Sister Annuncia CP

An Enthusiastic Sister

The photograph above is not of the wonderful Sister Annuncia but nonetheless I think it quite clearly encapsulates the type of person she was. From the age of just under five until just over eleven I went to St Patrick's Primary School in Lochgelly, Fife, Scotland. Half the teachers in the school were Roman Catholic nuns from the Order of the Cross and Passion and I've heard lots of stories in all sorts of media tell about  how cruel nuns could be but I am here to tell you that my experience of being taught by nuns was entirely the opposite. Sister Annuncia was the finest woman I have ever met. She was caring, compassionate, attentive and loving. She had all the time in the world to devote to her pupils and she made every one of us feel that we were important and worthwhile and that so long as we all tried to do our best we would succeed in whatever we chose to do.


Sister Annuncia taught my class twice in the time that I was at primary school and I have always thought that we were very fortunate as most people only had her for one year but we were privileged to have her for two. The first time was in Primary 2 from age six to seven. She was ideal for us at this stage of our development not only educationally but also spiritually as towards the end of this year we received our first Holy Communion which is a very important stepping stone in the life of any Catholic child. Through her example of dedication to the God of her understanding we were well prepared for this stage in our young lives.


It was during this year that a very funny and, at the same time, moving incident occurred in the classroom. In those days we were used to all our teachers carrying a school belt or strap and this was used for instilling some discipline into unruly pupils. This instrument of punishment was, in fact, manufactured in my home town of Lochgelly by a local saddler, Mr John J Dick, and was known in most other places in Scotland as "The Lochgelly Tawse," or "Auld Lochgelly."


As I said previously, all our teachers had a belt and most left it lying on their desks as a reminder of the punishment that could be meted out as a consequence of mischievous behaviour. Many of our teachers were not averse to using this form of punishment and I believe that this produced a more respectful, courteous and attentive behaviour than is currently the norm in British schools or, indeed, in society in general.


Sister Annuncia's belt, however, was more of an ornament than a weapon and she rarely found it necessary to administer any corporal punishment as we all loved and respected her so much. One morning, alas, one of my pals crossed the line and he was summoned to the front of the class to receive the prescribed punishment which was to be one stroke of the lash on his hand with his other hand supporting his outstretched hand.


Budgie slowly approached the front of the class, amid a stunned silence, as he had been ordered to do. As Sister prepared to belt him Budgie shifted nervously from foot to foot  and as the belt came down upon the target budgie quickly withdrew his hands and suddenly he was off and with no hands to hit the belt slammed into Sister Annuncias thick skirts but inflicting no pain to either her or Budgie.


Budgie sped around the classroom with Sister Annuncia in hot pursuit and that was no mean feat for a nun clad in the long, heavy black habit that all members of her Order wore in those days. Sister also wore a long rosary with a full fifteen decades worth of beads hanging from her belt and it was this that caused the Keystone Cop style chase to come to an abrupt end. The circlet of rosary beads caught on the corner of a desk, the fragile chain broke and the beads were scattered everywhere.There was a sharp intake of breath, from all present, and Budgie came to a shocked standstill thus allowing his pursuer to catch up with him. The rest of us came to life and started gathering rosary beads from the floor while the stunned Budgie was ordered to sit in the nearest chair.


We all returned to our desks and Budgie sat there in tears as the lovely Sister Annuncia tried to calm him down. Between sobs Budgie told Sister how much he regretted his behaviour and exclaimed, even more tearfully, "Sister, you've broken your rosary beads!" In her wonderful, lilting, Irish accent Sister Annuncia replied, "Today Thomas," for that was actually Budgie's name, "You have broken more than my rosary beads, you have broken my heart!" At this point Budgie cried even more and the rest of the class joined in as none of us could tolerate such a wonderful woman having a broken heart. Very soon she had us all settled back down to work and Budgie never got the belt after all. I've always thought that it was a very dramatic way of avoiding a punishment that could hardly be described as severe as this was one teacher who would never hurt any of us as she loved and cared for us all so much.


At the end of that year we bade Sister Annuncia a fond farewell but I, for one, would never forget her and I made sure I spoke to her everyday on  arrival at school. When we were about to break up for the summer holidays in 1958 we were given the surprising and welcome news that when we returned after the break we would again be taught by Sister Annuncia for our time in Primary 4. I think that was the only time when I looked forward to the end of the school holidays. In a way it is because of that year in school that I am writing this blog today as Sister recognised that I had an imagination and enthusiasm for writing essays that ought to be encouraged and I even won two external prizes of books for my writing at that time. She also encouraged us in dramatising a poem called "Jim" by Hilaire Belloc for the end of term Parents' Day. I played a Zoo Keeper and we all enjoyed it very much, bolstered by our teacher's sense of joy, enthusiasm and fun.


There was sadness throughout the school, and indeed the whole town because she had touched many people in her pastoral work,at the end of that year when Sister Annuncia was posted by her superiors to work in Rio de Janeiro. She did return to Lochgelly some years later but by that time I had left to join the Royal Navy and I never saw her again. However, her influence on my life was profound and has never left me and I feel that I am privileged to have known her and to have been educated by her.


PS: I've just read the poem mentioned above for the first time in all these years and I wonder if our genteel pupils today would be able to accept its forthright message.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/hilaire_belloc/poems/626