LAST Sunday our school was 50 years old, and hundreds of us old-girls, as we like to think of ourselves, turned up at the Holy Child Convent Killiney.
I thought they all looked terrific, the bold ones still bold, the adventurous still reeling and rocketing from drama to crisis, the goody-goodies still eyes down and unable to say a word against or indeed about anybody. There they all were - the wry, the observant, the watchful, the show-offs. It was marvellous to feel the years rolling back, the pretenses gone. There are no disguises between people who have avoided hockey matches, smoked in the cloakrooms, and shaved their legs together four decades ago.
Memories are selective. Some have a clear recall of the day in fifth year when we brought in a bottle of champagne cider and drank it - a quarter mug each as an act of defiance. Others deny it ever happened.
Because the school was next door to what was Archbishop McQuaid's residence, there are 100 legends about John Charles as a shadowy figure, always menacing somehow, and how we could never do handstands or cartwheels in case he might see us over the wall and faint. To those of us not into cartwheels, then or now, this has all the makings of a modern myth. I can't ever remember laying eyes on him during my school days except briefly at Confirmation. On that occasion he asked me what, was sanctifying grace. There were only about five people in the whole church asked a question so for 45 years, I have been proud of this and the fact that I got it right.
"Why did he ask Binch a question?" one of the old-girls asked, jealous after all these years, I imagine, at the way I was singled out.
"Binch has a bold, impertinent face, she was begging to be asked a question," said one.
"Binch was so tall at 12 he may have thought she was a teacher or a mature student, said another.
At least I got, it right and was a credit to the school, and that's my memory of it, so I won't let any other casual explanation intrude.
In the United States they say that a gathering of old-girls, old-boys, or alumnae as they are known there, is the single greatest cause of weight loss in the nation. There are special pre-alumnae week-end slimming courses, men have hair transplants or wigs, women have even been known to have the odd facial tuck dawn at the cosmetic surgery firm. The cynical claim that past-pupils try to turn up in designer clothes, or driving this year's registration cars, or with a brag book of grandchildren pictures.
Unless going back to school has taken away all my critical faculties it didn't seem that way to me. There was too much happening. There were old school photographs, like one taken in front of the school, with us in our spotty summer dresses which we had all totally forgotten, lined up, and the hideous school dog Jock in front. Even the most committed animal lovers among us remembered how much we had hated Jock. We even remembered how he had examined himself intimately and minutely for about 20 minutes before the picture could be taken.
How did we remember Jock's name over all the years when we couldn't remember what happened last week? Like so many things, it's a puzzle.
There were stories of old-girls who were not there, the ones who had died young, the ones who were sick, who had tragedies. Those who had gone from success to success as high fliers, those who had disappeared without trace. There were some nice bits of gossip that would gladden the soul, and a lot of nodding and head-shaking, and some who said they always knew that this would happen to her - she showed all the signs of it and others who claimed they had always thought she was going to enter religious life and how could they have got it so wrong?
WE remembered terrible things like the pigs' table, for the people with bad manners, and wonderful things like picnics up Killiney Hill for Reverend
Mother's feast day. The conversation grew feverish as the recollections piled one on another and the young present pupils, who went around offering name-tags, tea and coffee, must have glazed with disbelief. Not only were these middle-aged women screeching about their youth as if it were yesterday but we were also talking about a time which could best be described as a costume drama era. A time when we made huge green bloomers at, dressmaking class to wear over our ordinary knickers at games in case there might be a flash of aertex which would drive a passer-by insane. A time when we seriously believed we would be ex-communicated if we went past the curtain that divided the school from the religious community.
And yet, I thought, looking round the crowd, mad though those times may have been, they didn't seem to have produced a generation of raving lunatics. Everyone looked pretty normal as they roared enthusiasm and memories to each other. I didn't see hugely competitive examining of each other or any effort to establish some kind of pecking order. There were only a few short hours to wander down memory lane: people wanted to make the most of them.
And mainly they wanted to see the teachers again. That was the big draw, we knew we would meet so many of them there. Today's pupils looked on in amazement as the old-girls all called the nuns "Mother". Today they are all Sisters but to our pre-Vatican II generation they are Mother Delia, still in Killiney teaching bridge, and Mother Dorothy who lives in Harrogate now. Most of us hadn't seen her since nuns got into modern clothes. The woman looked entirely different but the voice was just the same - I felt myself straightening up and hoping she wouldn't ask me to pronounce "suspendu" Miss O'Dwyer was the glamorous history teacher, and we all still felt a bit risque and over-the-top calling her Margaret even at this stage.
And marvellous Mother St Dominic, back from England to meet a generation of women who loved her and continue to quote and misquote her in a million different situations. She remembered everyone, all the little stories, the half-forgotten hopes and dreams. No day could be long enough for the lines of past pupils who wanted to recall some aspect of their youth with her.
As dusk came to beautiful Killiney Bay which we had hardly noticed when we were at school - a lot of people thought that a small and permanent office, like the prefects' office of long ago, should be provided for Mother St Dominic, where she could set up as a counsellor to all those that she taught. Who else that we admire and respect would know so much about us and be able to identify who we were and are?
She would remember us when we were seven, she knew our parents, our ambitions, our disappointments, our brothers and sisters, our exam results, our family circumstances. You wouldn't have to explain to her - as you would to a therapist, a shrink, a lifestyle manager what you were like when you were young. She would know where you were coming from and be very sound about where you were going to as well.
Her appointment book would be full for years to come. As, the old-girls got into their cars and drove away it was a wistful thought Mother St Dominic always there, available for consultation.