Imagine being a fourth former and thinking you have all the confidence in the world because you are no longer a Third former or a newbie and also don’t have the stress of being a fifth former with School Certificate to worry about and then your mother gets summonsed to the school to be told her daughter is boy crazy!! Thanks, Sister Celine!!!!

On a warm day our Science Teacher had scheduled her lesson on chemical reactions, or specifically why Phosphorus is stored in water – it ignites when exposed to oxygen. We did have in our scantily resourced Lab a Fume Cupboard. She exposed a piece of phosphorous to the air and shut the cupboard door – we then had a second unscheduled lesson. The poisonous fumes escaping through the vents at the back of the cupboard were sucked back into the classroom through the open window next to it – warm air flows toward cold air! We evacuated the Lab, lesson cut short – yippee.

Starting in 1971, our year was one of the first to be at Redwood College right through, rather than at Sacred Heart or a little of both. We did feel so very grown up when we arrived on our first day in our new red uniforms and panama hats. No gloves by the time we started but our hats were legendary. I’m sure everyone from my year will remember how perfect Anne W’s hat remained right throughout our years at college. Everyone else’s looked pretty battered in next to no time but Anne’s remained pristine from start to finish.

I enjoyed the special occasions when the nuns would take us around to Our Lady’s Grotto and we would help tidy the area and plant new flowers. The Grotto was my favourite place to visit. Other special memories were our sunbathing on the far end of the back fields, chatting about our fun and happy lives – and most likely chatting about the boys walking past on their way to the Boy’s College! Plus of course, sitting on the fire escape outside the common room, and watching the boys walk by!

For all those girls who were in Form 3 at Sacred Heart College Nelson in 1955 – here is a true story. Now let’s see how many of you remember this ‘Dastardly Deed’ which is chicken feed compared with what happens at College these days. Cast your minds back to Sister Faith’s class room second floor up, and looking toward the left of the blackboard, where a row of cupboards stood. Now I think it was one of the Boarders who told me that there was a trap door in the cupboard. So one day curiosity overcame our terror, and two or three of us (who were you?)crept upstairs during lunchtime and with one of you as guard at the classroom door, – myself and two others with hearts beating madly, quietly opened the cupboard to find YES the trapdoor was positioned on the floor. We gingerly and carefully lifted it up; our mouths fell open as we leaned forward to view the Sisters at work in the kitchen below. BUT something unexpected happened while I had my mouth open, – a long snake like dribble oozed from my mouth, and to my horror before I could slurp it back, it wound itself slowly down, and dropped fair and square onto one of the Sisters headgear. For several seconds our eyes were transfixed as the last of the dribble descended, and then panic set in; – we hastily closed the trapdoor and cupboard door, and fled. The rest of the class thought we were so brave and brazen. I can still remember this as if it were yesterday. It’s actually 68years ago this year. Diana Clark (nee Inwood)

The giggling excitement and rowdy commotion of Redwood college girls leaning out the first-floor windows announcing the sight to those of us inside is one to remember. Mrs. Maplesden had arrived wearing a TROUSER SUIT. More of us rushed to the old-sash windows to get a look. This was the early ‘70s, but to see a woman teacher in trousers, I actually wondered if ‘the nuns’ would allow it! It had cuffs and pressed lines, burnt orange, the jacket open at the front with a twin set top underneath. But life soon went on as usual, Mrs Maplesden, who seemed above it all, continued having cheerful chats with Sr Celine, occasionally throwing chalk at pupils at the back who were talking rather than listening, and teaching us Geography and English, leaving us all with many fond memories.