remembrance of Lawrence of Rome for Masses and religious observations.

Every Tuesday morning just after 9am the pupils would be trooped down Sidcup High Street to St Lawrences. The boys, with the exception of the senior class, were required to hold hands, often to their chagrin.

Inside St Lawrence's boys occupied the left pews, with a near life size Jesus statue in front of them with the caps removed. the girls filled the right hand pews, in front of a similar sized statue of the Virgin Mary.

From 1901-1911 this church was under the auspices of the Verona Fathers . Due to an ambitious building scheme, they were forced to relinquish the church due to debts.





St Lawrence's Church 2012 the farewell to the Marist Fathers Mass. The interior had been repainted a glaring white in 2006, removing the soft blue of the arched ceiling. The 50 foot floral curtain which represented the Garden on Eden, which was behind the altar and life size crucifix was also removed

 The church then passed to the Marist Fathers who continued the fraternal link with the Convent and installed a relic of their patron St.Peter Chanel. The relic kept in a small display box near the altar was given to the Marist Fathers as part of the Marist collection that was brought first to France following missionary reassignment.

The relic contained a pressed red flower from the South Sea Islands, red representing martyrdom in Catholicism. The accompanying inscription stated that Chanel had been killed by, a warrior who had been injured trying to stop King Niuliki son Meitala from being baptised.King Niuliki incited Peter Chanel's murder,due to jealousy of Christianity.

Tuesday mornings was the regular day for pupils to attend Mass at St Lawrence's. This would consist of the entire school, with the exception of the kindergarten, walking through Sidcup High Street to reach the church.



Goodbye to the Marists! As unfortunate as the closure of the Convent, the clergy house of the Marist Fathers was closed after 101 years & they returned to the abbey in Hull

The end of the Convent

Sister Marie-Claire who was the founding nun and Sister Superior in 1901. Eventually she died in her sleep on her 95th birthday on Wednesday 17 October 1979.
She was succeeded by one of the cooks.
The school closed in July 1989. The local newspaper, The News shopper, ran an article in March 1989 detailing a public meeting where it was announced the school would be closed due to the bishop in France being unable to provide a sufficient number of nuns to replace the ageing nuns at the Convent.




Mrs Taylor's class date probably 1973 She retired in 1982


The Bishop of Normandy's decision to recall the nuns was due to lack of replacement novices willing to teach in England, the age of the resident nuns and the growing debts due to the nuns refusing to raise their school fees in order to maintain the ethos of providing education available to lower incomes.

Following the demolishing of numbers 2 to 8 of Hatherley Road a new building was constructed, the Sidcup Nursing and Residential Centre. The Centre has been a place of controversy following the discovery of a dead resident with a pillow over her face in 2012.

The Order continues to be involved with a school in south west England. Sister Anne is the only member of her convent who teaches at their St Joseph's Convent.




It's all over. Miss Mansy's  kindergarten class c.1987 shows a reduction in pupils. The neighbouring public school Harenc, which was far more expensive suffered a reduction in pupils resulting in it's closure and reopening as a parent-run free school

School gates-

The powder blue coloured ornate iron gates that were in front of the main entrance, reappeared after the Convent was demolished. They were saved/taken and placed in front of a house in Alma Road

Nuns at the convent since 1970

All the teachers who had taken religious vows were members of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception also known as Ladies of Loreto.





Early photo. Many of the pictures here are postcards sent from the Convent to the Motherhouse. The messages are written in French

• Sister Antoinette - returned to France when the convent closed at the age of 93. She taught the kindergarten, maths and needlework.
• Sister Blanche - retired to France in 1974
• Sister Denise - returned to France when the convent closed. Taught French, Spanish and science
• Sister Emmanuel - former headmistress. She taught the kindergarten until 1977. She retired to France as a result of arthritis.
• Sister Mary 
• Sister Renee she was at the Convent and taught for decades, certainly since the 1930s

Sister Marie-Claire Villette - one of the founders. She taught different subjects including typing at the girls' secondary school of St. Gertrude's. Her administrative duties were reduced when she was 90 and in declining health by which time she required two walking sticks. Died 1979 aged 95. Her name was pronounced with an emphasis on the first syllable in Marie. She would take non-Catholic pupils. This occurred particularly on the closure of Halfway Street school on the outbreak of World War II when there was an influx of non-Catholic and some Jewish pupils.

Sister Theresa - unlike the other nuns she was English. She became headmistress after Sister Emanuel. She taught the final year boys. Her specialisation was mathematics. She managed the school trips. She died in September 1980.


Sister Antoinette with a class and an unknown teacher c1980 

There were two nuns who were cooks for the school. They did not teach due to their strong French accents. One of them became sister superior on the death of Marie-Claire.
Other nuns known to be at the Convent
Sister Eileen and Sister Moiren were teaching in the 1940s-1950s

Sister Theresa, Darts & Wrestling

The headmistress since 1968 had some interesting practices. She would send boys from her class to buy various things in the High Steet.  At lunchtime she would turn on the television if darts or wrestling was on.

