“Take this home and give it to your mother”. The Mother Superior hovered over me like a huge dark cloud with her veil of black muslin billowing in the breeze as it caught the wind from the open window.

She gave me an envelope.

I shrank down into myself, as I wondered what mortal sin I had omitted to make her write a letter to my parent.

The Mother Superior, who was also Head Mistress of the Lower School, had abused me verbally before of not attending the proper Children’s Mass, talking to  Protestant children on the street, and had even accused me of cheating when I came top of the class in the summer exams. The other children in the class all turned and looked at me whilst I welled up and blushed and started to cry. Father Leonard, who Head Master, had called her into his office and had spoken to her: but she had totally ignored me until now.

It was then that I noticed that other children had similar brown envelopes on their desks.
 

Later that evening my mother read the letter and said

“They are going tomorrow”.

My sister Betty and I both had baths and were sent to bed early, which was unusual, because it was Thursday ….