Capitalism destroying the culture of Soho

It has long been a warning that rising rent prices are destroying many shops & businesses in central London that have been so long established that they have become part of the culture & ambiance of the City.  In Soho rent prices were generous due to land owners who understood the importance of culture.

Now, especially since 2004, faceless capitalist  property developers have bought the leases & via their PR have boasted about 'redevelopment' & 'exciting future'. This doublespeak actually translates as wipe out the existing companies in favour of  anonymous, bland, corporate companies who can afford exorbitant rents. This has now had a personal impact on me, see below. Also an excellent little Italian diner on Shaftesbury Avenue is under pressure where the capitalist new landlords want to pass the site to a USA corporate giant such as Starbucks, because there just isn't enough of them sprouting up like toadstools 

St Joseph's Convent Sister Superior Marie Claire was ...HOW OLD?!

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

1970s yet again & the Excitement of Wallpaper

So I'm working on a series of videos, entitled Recheche  referring to Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. An 8 volume opus of memories triggered by him sniffing a Madelaine biscuit which unleashed not just memories of childhood but all the multi sensory memories of feelings, scents & emotions that accompanied them. He was able to feel 6 years old again.
My interest in this psychological phenomena is:

1. Ability to relive the actual feelings & sensations of part of your life is a valuable skills for an actor. It is like Method Acting but more authentic; Strasberg went off in the wrong direction. Stella Adler was right when she called Strasberg's desire for her to relive the feelings around her mother's death as "sick,perverse & unnecessary"

2. My interest & work in hypnosis and altered states of consciousness.  I have found that hypnotic regression as part of the induction greatly increases the mind's response to suggestions

3. Why I trained as an actor: psychodrama & Antonin Artaud. The ability to fill a room with the emotions or intentions that the actor wants to project. Not interested in just mouthing words, the audience actually feels the actor.  Klaus Kinski was good at that

So as part of those childhood triggers I have just found some of the wallpaper that was part of my life from around 1975-81. I also have a fascination with art & design so wallpaper, carpets, ceramic tiles excite me in a way that some may find odd

This wallpaper was designed in the late 1960s  consisting saffron colours and the flowery psychedelic design that were popular. Very interesting in it's variety & not having a central point it prevents the eye settling on one place and so it remains stimulating

 

IRAQ FIGHTING FOR FALLUJAH

In the early hours GMT of 23 May, the Iraq's Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi  announced the start of a major offensive to retake Fallujah from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, which was quickly followed by reports of heavy shelling in the city.

I wish speedy and total victory to the forces of the Republic of Iraq.  The faults & tensions in the Iraqi government which were exacerbated by the blundering & incompetence of the Anglo-American invasion with Tony Blair's over simplistic 'democracy good, dictatorship bad' (maxim he doesn't apply to Saudi Arabia, China or other countries that are financially useful to Britain or himself. Tony Blair has been well paid by  Saudi oil firms as a business envoy to China too.Going from one country with a terrible human rights record to another with no compunction despite being a former PM whose role was to uphold legal and constitutional ethics).

Saddam Hussein warned that he and his security forces were 'keeping on ice' theocratic fundamentalists. Those have been further inflamed by the internecine conflict, lack of political control and recruitment  by exploiting non-Iraqi's ignorance & gullibility to be seduced by quotes from ultra-conservative clerics from 800 years ago.

Retaking Fallujah will end the government of rape, murder, misogyny, suppressing girls education, under age sexual relations, slavery and torture that ISIL have inflicted on a nation that was one of the birth places of civilsation &  was progressive not so long ago.

SUPERINJUNCTIONS! Don't like this?Sue me!

Everyone including Mongolia & Vanuatu can read about which 'celebrity' (ie self important egoist) has gone running to the courts to try to hide a tedious part of their life that the media has uncovered.

Unless you are in England where celebrities have the power to censor the internet via the courts, yet you can read terrorist manuals & terrorist recruitment sites! -NB years ago I read the Al Qaeda terrorist manual; it consists of school level chemistry, a Hollywood movie from 70 years ago & the accusation that  "Muslim women are having their heads shaved"(!)    I have committed a criminal offence by reading the manual, contravening Terrorism Act 2006.  So if you had a chemistry book at school or have seen an Edward G Robinson movie you have broken the law under the Terrorism Act.

I couldn't care less what Elton John or his husband David Furnish choose to do.  I am offended that Elton John's early very good albums were followed by bland pop albums.

The High & Supreme Courts have the purpose of judging the most serious matters. Instead a number of celebrities, with enough money, exploit the system, because they think that when they cheat on their partner the public will be interested. In fact the many adulterous relationships that occur are either ignored or momentarily in the news and then forgotten.  Ozzy Osbourne's infidelity ( Sabbath mad fan  here) is only remaining in the news because Sharon 'lies about her non existent role early in Ozzy's career & has prevented Bill Ward from rejoining Sabbath' Osbourne.is using it as part of the upsurge in her TV appearances.

In addition to Elton John wasting Supreme Court time, he has given an egregious interview to the Daily Mail describing  his 'perfect marriage' which only serves to draw attention to his attempt to hide the non cause celebre .that he has turned a tiny molehill into a mountain.  

Elton John has used the courts before to try to hide parts of his personal life. Everyone is entitled to a private life but for those who are famous enough to be reported on, they gladly pose & give interviews when it suits them, and so by trying to coverup a trivial matter, they merely conflagrate a momentary interest into a prolonged issue and a matter of freedom of the Press and legal ethics.

The Best of Times

I was the only boy in an all girl class & loved it -  (This links with the previous post 'Correspondence with a Poet')

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!

St Joseph's Convent Correspondence with the Poet

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 a 100 & did a TV interview, 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.