Wigan Album

Regimented and reserved, all good Catholic girls. A time now gone, when respect was the order of the day. Not a mobile phone in sight, thank God. Lovely , historic photograph.

This occasion is a speech day at The Queen's Hall for Notre Dame High School.

Looks like John McDermot head of St Patrick’s. Second row centre on balcony and wearing glasses and usual dickie bow

The Sisters taught in all the Catholic schools around Wigan. I remember the ones at St Patrick’s very well. Sr. Mary Dennis in the 50’s in The Infant Dept. I credit her with my learning to read and never looked back. Sr. Lucy in the Seniors and Sr Mary Monica later. All good Sisters. I never came across a ‘ nowty nun’.

Although that is a Catholic School Speech Day, it looks so much like the Speech Days which I , (and Elizabeth), attended many times from Hindley and Abram Grammar School....the first and second form girls wore navy gymslips over white blouses and the 3rd form girls and upwards wore navy skirts and white blouses, and the teachers wore their academic gowns. Remember, Elizabeth??

When the world was sane.

Could they be Wantage Sisters from Wigan All Saints parish church?
Or Sisters of Mercy?
Mercy, Mercy Me, things ain’t what they used to be.

Wasn’t the nuns from all-saints parish church called our lady the virgin community sisters? I believe they lived in Tudor house?

The Sisters of Notre Dame came from the convent on Standishgate Dek.. They are a RC Order with origins in France as the name suggests. They were mainly a teaching order.

“St. Julie Billiart founded the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur to make known God’s goodness, especially among the most impoverished and abandoned people in the world. Today, Sisters of Notre Dame work with refugees in London, street children in Nairobi, immigrant farm workers in Florida, AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe, the homeless in Haiti… and always, with women and children, who are among the most vulnerable.”
The order was founded in1804.

I do indeed remember Irene! I can still remember being bored out of my mind when Miss Whillas (Wilma) was the guest speaker,just before she began teaching again at HAGS,she went on and on about her time in Formosa,now Taiwan ,but to my ears sounded like a disease.