Memories -The Good,The Bad

Margaret, Veronica, Loreta, Eva, Cacun, Louisa

THE GOOD

So many memories of forty years ago seem to be related to food.
We struggled to save our tuck and then would sneak off to the loos in the dorms for a midnight feast.It was not the most sanitary place for a party, but the fear of being caught just added to the whispered thrill of the occasion. A teaspoon of Feradol in the lunch break....how I loved swirling the malt around a spoon and then savouring it lick by lick - there was a certain art to the whole ceremony.  I recall the luscious meringues we got as a treat at the end of the year, for being part of the church choir. The candy man with his tin trunk filled with delicious goodies....butter biscuits, bright pink and white coconut sweets and peppermint sticks. The tuck shop, where the pocket money in those days was twenty five or fifty paisa, and if one was very rich one whole rupee. I loved GG's, which were hard, stick jaw like squares of caramel, which were ideal for pulling out loose teeth. One just had to bite hard into the toffee and the offending tooth would be left behind in the goo when one opened ones mouth.

Gross looking yummy 'churan'

Sports holidays were preceded by weeks of practise for races, pyramids and the PT display and were times of competitive fun. For me, the vacations meant horse riding and I spent those ten days galloping  up hill and down dale and there was nothing more I wanted from life. Except maybe suck on some 'Ziffy' tablets and eat the gross looking but yummy 'churan' we could buy on the Flats! The five day October break came just after our Annual Day concert, and that was also a time of hours of rehearsals and costume fittings, nerves and drama.

Back tracking down memory lane can immediately bring  a prickly feeling of nostalgia. Singing The Bells of Saint Mary's, our school anthem, always stirred me to the bone. The girls in the choir carolling Silent Night was something else that I remember giving me goose bumps.My recollection of  other than those in my batch is not particularly good but the beautifully melodious voice of Cacun Nathan still rings in my ears.

THE BAD

The  halls and corridors of Ramnee each had their resident ghosts and accompanying supernatural tales.

The toilets adjoining the dorms were supposedly frequented by a young lass, who had appeared to some terrified girls in a shimmery haze, floating a foot above the ground. If one had to go for a pee in the dead of night, it was customary to wake up the closest sleeping figure and whisper "Come with me to the loo". This request was never turned down and we would stumble sleepily past rows of cupboards, whose locks rattled eerily in passing, because of the vibration of ones steps on the wooden floors. I had a bed next to a window and I really did observe the shadow of a nun on the wall once - I sat up and looked around but saw no one so covered my head with the quilt and had a story to tell the next morning. It must have been Sister Beata prowling around, checking up on us, but I never noticed her and it made an exciting story!

The infirmary was inhabited by a wraith like mother and her two daughters, who some claimed to have seen wandering past the beds of sick girls who were admitted.

The graveyard was a serene and beautiful spot where strange things were supposed to happen. The gates leading to it were normally kept locked,  but on some occasions we would sneak in and put our ears to the tomb stones, since it was rumoured that one could hear uncanny murmuring if one listened carefully enough.

The music rooms were haunted by a 'sardarji' it was said and on one occasion when I was hammering away at a particularly tough piece, I heard a sniff behind me and turned around to see an old 'sardar' gazing at me with a smile. My first reaction was to throw my music book at him and the second was to run screeching to the adjoining room yelling 'Ghost, Ghost!'. It was Sister Cecelia, who calmed me down with great difficulty, and then introduced me to a very flustered and nervous Mr Virdi, who turned out to be the piano tuner!

Off course none of these spectral tales were true, but I recall the spooky sensation of sitting around wide eyed, listening to ghastly stories and narrow escapades of the few who claimed to have seen some other worldly apparitions. Back in the day there was never any doubt in my mind that every word was true, which only added to the mystique of Ramnee.

First Communion - Margie, Me, Cacun, Lulu, Veronica and Lotta