I will not start with ‘Dear’, because ‘Dear’ you most certainly are not,

THIS happened over 40 years ago, and I can still picture the scene vividly. And that is why I need to write this letter. I was an 11-year-old child, just started first year in the convent school, I was as confident as any child, starting that year, like many others, in my homemade school pinafore. I’m one of a family of nine. Our parents both worked hard for us, to keep us fed and clothed. My mother had made the pinafore, probably helped by my oldest sister.

You would have had a fair idea of all of our circumstances. There were very few in that class who were from well-off backgrounds, just one, to my memory.

Yet, one day you chose to stand at the top of that classroom to launch an attack on our school uniforms. Many of us did not have the regulation pinafore, which had buttons on the front, and the school crest on the shoulder. But we were dressed in the brown pinafores and beige jumpers as required, clean and neat.

We used to have to stand up when you came in. I was standing in my second-row seat, next to the window. I still remember your words directly to me, calling me out by name ‘and yours is the worst’. Mine was zipped up the back, lacking both the buttons and the crest. So what?

You were the principal of the school, a figure of authority and a nun. Why would anyone in your position do such a thing to a young child? Did you walk out of that classroom that day, proud of how you tried to humiliate an 11-yearold? There were 30 others in that small room, including a teacher. Did that make you feel good?

I think, because I was someone who liked learning, was generally well behaved, and was enjoying making new friends, I didn’t allow your viciousness to crush my confidence.

And the other thing was that I think none of us in the room expected any better from you.

I hope that this letter does bring me closure. I hope, although I don’t believe that you regretted your spite. You were a ‘holy’ person, after all.

I am glad that schools are a very different scene now, and the likes of you are no longer around. I see my nieces and nephews, some finished school, some in secondary, some in primary. Things have changed so much, and for the better. All I know is that if anyone spoke to any of them with the degree of spite that you spoke to me that day, they wouldn’t get away with it. And rightly so.