When it was raining which prevented pupils from going outside, her boys would bring the TV set into the cloakroom used by Mrs Lonsdale & Mrs Lyons' classes. Here surrounded by her own class, all the boys aged 6 to 10 would watch wrestling and darts while Sr. Theresa would drink from a mug, containing beer.




Sidcup High Street facing towards Hatherley Road in 1961.
Barclays Bank & the police station are to the left. The Canon, later ABC cinema is in the mid-left of the photo

Lay Teachers

Many laity teachers who had not taken holy orders taught at the school. A photograph from 1917 shows a male teacher. For the final 30 years of the school, all teachers were women,with the exception of Stephen Armourae who provided a few geology and science lessons.  

Some of the teachers were: Mrs Cullen (girls IIIrd year), Mrs Taylor(girls IInd year), Mrs Gomez(girls IIIrd year and speech lessons), Mrs Naylor (PE), Mrs Greatrex(music), Mrs Diamond(girls IV year), Mrs Cohrino, Miss Lenahan(mixed II2nd year), Mrs O'Hanlan(music), Mrs Newman(girls Vth year), Mrs Wren(boys Vth year). The latter two were headmistresses following the death of Sister Theresa. In the 1960s there were also the following teachers: Miss Fyffe who married into the Bowes-Lyons family, famous for the Queen Mother of Elizabeth II. Mrs Delamere taught PE, Mrs Brown was an English and speech teacher.Remembered for being somewhat frightening but dedicated to her pupils education. In the 1980's Mrs Cortino, Miss Mansey & Mrs Jones were new teachers




Sidcup High Street in 1982 with one of the buses used daily by pupils. Other buses included the 21 and the 51

Thanks to former pupil Angie Hayward for the following-
Angie Hayward-
I remember Sr Mary and Sr Renee too. They were both quite elderly when I was there. I was taught to read by Mrs Taylor. Remember Miss Stock, Miss Fyffe when I went to seniors, Form 1. Can't remember who took form 2, form 3 was Sr Denise and Sr Emmanuel took forms 4 and 5. Forms 1-3 were above the gym, and 4 and 5 next to the refectory. Mrs Delamare took PE, Miss Brown for English and elocution and Mrs Mattingly for French. Sr Denise loved botany and Sr Emmanual it was maths

Alumni

The award winning writer and poet Fleur Adcock and her younger sister the New Zealand  novelist Marilyn Duckworth were pupils at the Convent and attended during the existence of St. Gertrude's. Fleur refers to the school in her collection of poems The Incident Book (1986)

 A short excerpt from her poem about the school is here  Two her poems describe the school: St Gertrude's Sidcup and Halfway Street Sidcup.
The poem St. Gertrude's Sidcup is amongst Adcock's most famous work due to the memorable first and last lines
Nuns, now: ladies in black hoods; ..... and my knickers fell down in the snow.

Fleur obtained an MA degree in literature and held a number of residencies at universities. In addition to publishing poetry she translated Latin and Romanian books.

The actress Jean Kent, who appeared in a number of films from the 1940s to the end of 50s was a pupil.

Jean Kent,Sister Theresa confirmed that Jean attended the Convent to future pupils including Stella Foxwell

Jean Kent in the movie Caravan & in a TV interview on her 90th birthday in 2011

Another which Sister Theresa told pupils was the popular singer Anne Shelton (singer). Her niece Kelly contacted Stephen Armourae with this message:
Hi Steve, Kelly here Anne Shelton's niece. Yes indeed she did go to the convent..and many happy memories she had of those days. All the best, God Bless and Merry Christmas xx

Robert Styles who is now a Punch & Judy professor followed his father into the performance art. Robert's father was a ventriloquist who performed at the Convent. He also performed for the Saudi Royal Family.
 

Uniform

School cap property of Stephen Armourae (1979)

The nuns of the Order have always worn blue as part of their religious habit.
(N.B. In the 70s & 80s the nuns had a black habit (the head scarf) & a blue tunic with the exception of Sr. Denise who wore all black. Prior to this Angie Hayward describes their dress in the following:

  Whilst I was there, the nuns wore black........all of them except the kitchen sisters who wore blue! My sister who is 10 yrs older than me also went there for a few years and agrees with me that they wore black habits.
 
 This caused the formal nickname Le souers de la Coeur bleu. 
 Consequently, the school colours for the uniforms at St. Joseph's were predominantly blue. According to early photographs the first girls' uniforms were light blue smock with a broad rimmed hat. From the 1950s onwards the school uniform colours were blue and yellow. School blazers for boys were navy blue with the initials S and J overlapping on a badge background. This design was repeated on the school caps and ties. A light grey shirt and darker grey shorts.  The ties were an alternating blue & yellow narrow diagonals.

