Diary of a convent girl reveals all about nuns, pinafores and the boys next door

I WAS one of a dozen 13-year-olds from Wakefield who set forth in September 1973 to a new era in my life at an all-girls' school headed by a group of nuns.

At 7.45am, I'd get a bus to Wakefield Bus Station, then push and squeeze my way on to the school special to Tong, where at the end of a long, curbed driveway stood the school and next to it – whisper it quietly – the boys' school, Cardinal Hinsley's. And never the twain shall meet – well, until we got into sixth form.

Not that anyone would have looked at us. My uniform consisted of a shapeless maroon pinafore – no attention need be brought to our burgeoning curves – worn atop grey shirts buttoned to the neck.

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Underneath were maroon school knickers made of such thick material they seemed to stretch from under your neck and ending – after a few pegs out on the washing line – at your knees. Completing the look were a corduroy beret and a grey duffel coat.

Most girls were, like me, from working-class families where money was tight and my mother Mary insisted my coat last my time at school. She bought it so large that the hem virtually touched my armpits and was lowered each new school year.

That Christmas, one of my pals bought me a diary as a gift. And so the early seeds of my writing career began.

My first entry was January 5, 1975: "Nice Christmas. Got a cassette tape recorder. Keep trying to record Top of the Pops with it but my brother and sister are shouting in the background. Unfortunately, school starts in two days."

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I was in third form, Year Nine as it is now, and our educational lives were dominated by headteacher Sister Paul Mary – Spam to us – a florid-faced nun who was nearly as wide as she was tall. She wore the modern habit but as she sat down facing all 700 girls every Wednesday for general assembly, the skirt would raise up to reveal a hint of long bloomers.

Sister Mary Collete wore the old-style full-length habit. Hanging down one side was a chain holding classroom keys and her rosary beads. We could hear them rattling before we saw her striding along the corridor, hence her nickname, Creeping Jesus.

Completing the set were Sister Marie Kieran and Sister Eithne, the latter a shy, gentle-voiced Irish lady. I dreaded going home with my school report on February 25 1975. Spam noted: "Sheron does not exert herself to her full capacity."

I had too many other things to think about – didn't she realise? We began to be interested in fashion and in February 1975: "I got some great hipster flares and dark brown Dolcis wedge shoes, 5.99. I'll wear them to the next church disco."

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We began to notice boys, though our only contact with them was on the school bus. Crushes and gossip developed as we analysed who stared at who and what it meant.

To deal with our raging hormones, Spam gathered us together and warned: "Boys cannot control themselves. It is up to you girls to do that and between 11pm and midnight is the hour of sin."

I didn't have a clue what she was on about.

On March 4, 1975, I noted: "The Catholic Marriage Advisory Service came in and gave a slide show about how men's and women's bodies differ. They said when we get married, the only contraceptive to use is the rhythm method. It was boring."

I got my sex education on a Wednesday morning in double chemistry. That was the day the teen girl's bible, Jackie magazine came out. Hiding it behind a large text book, I'd study the Cathy & Claire problem page where they gave you tips on how to kiss – use the back of your hand or a pillow – and how to spot if a boy likes you.

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I got a "U" in my CSE chemistry. They say you have to spell your name wrong for that.

The other lesson I hated was Domestic Science. I wasn't going to spend my life cooking and cleaning like my mother did for my three siblings and me. No, I was going to be a career woman – but I had to take DS.

I made picnics and pineapple upside-down pudding for every occasion from a Boy Scout outing to an ailing pensioner.

But disaster struck my friend Ann and I on May 6, 1975: "We were doing great until Miss S called us stupid and made everyone look at our sausage rolls after we rolled the meat and pastry together, like a Swiss roll. She made us stay in at break and clean the cookers."

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Amazingly, I got a Grade B in my O-level but I've never eaten pineapple upside-down pudding to this day.

The highlight of my month in October 1975 was: "Down at Aunty Doreen's to watch Top of the Pops on her colour TV. The Osmonds looks fab in colour," I noted, us only having a black and white set at home.

Then on December 28: "Aunty Doreen back from her holiday and took the colour TV back home, just when I was getting used to it."

There was no Facebook, so we had pen pals and I was giddy to get a letter from the glamorous-sounding Eden Epstein in California on June 19, 1976: "Found out some very important news. My favourite TV heart throb David Soul (Hutch of US TV cop show Starsky and Hutch) lives near my pen pal!! He is absolutely, fantastically, astronomically GORGEOUS."

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We finally got to mix with the opposite sex when in September 1976 we shared the sixth form centre and classes with the Hinsley boys.

Then in January 1977, I got my first boyfriend, G. He was in upper sixth, had a David Cassidy hairstyle, large brown eyes, a snub nose and cute bum. He was clever and a scientist. Now, with my U in Chemistry, it was not a meeting of minds.

G was middle-class, lived in a large detached house in Ilkley. I was nearly 17 and he came to my council house for the first time one April 1977 afternoon.

My seven-year-old brother asked if he was BS (another boy I knew), broke wind and then ignored him. My mother wouldn't allow me to go to Wakefield's lively pubs so I note: "Unsure what to do when G came over so we walked to the library, had a look round then I took him to the bus station and he went home."

I finished with G not long after.

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Socially, wearing our platform shoes and maxi dresses, we began to go to 18th birthday parties of the older boys, while my school year ended with me being made deputy head girl – no, I have no idea why either – with my friend Veronica as head girl.

September 11, 1977: "Did awful in my summer exams and my report was just as bad but I had the best summer ever, going out three times a week."

In Upper Sixth, I changed my tack and went from brain to brawn as I dallied with the school hunk in between studying DH Lawrence's The Rainbow for A-level English Literature.

Now the book is heavily symbolic of something to do with a sexual nature. I still don't know what because when Sister Eithne would emphasise the phrase the "cycles of the moon" (meaning menstruation), she'd flush up, ask us to tell the boys about it while she just nipped out to do a job.

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We began planning our futures. My pals say I was the only sixth- form girl to read the newspaper. "I'd like to be a journalist," I told Sister Eithne. She looked doubtful.

Catholic girls didn't do journalism – we did teaching, nursing, civil service. "No, you apply to university. You're bright enough to go," she said. So I did.

My diaries end just before I sat my A-levels in 1978. But as I peruse over those years, I see the girl become a young woman. My tastes changed but I believe the essence of my character today remains

pretty much as it was in those times.

Three years ago, I started going back to church. One pal asked me how it felt. "Like putting an old coat on, probably an old grey duffel coat," I said, wryly. You can take the girl out of the RC church but you can't take out what's ingrained in her.

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While in religious terms, school was narrow-minded, educationally it set me on the road to where I am today.

It was our way out of the council estates we grew up on, allowing us to travel, work and visit places we only had studied at geography O-level.

In September 1978, I left Yorkshire to live in London for the first time.

Packed away among a mountain of photos are three more diaries detailing that time, but they are very different to the innocent, quite sweet writings of a naive child of the 70s.

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n Sheron is researching a possible book about being a Catholic teenager in the 1970s. If any ex-Clitherow or Hinsley pupils wish to share their memories of that time, please email her on [email protected].

n St Margaret Clitherow's RC Grammar for Girls, now Yorkshire Martyrs Catholic College, closes in August.

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