School memories from a strict convent childhood

At my age, memories of school arrive like badly preserved photographs. Some faces remain clear, several names have vanished, and large portions seem to have been deleted by a merciful administrator. When I look at children today, with their tablets, activity clubs and water bottles that cost more than my first handbag, I cannot decide who had the better childhood. They have technology. We had fewer witnesses.

My school day began at 5.30am, an hour I still regard as a personal insult. I was not a morning person then. Decades of maturity have produced no improvement.

My mother, a strict Catholic with impressive faith in both God and punctuality, woke me for the 6.30am mass. The church was a ten-minute walk from home, which apparently made daily attendance irresistible. I would stumble there in a spiritual condition best described as unconscious, return home, get ready and take the bus to school. By the time lessons began, I had already completed one religious obligation and several private complaints.

I thought mum was a tyrant. My older brother and sister, who were 14 and 12 years ahead of me, probably considered this amateur commentary. They had experienced my father’s stricter regime. He was oddly lenient with me, perhaps because the youngest child often benefits from parental exhaustion. I lost him when I was 10, so mum raised me through the years that followed, armed with discipline, determination and a complete disregard for my wish to sleep.

Then came my strict all-girls convent school, where I spent ten years developing character against my will. I enjoyed English, recess and sports. The rest of the timetable seemed designed to keep recess from arriving too quickly.

I was painfully timid as a child, which made me an ideal donor to the school’s unofficial lunch redistribution programme. Bullies ate my tiffin. I rarely protested. I would sit there hungry, probably composing an essay about injustice while someone else enjoyed my mother’s cooking.

English class gave me my small taste of glory. Teachers regularly read my essays aloud, and for a few minutes I became the literary celebrity of the classroom. This fame came with no money, no book deal and no protection for my lunch.

My Class One teacher, Annie, was impossibly kind. She never shouted, never humiliated a child and somehow made lessons interesting without terror. Soon after teaching me, she married my father’s first cousin and became my aunt. This remains the most successful parent-teacher relationship in our family.

Years later, Conceicao taught us English and history. She could make history feel populated by actual human beings instead of dead men, dates and wars that had to be memorised. We also wrote autobiographies from the point of view of animals. I excelled at these because I possessed a vivid imagination and very little concern for factual accuracy. My teachers thought I would become a fiction writer. The book is still expected. At this rate, it may be published posthumously and marketed as my most carefully developed work.

My greatest school fortune was Elma, my best friend through classes eight, nine and ten. She helped me with homework, defended me, covered for me and adopted all my enemies without asking for supporting documents.

During one maths exam, a teacher reprimanded me for talking. I reacted with the calm judgment for which teenagers are famous and refused to write the paper. My lack of preparation made this principled stand remarkably convenient. Elma also left her paper unanswered in solidarity. It was an extraordinary act of friendship and a disastrous approach to mathematics.

Somehow, despite such leadership decisions, I became Green House captain and later vice head girl. Schools clearly had fewer background checks in those days.

Elma and I planned to study arts together after Class Ten. I received a distinction, which made everyone assume I would choose science. She received a first class and believed I would abandon our plan, so she joined another college to study commerce. I chose arts. Our great misunderstanding had all the emotional drama of a tragic novel, with subject streams replacing family feuds.

College brought new friends. The space Elma left remained. I moved to Dubai, life became crowded, and we lost regular contact. Social media now keeps us connected, which means I can see her photographs, remember everything she did for me and occasionally feel guilty about that maths paper.

School gave me good teachers, stolen lunches, an inflated teenage ego, several badges of responsibility and one irreplaceable friend. Perhaps children today have it better. I only hope their friendships are strong enough to survive exams, misunderstandings and the theft of an entire tiffin.