Girls had a darker blue blazer  and  knee length heavy skirts Their hats were modelled on a combination of a Renaissance beret and a military cap. On the front it bore an enamel badge stylised in a coat of arms quadrant. In the summer term girls were allowed to wear a straw hat styled similar to a bowler hat with an enamel badge with the S.J. overlapping letters in yellow on a navy blue background.

Pupil Angie Hayward details the girls' uniform in the 1950s & 60s-
Whilst I was there their hemlines did get a wee bit higher from floor length to mid shin. The uniforms for girls went from navy box pleat tunics to a-line dark teal tunics, both with white shirts and tie, and eventually to mid blue pleated skirts and blue and white check blouses and no tie. The 5th year senior girls had gold braid around their summer Blazers to denote the seniority. 

Music - BBC Music Workshop 

(I'll be writing a more detailed article)
Autumn 1980 BBC Music Workshop at the Convent & maybe the best one. I have a copy of this and will be recording some of the music to put online. The BBC have erased all recordings and destroyed all copies.

The BBC are still getting requests for the '60s-80s Music Workshops.

Pupils who listened to the BBC accompanying broadcasts at 10.45 on Thursday or Friday morning will remember the clumsy music theory at the back of the book:

Instead of teaching music notes, we had this nonsense!
Duck = quaver quack goes the BBC broadcast
Fox = crotchet
Cow = minim
Elephant = semibreve

Nuns Dress

The religious habit of the nuns varied according to whether they had taken their final vows. Nuns who were teachers but still novices wore a white cornette style headdress with a holy habit also called a tunic. This is seen in a couple of photos circa 1910 of teaching nuns. They all wore a silver cross topped with a heart of blue cloth under their tunic hence the nickname "sisters of the blue heart." On becoming a bride of Christ the headdress would be changed to a white coif with a black veil and a guimpe.
A source of confusion was that Sister Denise was the only nun who wore all black instead of a blue tunic. This was due to her choice of retaining the French style of dress of all black instead of the blue tunic which was only worn by nuns in Britain.

Pupil Angie Hayward's details of the nuns habit in pre 1967-
  Whilst I was there, the nuns wore black........all of them except the kitchen sisters who wore blue! My sister who is 10 yrs older than me also went there for a few years and agrees with me that they wore black habits.

School anthem

The school anthem was "We Are the Pupils of St. Joseph's School". A mid-fast tempo song of 150 beats per minute in G major with an ascending musical phrase at the end of each vocal line. It features a middle 8 with a tricky double triplet descending across the scale repeated 6 times which would cause mistakes in singing without sufficient practice due to the song's fast tempo.
Music was an important part of the school since being a religious establishment, hymns were sung at all assemblies. As part of the singing training the pupils held a successful carol concert at St Lawrence's in December 1980.




(Start in a major key like G or C .Very uptempo) "We are the pupils of St Joseph’s School and to him we sing our praise, (Key change still major, actually it is all major) May the holy spirit of St Joseph rule within our hearts always,
(now the middle 8 so change in time signature & it becomes a tongue twister which did have the music teacher repeating it until students had it right)
With St Joseph to guide us, always walking beside us, so secure and protected we will be, (return similar to opening melody but more forza) So safe in the love of him who was the father of the Holy Family.
Bless us dear St Joseph, May our hearts be good, Teach us to help and love one another just as Jesus said we should."

School Trips

In the 1960s some school trips were a week  long. This included a trip to the mines where the iridescent St John stone is mined. By the mid 70s this was reduced to day trips.
  Between 1977-81 two of these trips were to Heaver Caster in Kent, but the teachers would not allow pupils to enter the castle. Instead pupils entertained themselves by rolling down the large hill by the castle and feeding the carp in the moat which are 2 foot long.  Other trips were to Hampton Court resulting in pupils getting lost in the maze and Alton Towers.



Heaver Castle
The moat contains large carp, 2ft long, which surface to eat any food thrown in
Bottom right shows the bottom of the hills where pupils would roll down 





On a few weekend trips Sister Theresa's brother would also supervise. He encouraged playing cards and pool and allowed the boys to smoke without his sister's knowledge

School Dinners

The two cooks, who were younger than the other nuns and had very strong French accents, are remembered for their cooking. They made an excellent shepherd's pie which no former pupil has successfully emulated.
Their chocolate  custard was often  lumpy but flavoursome.
On the unappetising side was their insistence on giving vinegared red cabbage to young children.   The nuns would insist that  all food was eaten by remarking about the poor in the world who had nothing to eat,.

I once spent  30 minutes slowly getting through the strongly vinegared red cabbage under the constant demands/encouragement of a nun who refused to let  me leave the refectory.

Discipline

The school retained corporal punishment by caning until Mrs. Wren became headmistress in 1982. Sister Theresa who was headmistress from 1968 to 1980 would cane pupils irregularly but she did cane two boys aged 6. Mrs Wren had a mentally disabled son which influenced her opposition to corporal punishment in education.

