Dear Editor
When I was very young – nine years old, back in 1955 – I was a pupil at St Dominic’s Convent in Port Shepstone.
Although my mum and I didn’t stay on the South Coast for all that long – we later moved to Durban – my memories of school days from that time are very happy.
As an historian and a poet keen on writing work that evokes times past, I have been marshalling my thoughts on my experiences at the schools I attended.
There were some children in my class at St Dominic’s that I remember well: Sharon Lennox, Linda and Helen – I think Helen was a boarder at the school and came over to have tea with us occasionally.
We had Sister Ellico and Mother Sebastian as our class teachers, and Mother Dorothy was in overall charge at the convent.
I also kept in touch with our music teacher, Sister Catherine; she was originally from Poland, but when St Dominic’s closed, she came to live in England at Storrington Abbey.
By then I was also in the UK, and was able to visit her with my husband, who also played the violin, and we played and sang together for Sister Catherine and the other sisters at the Abbey.
When I was at school, my full names were Phyllis Alexandra Whitwell; I was called Phyllis sometimes, but as my mum was also called Phyllis, it could be confusing so I was often Alexandra, or ‘Alex’.
It would be so good if anyone from those years is still in Port Shepstone, or if someone from their wider family remembers their history and where they went to school.
I would love to hear from them, and maybe another South African section of my poetic biography will come from it.
I would always get permission from everyone, of course, to mention them in anything that I write.
Contact me at alexandra.wilde@ntlworld.com
ALEXANDRA WILDE
HAVE YOUR SAY
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