Did you go to school at the convent?
An Australian family would like help from Kent Messenger readers.
Anne Patricia Orpin used to live in Maidstone and was a pupil at the Convent of The Sacred Heart in Boxley Road from 1939 to 1945, the duration of the Second World War.
She has lots of vivid memories of that era, including having to take classes in the basement, with gas-masks to hand, during bombing raids.
The school was also asked to adopt a Royal Navy ship and several sailors came to the school to talk to the girls and have their photos taken with them. It had been Mrs Orpin’s life-time wish to take her children back to Maidstone to see her old school, but sadly the convent is no more.
The convent closed in the 1970s and was redeveloped as the Russell Hotel, but now that too has gone, demolished to make way for housing.
In any case, Mrs Orpin, who is now 83, is in poor health and unable to travel from her home in Queensland. Her daughter Tracy Buchs said: “Her fondest memories are those of Sister Superior and the other nuns.
“She has wonderful stories to tell of her time there.
“I haven’t the heart to tell her there is nothing left now.”
Mrs Buchs said she was desperate to obtain any photos of the time when her mother was there as a young girl.
She said: “I would be grateful beyond words, if anyone had some photos we could show her, as she is now very ill. Mum was also a runner-up in the Miss Kent competition when she was 19 or 20, and was presented with a sash by Lord Mackintosh. Perhaps some one might have a photo of that too?”
Anyone able to help, should email the family directly on boofdaisy@gmail.com
A second Australian family is also after any details of the convent during the 1940s. Anyone able to help can email Loraine Gager on rainlady2@ bigpond.com
The Convent of the Sacred Heart was a private school run by the Roman Catholic order, although it did take non-RC pupils. Children could go there from age four to 18 and they would be educated by nuns.