An eccentric punishment was to order pupils to pray before a large statue of Jesus that was situated on a mound in the playground. If this position was already occupied the disobedient child had to pray before a statue of the Virgin Mary situated 15 yards away. This punishment was not monitored which enabled the pupil to say anything they chose rather than recite a prayer. This 'punishment' was only applicable to boys as the statues were located in the boys' playground.

Another punishment, for boys aged 8 to 10, which was actually a source of enjoyment was to polish part of the ground floor area using dusters tied to the feet. This is a practice that occurs in some Catholic Orders, The Doctor Who actor Tom Baker recalls the same practice during his time at a monastery in his autobiography Who On Earth Is Tom Baker (ISBN 0-00-638854-X).

The result of using dusters covered in floor polish on a smooth floor was that friction would be so low as to result in high and often uncontrolled speeds when polishing the floor with the feet. Pupils would often career
into furniture resulting in bruising.

St Lawrences

St Lawrences where St Josephs worshiped 1901–1989 and founder of St Marys Grammar & St Peter Chanel School

This church administers to the pastoral religious requirements of the schools in its parish: St Joseph's Convent, St Mary's Grammar, and St. Peter Chanel School. The latter two were founded by and had teachers from St. Lawrences.

St Lawrences and the college

The church was built by the Dioceses of Southwark to meet the religious worship of the growing Catholic population. The church was place under the care of the Verona Fathers. Building commenced in 1900.

Church connected to St Joseph's Convent,Sidcup,Kent.Composite photo of statues taken by Stephen Armourae. Religious statues.Pupils of St Joseph's Convent would pray before these.Light votive candles. The Eucharist gong was struck during the elevation of the Host

As was common in the Late Victorian era the Gothic Revival architecture had fallen out of fashion due to its ubiquity and ornateness. Instead brick buildings had become popular due to their ease of construction and uncluttered design. The arched central ceiling of the church was a sky blue colour in accordance to the Catholic theological practice of representing Heaven


St Peter Chanel by Frank  Hailiu Chanel was a member of the Society of Mary who ran St Lawrences 1911-2012

St. Lawrence's is in the style of neo Romanesque architecture or Romanesque Revival architecture. Constructed of brick it features the arches typical of Romanesque architecture on a smaller scale. A mosaic design for the name is above the entrance. In the courtyard is a full size metal statue of Christ in a blessing pose standing upon a plinth.



St. Lawrence's Church was founded after St Joseph's Convent had started education. In 1903 the Diocese purchased with the help of Miss Roberts a plot on Main Road. In August the mission was entrusted to the Verona Fathers, also known as Sons of the Sacred Heart. 1904 houses 1 and 3 Hamilton Road were acquired. Building occurred between 1904 and 1906; the commission was given to architect Edward Goldie (1856–1921), son of the architect George Goldie. Conscrtuction used stock brick, laid in English bond, with stone dressings and a tiled pitched roof. The plan is cruciform, approaching a Greek cross with slightly shorter transept arms. The crossing roof has four gables in the main directions.St Lawrence's opened when Bishop Amigo consecrated the church on 15 August 1906. Only the main body of the church was completed. The aisles and sacristy were added after 1906. The eastern arm was bricked off and used as the sacristy. 109 Main Road, which was next to the church was built as a school for vocations to the African missions.




St Peter Chanel. Member of the Society of Mary who ran St Lawrences 1911-2012

The ambitious scale of the construction resulted in the Verona Fathers being unable to fund the projects. They were forced to relinquish the church in 1911 with debts of £6000. The equivalent of over £483,000 in 2015.

St Lawrences passes from the Verona Fathers to the Marist Fathers (Society of Mary)

The Marists   took control of the church and parish in 1911 from the Verona Fathers. The parochial house became St Ethelberts Marist College under Father Dr. John Mulkern who was the first rector or parish priest to take over from the Verona Fathers, it was opened in 1911.


St Peter Chanel  being murdered due to the jealousy of the king of Fortuna

The side aisles and the sacristy were completed in 1930 by Messrs Frederick Smith of London, and once again Bishop Amigo reopened St. Lawrence's on 27 April 1930.The organ was installed in 1940, followed by the pulpit and altar rails in 1942. Side altars were installed, dedicated to Our Lady and the Sacred Heart. A high altar was intended for installation next in 1943, but the Second World War prevented imports from Italy. Instead a Mr. Palla designed the altar in England. Plans for the high altar dated back to 1930 as presented in plans showing an alternative design of a simpler altar under a large baldacchino.
The uppermost west window had a stained glass depiction of Christ with the Blessed Sacrament and the inscription ‘Charity’ added. The west arm with kingpost roof has windows depicting St Patrick and St Gertrude. St Gertrude was chosen to honour the nuns of St. Jospeh's secondary school St Gertrude's which was absorbed back into St Joseph's soon after.

