Each year we had a school Retreat. For three days we had nothing but religion and prayer. The whole time we were sworn to total silence, even after we went home. There were great efforts made by our brothers to force us to talk but most of us persisted nevertheless.
Some of us, unbeknownst to the good Sisters, sadly fell by the wayside! At school we had prayers and devotions in the Convent Chapel and reading religious books and magazines.
In my primary school days and early on in grammar school my ambition was to become a teacher. However when the time approached for leaving school, I found that my close friends were all going off nursing and only the ‘swots’ were going to college. I decided not to take up the offer of a place in St Mary’s Teacher Training College in Belfast. Instead I joined my friends who were going off nursing training. I was convinced by the assurance of one of them that we would not have to distribute or empty bed pans. My mother near laughed her leg off.
‘You’ll soon find out the way of it when you get to hospital!’
How right she was I soon found out!
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