Barbara Hoskins 

First published in Ngā Ākau ki te Tonga Southern Bays number 12 2016/2017

Thus went the first verse of the school song and I suppose that the present is “the years to come!”  I was a pupil at St Madeleine Sophie’s School from 1937 to 1943.  I had attended Island Bay School for the first 18 months of school and then my parents decided to send me to St Madeleine Sophie’s at the top of Avon St next to the imposing Sacred Heart Convent. I was put in the 2nd year Infants’ Class, taught by Mother Baird, who was the head teacher.  I vividly remember that all the girls were in gym frocks except me, and I had a blue long-sleeved dress that buttoned down the back.  They all asked me why I had my dress on back to front!  SMS was a much smaller school than Island Bay and I quickly got into the swing of things.   

The teachers were all Religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ), which was a French order of nuns founded around the time of the French Revolution, when religious were persecuted, so unlike most religious sisters they retained their own surnames rather than taking the name of a saint. They were a semi-enclosed order which meant that in my school days they did not leave the grounds of the convent except for a very serious reason. Our teachers lived in the Convent and with only Avon St between the Convent and our school they had to get permission from their Mother House in Rome to be allowed to walk across that road!  The school consisted of five classrooms. Two of them had large folding doors so they could be joined into one room.  This became important when there were concerts, fairs, and gala days.  These two rooms were occupied by the Infants - primers 1, 2, 3and 4 or years 1 and 2 as they are now.  There was another fairly large classroom which housed Standard 1 and 2 (years 3 and 4) and the other two regular-sized rooms had Standard 3 and 4 (Years 5 and 6) and Form 1 and 2 (Years 7 and 8)   The size of the classes reduced at the Standard 3 level as all the boys then went to Marist in Newtown. 

The year that I was in Std 1, Peter Hoskins (my future husband) was in Std 2, in the same classroom!  Little did I know!  Our teacher was Sister Minogue but the next year Miss Slattery, who was one of the first lay teachers, taught that class.   Every Monday the school from Std 1 up would assemble in that room and Reverend Mother would come over from the Sacred Heart Convent and sit at a table in front of the room as each class was called up to receive their ‘notes’. Your name was read out and you stepped forward to receive a yellow note for ‘Satisfactory’, a blue note for ‘Moderate’ or ‘no note’.  ‘No note’ was a great crime and the reason was also read out e.g. ‘No note for disobedience’.  A medal on a cord was awarded to one person in the class to wear for the week. It was very formal and we had to take our note from Reverend Mother in our right hand and bow and say “Thank you Reverend Mother”.

Another award was given out on the First Friday of each month by Father McGrath, the parish priest. He used to come to the school and sit up high on a chair on the teacher’s rostrum and talk to us, and then present the merit badges which were gold-coloured badges that you wore pinned to your gym frock for the whole month. This was a great honour!  I used to watch Father McGrath talking and try to work out when he breathed - he seemed to be able to speak while breathing in as well as breathing out!  When I recall those occasions, I don’t remember being  worried about them - unless of course I had done something wicked - and  I suppose that they were mostly a positive reinforcement of good behaviour! 

I made my First Confession and First Communion in 1937 when I was 6.  These were important events in the life of a young Catholic. There was quite intensive preparation and on the Saturday before First Communion Sunday, we spent the entire day at school making little altars, etc, and preparing for the big day. The girls wore white dresses and veils and the boys wore dark pants and a white shirt and tie.  Grandparents and aunts and uncles would be invited to attend, and after the First Communion Mass a group photo would be taken. The children then went to the Church hall beside the Church where we had a First Communion breakfast with eggs in an egg cup and jelly and ice cream! In the afternoon we went up to the Sacred Heart Convent for the huge procession which was held each year on the Feast of Christ the King.  We First Communicants walked in the procession.  

When we went to Mass each Sunday, we went to the Holy Name Church in Humber St which was closer to us than St Francis de Sales Church on the Parade.  On one Sunday of each month there was a procession as well as the regular Rosary, sermon and Benediction in the afternoon or evening.  This seemed usually to be at the Holy Name Church where there were masses of flowers decorating the altar.  We were allowed to take part in the procession wearing our First Communion dresses and we  carried flowers as we walked in front of the priest as he processed around the church. 

We always walked to school and at one stage we walked home for lunch each day as well.  