With the additional changes to the church, it was consecrated 6 June 1956 by Bishop Cowderoy. The three revisions since then of the sanctuary has resulted in the loss of the east wall paintings with geometric patterns, the inscription ‘Et verbum caro factum est’ and a mandorla behind the crucifix. The timber pulpit removed 1970 was octagonal, set against the northeast crossing pier. The high altar had marble colonnettes flanking the frontal, a horizontal panel with a blind arcade behind the tabernacle, above which stood a tall canopied monstrance throne. Four marble columns, two freestanding colums and part of the arcaded panel were reused for the Lady altar at Blackfen. The building work was undertaken by Walters & Kerr Bate.

Jesus statue,organ loft,aisle of St Lawrence's Church.Pupils of St Joseph's would attend Mass every Tuesday morning.Stephen Armourae at a later date played the church's organ

In the 1990s a priest who had lived at St Ethelbert's returned as parish priest. Father Robin Duckworth was assistant professor of Biblical Languages at Heythrop College in the 1960s.His successor died in 2012. In June 2012 the Marist Fathers faced the same decision as the nuns had in 1989. On Friday, 22 June 2012, Archbishop Peter Smith presided at a Mass of Thanksgiving for the ministry of the Marist Community, who have served the parish for 101 years. He was joined by Bishop Tom Burns of Menevia, himself a Marist who taught at St Marys Grammar school in Sidcup, Bishop Paul and Monsignor Matthew Dickens. It was decided that the Marists would relinquish the parish in August 2012. In October Father John Diver was appointed Parish Priest.

Farewell Mass by the Marist Fathers in August 2012

Stephen Armourae's photos and description of St Lawrence's from the 1970s-80s also show further changes: the blue arched ceiling was repainted a glaring white. The 50 foot medieval floral design fire curtain at the north end of the church has been removed. The mosaic floor is now covered by wooden paneling.

St Peter Chanel

This school is connected with St Joseph's Convent as a consequence of being part of the same Catholic parish and under the auspices of the Marist Fathers and their theological house throughout the whole period they provided parochial care to St. Joseph's. Consequently, the two schools had a fraternal relationship.

St Peter Chanel School opening. Priests of St Lawrences

The Marist Fathers founded St Peter Chanel school and named it after their martyr and saint. A couple of the priests served as headmasters of the school.
The uniform is distinctive from their St. Joseph neighbours. Dark brown blazer, with an unusual bright yellow shirt. The school emblem is a cross against a background of palm fronds.



At the turn of the century the population of Sidcup was mostly Anglican and Non-Conformist. By 1950 the number of Catholic residents had increased to a number to require the building of a second Roman Catholic school, St Mary’s Roman Catholic Grammar School for Boys. followed by a second primary school, St Peter Chanel in 1975.

St Mary’s Roman Catholic Grammar School for Boys

This is a now defunct secondary school in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Southwark. The school was opened as a result of its close educational and geographical connection to the primary school of St Joseph's Convent, the majority of boys on graduating from St Joseph's at the age of 10 or 11 attended this school, located half a mile from St Joseph's.


St Mary's from the air next to the Sidcup bypass, Midscummer Nights Dream 1964 at St Mary's
Spectrum magazine with a list of staff

Built in the 1950s by the Marist Fathers as a grammar school it had an excellent academic record. The school emblem was a bee which signified industriousness. In 1982 under changing circumstances the school became co-educational changing its name to St Mary’s and St Joseph's Roman Catholic School following the amalgamation with St Josephs Convent in Blackheath where Kate Bush studied.. Academic results started falling dramatically from 1988.



Corner of Perry Street near St Marys c.1900









The condition was so severe that by 2001 it was decided to abolish secondary education and concentrate resources as a sixth form only college, renamed St Luke's Catholic Sixth Form.  In 2008 the college came under the auspices of the Christ the King Sixth Form College in Lewisham. This was followed by a name change Christ the King: St Mary's.

A priest of St Lawrence's and former headmaster of St Mary's Father Philip Graystone, . passed away at Dorrington House Car Home, Wells-next-the-Sea, at 11.30 pm on Monday 15 September 2014 on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. He is commemorated by a plaque at St Lawrence's. He wrote a number of books on traveling and landscapes.


