She flew into the classroom, a black habit flapping about a tall, stout body, announcing her ominous arrival. We were told she would prevail upon us the need for pure excellence in all that we did in school work, PE, Domestic Science and play.

Psalms and gospels according to this one and that one, tripped from young tongues that had minds like pebbles falling upon an arid desert. Latin weaved its peculiar sounds to be uttered in gobble-de-gook from lips numbed by fear. Geometry formed puzzling labyrinths. Algebra loomed large from the board like coded messages. Geography, a boring sequence of rain fall, mountains and other alien terrains, smothered yawns.

On some afternoons, Shakespeare’s sonnets resounded unintelligibly across the sweat filled classroom of shuffling backsides while those dark eyes watched and waited for some misdemeanour that required six lashes, three per palm, of her slender, quivering cane.

But one phrase, after the final bell, brought about the first signs of excitement and nervous twitching. ’˜God speed go with you,’ she declared, her starched white wimple almost covering that deep frown of constant disapproval.

Then she departed to glide through the door and down lavender polished corridors like a black angel taking with her that faint smell of incense and stale cabbage while we, in controlled, decorous lines, followed her echoing footsteps to reach freedom beyond.