I am not sure about the details but I know that there was an hour and a quarter for lunch so that children could go home.  I do remember eating sandwiches (previously wrapped in greaseproof paper and put in a brown paper bag!) sitting on a bench in the outside shed or on forms in the corridor on a wet day.  Sister Kirk who taught Primer 1 and 2 used to make lovely cocoa with the school milk, heating it all up in a small room we always called “the gas room” - I suppose because it had a gas ring to cook on!  That smell of scorched milk still reminds me of the gas room!  The school milk which was delivered in crates every day tasted much better as cocoa than it did when we drank it through a straw - especially when it had been out in the sun in summer! 

During the war years (1939-1945) there was an air raid siren on the lamppost at the bottom of the zig-zag beside the school gate.  I am not quite clear what we were supposed to do when it sounded!  I know that Island Bay School had concrete air raid shelters built on Victory Park but we didn’t have any such luxury, although some families had dug trenches in their gardens.  We all had to wear identity tags and I think we were supposed to go home in groups with others going in the same direction!  Luckily there were no air raids! 

As well as our classroom teachers we had visiting teachers who taught us ‘elocution’ and ’hysical Education’. I think we paid threepence a week for this.   Miss Nichol, the elocution teacher used to conduct us at verse speaking.  Sister would type out the words of a poem, we would paste a copy in our book and then learn it off by heart.  Some of the poems I remember to this day are Disobedience by A A Milne. It began “James, James, Morrison, Morrison, Wetherby George Dupree …”,  an excerpt from The Battle of Lepanto by G. K. Chesterton.  There was also Moonlit Apples by John Drinkwater and Jim – A Cautionary Tale by Hillaire Belloc.  We practised and practised this verse-speaking and then were entered in the Wellington Competitions in the school holidays.  In 1941 we won the cup for our age group!  Our Physical Education teacher was Miss O’Leary and what I mainly remember of her lessons was what she called Eurythmics.  Sort of graceful movement to music 

There was not a great deal in the way of sport for primary school children then.  We played netball and had an inter-school competition on Wednesday afternoons. We must have all gone by tram to the other schools, as I don’t remember any cars or buses!  In the playground, especially during winter, we had a long, heavy skipping rope and played All in Together or Over the Garden Wall or did skipping with the rope doubled - did we call it Dutch skipping?  We had individual ropes and did “What Oh She Bumps, cross arms, pepper and also chased each other in a chain - chain tag.   As we got older we sometimes played cricket or rounders on the cricket field belonging to the Sacred Heart Convent (later Erskine) which was down on the flat part of Avon St. We were able to play rounders or French Cricket on our own playground also.  Each class group had a specific playground to play on and the bigger girls were ‘on duty’ to play with the primers - games like Poor Sally is A’weeping, Oranges and Lemons, or The Big Ship Sails Through the Alley Alley Oo!  What on earth did that mean?  The Standard 1 and 2 boys had the big back playground and played rugby up and down it.  When Miss Slattery came to teach, she used to referee their game - sometimes down on the cricket pitch armed with a piercing whistle! 

My last year at St Madeleine Sophie’s school was 1943.  I was very proud that I was made Dux and Mum and Dad bought me a beautiful gold cross and chain.  At St Madeleine Sophie’s there had been nine girls in my class and about six in the next class which meant a classroom of 15 children. My teacher for the four years from 1940-1943 was the legendary and redoubtable Sister Egan.  She was a very good teacher, but quite a demanding task master.  She taught us all the usual subjects for those days e.g. English (even some parsing) Arithmetic, History and Catechism (as Religious Instruction was then called.) I don’t remember any science or nature study, although we did all have a small garden to look after. Sister Egan was very keen on handwork and we made endless cardboard containers decorated with crepe paper to put sweets in at the school fair. She also taught us to knit, (I remember knitting some gloves when I was nine) to crochet, and to use water colours.  

We all had tasks to do each week. One day I will always remember was the day I got into real trouble!  Because the Sisters did not go outside the convent grounds, we went down to the Church unaccompanied each week for Mass, for confessions each month and to sing at any parish funerals.  We were quite used to going to funerals and thought that if the people cried a lot going out of the church that probably meant we had sung very well!  One of the older girls was ‘in charge’ as we walked in a line with a partner.    On this particular day, we were walking back up Avon St and, at the corner, there were two men working on the wires on the lamppost.  They had a platform that went up and down on the truck to take them up to the wires.  As we went past, the platform went up and I said to my partner: “Look! He’s going for a ride.”  The man heard me and responded.  When we got back to school, the vice-captain had reported me.  She said I had been talking to a strange man on the street.  Sister Egan gave me a dressing down and wouldn’t believe me, that I had not talked to the man.  As a punishment I was sent straight home at the end of school and was not allowed to do my set task for that week, which was to clean the toilets!  I went home, flung myself on my bed and howled and howled! I was so indignant that she wouldn’t believe me.  I can’t imagine a punishment like that having much effect today.  Times have changed! 