  Father Philip Graystone, headmaster of St Mary's Grammar
and  priest at St Lawrence's Church
He also wrote books

 

 

 

 

Sidcup & Hatherley Road

 

  High Street 1982 with Hatherley Road in the background, Church Hall 1890, Mold the tailors next to the Convent, Sidcup 1910, The Limes, Sidcup Hill  c1900,Sidcup High Street 1965 

 

  Sidcup High Street 1962

St Georges Church (demolished & rebuilt 1900)

Liptons, Main Road

Mold the tailors & greengrocer, St Joseph's Convent on the left of the photo

 

 

 

 

Verona Fathers (Comboni Missionaries)

The Verona Fathers are an educational order with a strong presence in Central America, Africa and particularly Kenya.  They place an emphasis on teaching science.
The Order were commissioned with the parish and the church under the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Southwark in Sidcup in 1900. They were the first to provide pastoral care and religious worship to the nuns and pupils of St Joseph's.
In recent years the Verona Fathers have been central to a series of sexual abuse allegations inflicted on former pupils at other schools including Mirfield Junior Seminary which resulted in an out of court settlement. The accusations and court cases are part of the wider Catholic Church sexual abuse cases . Victims at Mirfield were as young as 11.
By contrast, another member of the Verona Fathers Bishop Óscar Romero  was martyred as a result of his outspoken opposition to the atrocities committed by the El Salvador government. During Mass, on completing his sermon he proceeded to the centre of the altar where he was suddenly shot dead by government operatives on 24 March 1980.

Soeurs-De-L-Education-Chretienne

(This is included as it was part of the research into the Convent's history and the error of the Order was recognised in 2015)The first four nuns who founded the Order as an educational denomination was in response to, Father Louis Lafosse, pastor of Echauffour. The four dedicated themselves on 21 November 1817. Lafosse trained them to give "little girls a solid human and Christian formation guarantee of future outbreaks." His decision was the result of his horror caused by the French Revolution. [18] The nuns taught in the parish of Church of St. Andrew Echauffour. The new congregation was approved by Bishop Saussol Alexis, the Bishop of Sees Diocèse_de_Séez [19] from 1817 to 1836 under the ascent of Archbishop fr: François de Pierre de Bernis in 1821. He was the Archbishop for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Rouen . [20] [21] In the twentieth century they expanded their schools across the world and installed an international community in Peru in response to the country's then human rights conditions.
The sisters' made a statement in 2011 attesting to their ethics: " "We are working with other people to growth and the creation of communities able to create and evolve structures . society in the interests of justice and truth always attentive to the poor, we participate in the mission of the Church in Education various sectors: pastoral, teaching, catechesis, chaplaincy, youth movements, women's promotion in third and Fourth World ... " "Following Christ, we live in community. Nourished by the Gospel and the Eucharist, we seek God in life, prayer and personal and community reflection." The nuns resided at the congregation in Échauffour which closed in June 2011. The nuns were relocated to the Congregation of the Sisters of Misericorde in the Orne department of Normandy, France.
The decision to vacate the nunnery they have occupied since 1817 was taken by Sister Cara Nagle, Superior General of the Sisters of Christian Education due to the small number and age of the remaining nuns and the financial demands of maintaining a large estate.
Overseas missions continue to thrive. The surviving nuns of the Order have an average age of 89 as of 2015. They moved to the Misericords convent where they joined other nuns who had moved there for clinical care.
Sister Odette said of the relocation, ""Of course, people are sad to see us leave, but they understand what happens to us. We are not all that different from other families, increasingly face the phenomenon of old age and must adapt.
Another sister said, "Christian Education, [the order] even at the time of its international influence, remained a small congregation, we were always told that these apostolates of modest size, the average life expectancy was usually 150 to 200 years."
Sister Marie-Thérèse one of the surviving seven nuns, said, "The community life is essential for us, it is part of our being, usque ad mortem!" ""We will strive to establish contacts with people who have changed little. This is our charisma, "live with" dear to our founder Fr. Lafosse."
Christian Delahaye, for the Church in the Orne, said, "In this period of change experienced by the Church in general and in particular congregation, the community is more attached than ever."

Correspondence with a poet- a pupil at St Joseph's Convent in 1939

My Convent closed back in 1989.  It was only years later that it became apparent that items of the convent & school which had existed since 1901 were very scarce.
In 2015 I found that out that the convent had a few alumni: actress Jean Kent, who only recently died aged around 93 in 2013.  Anne Shelton  a singer known during World War II.  Sister Theresa was proud of both of them and would tell later pupils that she taught them.

Might be able to include myself if the acting career progresses some more!

Thanks to a poem about 'nuns in Hatherley Road' I found the award winning poet Fleur  & her author sister Marilyn also attended from 1939 & Marilyn in the late 40s. 

I contacted Fleur & here is an excerpt of our correspondence. I'll be uploading excerpt from an audio interview I did with a former pupil who took the nuns back to France too

This is part of the correspondence I have had with an award winning poet who attended the school -

Hello Steve,

Many thanks for this. Fascinating to hear that it was founded by three teenage nuns! I forwarded it to Marilyn, who was very interested; she sent me an e-mail of which part reads:

"I've got a beautiful letter from Sister Maria – copperplate handwriting and a pressed flower – posted 5th October 1947 and headed "St Joseph's Convent Sidcup". I saw Sister Maria (emphasis on the first syllable) when I visited in 1979. She was pretty ancient then, but still a lovely thoughtful woman. I think I do remember Sister Blanche and Sister Antoinette, who was tall and distant – taught us geometry. I always told my friends in New Zealand the school was called St Joseph's because St Gertrude’s (as our mother referred to it) sounded so silly."



