Migrantweb.com Hostels Forum

[aussietrekker]

Well with two inmates now on here, Barbara and myself, it's on for young and old. We used to call it Pentridge, though I was mostly happy there. True, some of the nuns were odd, but when I read some of the horrifying tales from the high schools I would have attended back in Ireland, I see St. Joey's as a haven of peace. The nuns in Ireland were brutal, and from some of the stories, I had a narrow escape.
The old school will be well-represented in my memoirs later on. (see separate thread).
Remember the first principal, Sister John? She looked like Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies. She only just died about 10 years ago, aged about 140.
I am still close friends with two of the girls- Cherie Kirkpatrick who also went to St. Mary's, and Mary Catania from Newport whose family went back to Malta in 1967. Cherie had an older sister Anne who you may remember. Their Mum died only a few weeks ago.

[aussietrekker]

I was amazed at your account of your time there- I started in 1965 so that's why our paths never crossed. Even though "shit happened" over the subsequent years, they must have lifted their game (volume of complaints perhaps?) because most of what you related was unheard of during my time. All the years I lived in Altona, I never saw one down Pier Street of a Saturday. They were always down on long fringes and short dresses, but the worst thing ever happened was the prefects dobbing us in for not wearing our gloves to and from school (even if it was 40 degrees.) Sister John was deffo a repressed old dragon. She was my class teacher in Form One and strangely enough, the only incident I ever witnessed involved myself, and an "expulsion" of sorts. One day when someone came to the door, I took the opportunity to open my desklid to take out something I had which was relevant to the topic being discussed. Instead of being pleased, she spun on me and went ballistic, for being "underhand." Then she repeatedly barked at me GO HOME! And don't come back till you've sent your father to me. And she said I was a disgrace to Ireland. I had just turned 11 and had never been in trouble that year. She didn't want to hear an explanation. No-one was sent after me, as I lived within walking distance , but I arrived home very distressed. Mum and Dad (who was a shiftworker and was home) couldn't understand it, and down he went. Whatever he said, when I reluctantly went back on the Monday- grovelling was not the word! She waffled on about what a lovely father I had, and how it was all such a misunderstanding, and gave me the "feather duster "treatment for the rest of the year- but I never trusted her again. If any of you have read my Daddy's liitle piece in my Memoir thread, you will see that he was not someone to be @#$@ed with. He would have made mincemeat of Sr.John.
He didn't tolerate bad behaviour, even from nuns.

[aussietrekker]

I can't believe Sr.Philomena was 100- I always thought she was way younger. She taught my sister in grade 2 in 1964, and I had Sr.Renee and Sr. Pauline in grade 6- which definitely had a handful of 7 and 8. But as I started there in early April, and St.Joes was opened the same month, the most you and I could have been together in the same room would be a few weeks max. I remember some of the girls moving on.
They had a cheek going on about "male attire" when most of them went by male names! Sister John, Timothy, Dominic, Clement, Charles and so on. Didn't matter that they were named after saints. "Charlie-Horse" who taught commercial was always cheerful and more like one of the girls, though I never had her myself being in academic. I hated those incinerettes. They should have been inside the toilets, not outside where the whole school would know that you were "on the rags". As for mirrors and vanity- things turned around a couple of years later in my sister's era, with a principal named Sr. Giovanni. She actually wore makeup, and was famous for her crudely-applied foundation around her veil, and her plucked eyebrows. The girls called her Madam Eglantine, after the vain nun in the Canterbury Tales. We got rid of Sr.John at the end of 1966, and her replacement was a wonderful naughty nun named Sister Romuald. She was raised in Yarraville, and lived in the real world.

[stormfour]

Reading Barbara's account of this school is like watching "The Magdalane Sisters"it is hard to comprehend that these people actually existed,and treated children that way,no wonder you remember it so clearly,how could you ever forget something like that!.With a little bit of poetic licence you could write a book,I am sure it would do well.
I was more fascinated with the nuns wandering around Williamstown on the weekend to catch the girls doing what girls do, how dare they? Where your parents aware of all this?
_________________
Carol Myers Altona Hostel Dec 1962 - June 1964

[aussietrekker]

They must have been, and I can only speculate on some kind of backlash,- I certainly heard or saw nothing like this during my five years there- not in the senior school. St. Joseph's was the first school of its kind in our part of the western suburbs at the time. The only other Catholic girls' schools were at Sunshine, Essendon and North Melbourne, and were run by other religious orders. I suppose the nuns (who were often uneducated and unqualified themselves, and were really only one step ahead of the children they taught academically) became suspicious to the point of paranoia about having to deal for the first time with developing girls in a secondary school situation in working class Altona. Until then, thr girls just left at age 14. And under the helm of a schizoid Sister John as their leader (whom they would have had to unquestionably obey in all things) it was a lethal dynamic towards that first intake of "guinea pig" girls. And overriding everything was the arrogant notion that they were the Lord's Anointed ,and could get away with anything. "Punish their bodies to save their souls." And as more and more scandals unfold to this day, that's EXACTLY what they were all getting away with, warpo and all as it is. Whether or not we got a good education from the church, we and our families were victims of the biggest con of the century regarding their own morals. We were sucked in wholesale.There was a mini-series a few years back , BRIDES OF CHRIST. It gave a great insight into their closeted and unnatural world. I suspect those early nuns at our school would have been aware that things "went on" between friendships made within their own ranks. And as a result, they wrongly predicted that it would happen by default among these new girls. Their preoccupation with policing their morals in and out of school may have even been some sinister form of resenting and punishing the girls for something they would never experience themselves- and in some cases there must have been a form of emotional pedophilia at work. Many of them entered the convent as early as 14, and for all the wrong reasons. And they were stuck there, even when they grew up and realised they'd made a big mistake. The school went through peaks and troughs with weird nuns...and they could be named unanimously at any reunion, and they have. When the junior school opened around 1969, a different kind of rot set in with the importation of genuine psycho staff. There was an old nun who took delight in grabbing two girls and banging their heads together if she thought they were misbehaving. Again, these were vulnerable Forms 1 and 2. The older ones would not have taken that kind of deviance, and by the time I got to 15, there were plenty of skanks among us, and certain nuns would have needed to watch their backs.

[Barbara]

Sorry for late response, folks, I am recovering from major surgery, and hubby is also in and out of Western Hospital!!

Sister John *spit, spit* is one person whom I hope to meet in Hell. Evil, loathsome old bag, completely warped, dirty-minded old tyrant. My blood pressure shoots up 100 points from a standing start just thinking of that lump of monkey vomit. She stole my 2 quid, called me a street-walker and guttersnipe, and predicted all sorts of horrible fates for me. She liked to blame Williamstowners for anything that went wrong, and punish the lot of us, regardless who was at fault.

Anyway, can someone please tell Caroline McKeeman, whom I cannot locate on the forum) that the WGHS reunion is at my place, Sunday 13 November. My email is [email protected]. Would llke to catch up with her.

[aussietrekker]

Hope you are both on the mend.
I remember a Marie Plata from Newport, any relation?

[Barbara]

Yes, Marie is my sister-in-law!