Sister Egan was quite ambitious in the items that she prepared for the school concert, which was put on for two successive nights each year.  The poor teacher of the primer 1 and 2 children had to take her class out and teach them in the outdoor play shed, so that the stage could be erected in her classroom and we could rehearse on the stage.  The year I was 11 we did a scene from Midsummer Night’s Dream and I had the part of one of Titania’s fairies.  Mum had made me a beautiful deep-blue satin dress and I had wings and I thought I was just Christmas. A few days before the performance I was racing Marian (my sister) to the bath – she got there first and slammed the door and I put out my hand to stop it and went through the glass.  Blood was pouring out of my wrist. Mum thought I’d severed an artery and they rushed me (in my knickers and dressing gown with Mum’s coat on top) around to the doctor, whose surgery was next to the picture theatre.  All the people were standing outside for a smoke during the interval and there was me in my odd get-up.  I was so embarrassed!  The doctor put seven clips across my wrist and bandaged up my arm.  The upshot was that Sister said I could not do the part as the fairy in the play as I might slip on the stage and damage myself further.  Once again I was in tears and this time Mum sent my poor father up to the school to tell Sister that they would accept the responsibility if she would let me do the part.  She agreed! 

At this school concert, we also sang many songs which we had been taught. Sister aimed high in the songs she taught us – Santa Lucia (with English words), Brahms' Lullaby, O For the Wings of a Dove, The Marines’ Hymn.  One year we did a pageant of the British Empire. It must have caused some amusement to the audience to see  us all singing Rule Britannia and There’ll Always be an England  and waving red, white and blue flags, when our choir included quite a few girls of Italian descent whose fathers were interned on Somes Island for the duration of the war.  

The Religious of the Sacred Heart, who came to Island Bay in 1905, had built the first parish school in Island Bay, which was placed under the patronage of St Francis de Sales.  As numbers grew and the small wooden building became inadequate, it was decided to build a new brick building at the top of Avon St across the road from the convent.  The new school was opened in 1926 and was dedicated to Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, foundress of the Religious of the Sacred Heart, who had been canonised the previous year. 

From the earliest days, the Catholic Schools were kept running on the smell of an oily rag and the loyalty of devoted teachers - mostly religious sisters and brothers - who received very little payment for their work.  I do remember a ‘penny collection’ which resulted in the teachers receiving a small stipend.  This was instituted by the Wellington Catholic Education Board, which asked parishioners to put a penny in a basket as they entered the Church.  Catholic Schools were always short of money until eventually (in 1975) a law was passed allowing them to register to become integrated into the state system.  

The schools made great efforts to fundraise and, for St Madeleine Sophie’s School, the bazaar each October was a major event. There was a committee of parents who took responsibility for each type of stall - sweets (hence the crepe-covered baskets!) cakes, fancy work and sewing, produce, games, etc. There was a fancy afternoon tea and plenty of raffles.  Each year my mother knitted a lovely bed jacket in a fancy stitch which was one of the raffles.  The whole school was turned upside down but we usually raised a good amount of money.

I left St Madeleine Sophie’s at the end of Form 2 (Year 8) and went to St Mary’s College in Hill St. After five years there and three years of teacher training, I ended up back at St Madeleine Sophie’s teaching the first year infants.  During that year I married Peter from my Standard 1 days at SMS!  I resigned from teaching at the end of the year and we started our family and, of course, all our children attended St Madeleine Sophie’s!  

After the integration of Catholic Schools was agreed to, the school was integrated in 1983. The brick building was not up to standard and it was decided that it must be replaced.  After much discussion, the decision was made in the 1980s to build a new school on the vacant land beside the Church on the corner of Clyde and Mersey St.  As the parish name was St Francis de Sales, it was agreed that the school would revert to its original name of St Francis de Sales.  A beautiful, modern school was opened in 1985. Later, more classrooms and an administration block were added. A school which began with nine pupils in 1905 now has a roll capped at 290!  The spirit of St Madeleine Sophie as well as St Francis de Sales continues to flourish in Island Bay.