I think she must be a little confused about the names if Sister Antoinette was actually only 4’ 8", as you say, but obviously she remembers the place with affection. She was 11 when she went there, and made a couple of good friends.


I went to St Lawrence’s a couple of times when I was 12 with two Roman Catholic girls, a little older than me, daughters of some friends of my parents. I was very impressed by the atmosphere and had brief yearnings to become a Catholic.


Best wishes,

More between myself & Fleur,
 [Fleur writes]

The poem ‘St Gertrude’s, Sidcup’, is the second one in a sequence called ‘Schools’ mentioning most of the eleven schools I attended in England during and after the war.

We first arrived from New Zealand in October 1939, when I was five, and I was enrolled at Halfway Street School, Sidcup, near where we lived in Wyncham Avenue, but after a few weeks that school closed because most of its pupils were evacuated to the country.

My parents then sent me to St Gertrude's, to which I had to travel on a bus because it was some distance from home; I remember being there before Christmas and making Christmas cards;

I was also impressed by the slightly gloomy atmosphere of dark polished wood and the novelty of so many stairs (not a common feature of New Zealand buildings). In May 1940, when the blitz, began my younger sister and I were also evacuated (unofficially) to stay with some relatives in Leicestershire.



However, I'm now beginning to wonder whether I was mistaken about the name. We never referred to the school as anything but "the convent", which was an adequate designation in view of the fact that we were not Roman Catholics and this was the only such school in our experience.

Looking back afterwards as an adult, and discussing it with my mother, I discovered it was known as St Joseph's and St Gertrude's; when choosing a title for the poem in the 1980s it seemed logical to go for the name of the female saint rather than the male one, but a bit of research now suggests that St Gertrude's was the high school and that the primary school, presumably for both girls and boys, was St Joseph's.

All I know is that the school I attended was in a row of houses at the top of Hatherley Road, near the High Street; there is a photograph of it in ‘Sidcup: a pictorial history’, by John Mercer (Phillimore, 1994).


Perhaps I should mention that my sister Marilyn (the NZ novelist Marilyn Duckworth) later attended the school for a few months in 1947, by which time we had returned to Sidcup from our various travels

 

Part of one of my letters to her -

The ambiance of the school, its aesthetics & all the statues and paintings everywhere
Instead of Catholic dogma the emphasis was on the spirituality and the drama & ceremony of religion- I believe it's one of the reasons I became an actor.
That not many schools have a chicken range and small farm area!

The nuns attitude that you should be whatever you choose to be: scientist, artist, writer or poet they never discouraged aspirations & some pupils went into the sciences encouraged by Sister Denise's enthusiasm. I've ended up as a writer, artist (less good at that), actor & trained in the sciences!


The "slightly gloomy atmosphere of dark polished wood" was still very present at the school in the 70's & 80's.


The polished wood was largely done by us boys! It was a 'punishment' for 8 to 11 year olds to tie dusters to our feet and then slide on the floor to polish them. Boys being allowed to slide around is hardly a punishment.

The name is confusing:
There's a photo from 1902 which shows the school name as:
English-French School
Then a few years later another photo:
St Josephs Convent and School
then they added the St. Gertrudes for secondary school girls
Finally around 1960 it all became:
St Josephs Convent

Of the nuns you and Marilyn might remember, there are some that I knew too over 30 years later:

Sister Marie-Claire (Marie Villete) who was the 17 year old founder in 1901 , I knew her until her death on 17 October 1979 on the morning of her 95th birthday.
She was joined in 1901 by two 18 year olds, Rosalie Noel &
Anna Benchard. Three teenage nuns being sent to a foreign country to create a school and convent has impressed many former pupils. Sister Blanche Torville came around 1907 & was still there around 1970. Sister Emanuelle retired back to the motherhouse in Briouze in Normandy in 1977.

Two nuns who were teaching in the 1940's were Sisters Antoinette and Denise. They and the others returned to France in 1989. Sr. Antionette was the 4'8" teacher of the infants class and also did needlework and maths. She was still alive at the age of 98.

Sr. Denise taught French and Spanish and was probably the tallest of the nuns. Unlike the others she wore all black; none of us know why she didn't wear a blue habit like the others.

Like you I'm not Roman Catholic. My sister (different mother) & my Irish grandmother et al were all R.C. but my mother is Christian Spiritualist and my father although baptised Anglican was aligned with the Quakers. I chose St Josephs because something 'felt right'

I'm researching the Convent & it's connection with St Lawrences in order to preserve the cultural & oral history, which are so often lost by not being recorded.

