Facta Non Verba – Deeds not Words October 20, 2024 – Posted in: Writer

Our school motto – Facta Non Verba – deeds not words – was probably my only good memory from the boarding school I attended for three years from the age of eleven. 

It is also the only Latin I can remember, with the possible exception of a sketchy recollection of amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant. Not exactly useful knowledge, I’m sure you will agree.

St Monica’s School at Clacton-on-Sea was a Church of England boarding school for girls from when it was founded on October 19th, 1936 until it fizzled out around 1969/70. 

In a confused and unhappy state of shock and homesickness I unpacked my school trunk for the first time at the start of the autumn term 1964. Together with Matron, we ticked off the long list of its contents from cherry beret and straw boater to cloak (with the house colour lining the hood) and Sunday coat. We were also allowed two “mufti” outfits; however, any books – other than the Bible and a prayer book  (complete with hymns ancient and modern) – would have to be “approved” by the housemistress. Each child also had her own tuck box, with treats from home that should last the term but usually disappeared in the first week.

Actually my first term was quite exciting as the Speech Training and Drama teacher discovered I had a raw talent for acting. I played Helen Keller (the deaf and blind child) in the play The Miracle Worker. My sister was my governess, Anne Sullivan, and together  – using the parlance of today – we smashed it! Even the headmistress, with her renowned heart of stone, was in tears by the curtain call. 

However, in those days, talent was not encouraged in children. It needed to be squashed it for fear that they would become “too big for their boots” or generally cocky and over-confident. It seems that I took on all of those undesirable traits and my early school reports* are littered with phrases like”actively opposed to discipline”, being “noisy and interrupting”, “forgetful and disobedient”, and that I was “far to busy making up excuses” for myself. 

Further criticism includes untidy, disorganised and rude. About the only positive comment I can find is that several teachers found me “cheerful” and “lively”. 

I think the fact that I was able to remain bright and breezy in the face of so much hostile negativity from St. Monica’s Mistresses, speaks volumes for my resilience … and I thank them for it. 

It is that very characteristic – resilience – that shone through our school reunion at Burlington House, London, on October 16th. 

Thirty-two St Monica’s Old Girls got together for lunch at the Linean Society council room. A fly on the wall might have been surprised that the average age of us Old Girls was late 70s with several sporting name tags stating that they left in the 1950s making them considerably older. I was in the extremely unusual position of finding myself the youngest in the room !

But everyone was feisty and fun. I sat next to a woman who was called away urgently following an alert on her watch that the access road to her remote farm on the Welsh borders (where she lived alone) was flooded. She needed to drive back before it became impassable. A statement she made in a calm matter of fact tone, before she grabbed her bag and headed to the tube which would take her to her car ready for the long and possibly perilous journey home. 

Yes, we St Monica’s Old Girls are made from strong stuff. Our memories of Latin might be fading but the roots for our personalities that were sewn all those years ago in the Clacton sand have stood us in good stead. 

*I found my school reports while clearing my parents’ house and decided to take them along to the SMOGA reunion as a possible conversation prompt.