With regards to St Lawrences, our Mass day was every Tuesday morning being trooped through the High Street to the church.

Sister Marie Claire Villette's real age when she arrived in Sidcup

I know exactly when the founder of my primary/public school died (cheapest & best btw) a foggy morning on 18 October 1979 we went straight to the assembly hall in the girls upper block & there under a huge copy of Da Vinci's Last Supper our headmistress Sister Theresa clearly trying to hold back how distressed she was announced Sister Marie Claire had died on her 95th birthday at 4 o' clock in the morning.

I knew Sister Marie Claire Villet  from when  I first met her at the sprightly age of just 90 & I was about 4 years & 11 months. I was actually interviewed by her in front of all the other nuns on a Saturday afternoon as to why I wanted to come to the Convent. I had chosen the school because something felt so right when I walked past it, like deja vu or Charlton Heston playing General Gordon as he says "It's good to be home" as he arrives back in Khartoum,  one of his best performances in that little scene.

When I finally started researching and writing on St Joseph's Convent in 2014 I wrote & told former pupils that Marie Claire was 17 when she was sent from Normandy in France to Sidcup in Kent to foudn the convent and the  school.

Impressive that a 17 year old was a qualified teacher & had the admin skills to set up & manage a school and convent. Such a character would not be a  quiet & submissive but a strong & dynamic character.

Except I got that wrong!

Remembering her birthday was 18 October I realised only recently that when she founded the convent she was

16 years old

I have wondered if she was sent from France at such a young age to get rid of her. The nunnery sent her  to another country across the English Channel in 1901!

The Loreto Ladies have 3 divisions: schools, orphanages & medical it appears some medical followed from France at a later date.   In 1901 the  3 French  nuns who arrived in Kent were:
Sister Marie-Claire Villet (born 1884)
 Rosalie Noel born 1883
 Anna Benchard born 1882.

All 18 & younger

Wednesday, 2 March 2016

The Best of Times

I was the only boy in an all girl class & loved it - this originally appeared on the main blog pages

It is the 1970s again & my Catholic school  St Joseph's Convent ( which was also a convent)  again! This isn't reminiscing though but an event that would interest a sociology or child psychology researcher.

In 1979 we were all in the second year of Mrs Lyons ( there are pupils from the Convent who read this site). We were met by our teacher with  her fashion styling that Margaret Thatcher appeared to later have purloined from her & our headmistress the fearsome Sister Theresa.

 There was nothing aggressive about Sister Theresa, but we knew she carried a cane & she was an imposing presence. We didn't know how much the boys in her class & 50 years earlier the girls she taught loved her as she made sure all them received the best education, and that she remembered just about all of them.

The  purpose of our teachers blocking our progress to our classroom, is that we didn't have a classroom.  The water tank had burst overnight & drenched our Victorian wooden desks.

So we were to be assigned to other classes. The problem was the class was to be sent to lower years and the teachers would have to teach two classes in the same period.  The 24 of us were divided off into the lower age group of back to Mrs Lonsdale, the girls class of Mrs Taylor & the kindergarten class presided over by Sister Antionette & someone else.

The least academic & most unruly boys were sent to the 4 year old  class. Their outspokenness was immediately replaced by embarrassment when they were surrounded by kids less than half their age.

So everyone is sorted out
Except me!

For me, Sister Theresa looked through her spectacles  & told me to go to my age group, the all girl class of Mrs Cullen. "You're friends with some of the girls &  you learn" or similar words my old nun said.

She was right I was friends with some of the girls who had come to my birthday parties, often made more sense to me: they weren't obsessed with football, and since the age of 5 I had adored   a girl of the same age named Nina.
Mrs Cullen was a scary figure. Over 60, her hands resting on a walking stick and afflicted with rheumatism, the only contact boys had with her was her booming voice "What are doing?!" and variations thereafter.

"Sister Theresa told me to come here", I said to the aged teacher shrouded in a heavy brown cardigan at her desk in the bottom left of her classroom by the window. My trepidation towards Mrs Cullen, given every strident outburst  I had seen, was replaced by surprise  as it transpired that Cullen was a patient, skilled and calm teacher. She had a similar style to our headmistress Sister Theresa.

For  at least 6 weeks we  remained in our allotted places. None of my classmates in our formerly all boy 9 year old class were pleased sharing a class with pupils aged 4 to 7.

Whereas I was very, very happy.

I had one of the finest teachers I have ever known, classmates who were not obsessed with football, sport, or whatever else. And classmates who for the most part  I was on better  terms with than most in my class.

In fact it was the best time in any of my education.

Finally we all regathered in our classroom on the first floor of the boys block. Back to Mrs Lyons obsession in finding any excuse to slap young boys, What was more offensive was her middle class affectations & trying to brain wash us into the 'respectability' of working in a bank!

This experience would be of interest to social psychologists or sociologists as being the only boy in a class of 24 girls is very rare, or just about unheard of!