Loreto Convent Msongari

Home Photographs

Click on thumbnail to enlarge photographs

                                                                                       

 

Thanks to Sahira Bedri (Rahim) for this photo - names please!

 

Yvonne Francine HOLMES

My mother's confirmation photograph.  Loreto Convent Nairobi?) and lived in Limuru. She was born in 1934 I believe the photo was taken in 1948.

Thanks to Richard Wheeler for this photograph

 

 

 

 

 

Msongari 1963 - 1969.  Thanks to Adrienne Brice (Fox) Msongari 1969

 

 

 

 

 

Lyn McDonald

Back
Frances Roche, Adrienne Fox, Birgit Lund, Sue ?, Franca Mambrioni, Sheila Jennings-Bramley, Rosemary Goodman
Front
Anne Kerswell, Franca Campana, Lyn McDonald, Ange Gaitje, Sharon Cowling

 

 

 

Barbara Armand

 

 

 

 

Barbara Armand

Many thanks to Karen Christie (now Macleod) for the wonderful tales to go with these photos (which were on misc photos) - such memories!!

Hockey Teams 2 and 3: although I do not recognize any faces, this Msongari Bus was the pride and joy of the school and all who voyaged in her!! Beautifully maintained, lovingly polished prior to each outing by its proud, beaming driver. Squishy, plush seats which we took with such a sense of adventure and excitement. A trip to the National Theatre to participate in (and usually win every prize going!) the Music and Elocution Festival, demanded long sleeved shirts, ties, blazers and those awful, awful blue felt hats! Did we NOT just feel the cat's pyjamas next to the "Boma's" ....well, cattle truck??!!! Did not Saints, Princo and Duko give us whistles and cheers (possibly jeers?) as we majestically pulled up in front of the steps? And just how many verses of Muto Moja Kwenda Lima Shamba did we sing on the way home? Later it was Malaika......short sleeves, pleated skirts and USA "sailor" hats, but just as many trophies.... Alison Browse always winning piano and poetry for us! A standing ovation and many encores for the senior choir's rendition of ... I love to go a' wandering....

Definitely Msongari. the photo is taken on the grass between the Netball pitch to the left and the "near" Hockey
Pitch to the right. The gap between the buildings in the background (the senior dormitory to the left and the Nuns' quarters to the right) leads up under the arch to the Staff Room on the left and the Dining Room on the right, with the quadrangle further up, beyond the wrought iron gates. The grassy area behind the Netball Pitch is where Day Bugs were allowed to eat their packed lunches... after a Day Pupil Prefect-led rebellion (1963?) against eating these at separate tables in the dining room on the basis that the stench of the food that the poor Borders had to stomach turned ours!!! It was the Friday Fish Dish that finally did it!!! Thank you, once again, Mother Germaine for allowing us to do this!!
The non-uniformed girls - none of whom I recognize - would have been participating in our Feast Day activities, I think. We were allowed to wear dresses and had "fun" sports activities. These gals would have been lining up for the High Jump as we were allowed to tuck our hems into our knickers for the event!!!! Star performers, in my day, were always Sheila O'Meara and Vanessa Noon who, as immensely gifted ballet dancers of the Vera Zelkowitz School, performed with great elegance!


The photo is taken, from the Msongari end, of the tree-lined, coffee-bordered walk which linked Msongari to "Saints". Officially for siblings to use and meet at either school, Sunday mass at Saints before we had our own magnificent "new" Chapel and "trustees" (there were a few!) were allowed to walk up and down reading or swotting or during Retreat. However, it was also the preferred route for older, sassier Day Bugs to walk along to catch the bus at the end of Davidson Road to Westlands shopping centre where parents would collect or pupils could carry on into town. Preferred route? Well, it led not only past Saints church and classrooms but also wended its way down past their playing fields, so chances of seeing and talking to the boys were much higher! Jacaranda Avenue, parallel and lower down, cut out all but the playing fields and was therefore an option for the more gangly, spotty, akward and shy Msongari girls (there were also a few of these) but we still had to run the gauntlet of several Rugby pitches until we reached the haven of the cemetry. It serves to remember that this route was closed to cars and Jacaranda Avenue was impassable to all but Landies...so collecting parents had to make a huge detour up past BMH and down again. Given the options - dodgy relationships on the one hand or traumatised pre-teens on the other - many of them did just that!! Thanks, Dad! Unofficially, of course, considerable tennage activity took place in amongst the coffee bushes about which, perhaps, the less said the better but it did come about that the Science Lab windows, through which acess was gained, were fitted with locks...for "security" you understand. Squirrel had the keys and, I tell you, with Stinkie lurking beneath her skirts nobody was going to get a hold of them!

 

December 1956
Teacher :
Mrs Johnstone
Back Row : Rosemary Puller, Mary Doyle, Patsy Riley, Dinah Powis, Maeve O'Toole, Suzanne Alexander, J. Davis,
Caroline Johnstone.
Middle Row : Diane Keen, Susan McCalman, Jackie Pettitt, Judy Butler, Nora Kent, Elizabeth Jamieson, Diana Salter, Pamela Brown.
Front Row : Bryony Hickson-Mahoney, Judy O'Shea, Sally Rodney, Elizabeth Briody, Dinah Moore, Wendy Archer, Marilyn Raw.

 

 

 

 

 

 

                And the same lot seven years on (only four originals)!

 

 

 

Back Row : Patsy Gruss, Paula McDougall, Carole Heywood, Pamela Brown,
Draha Vlcek, Adrienne Cecil,
Franny Green, Sandy Lancaster, Uta Hubrich, Rosanna Heard, Judy Smith.
Middle Row : Rosé Shaw, Jenny Lucking, Trich Sullivan, Judy Butler, Jackie Mallac, Fiona Elder, Shelagh Parry,
José Fisher, Patsy Riley.
Front Row : Maureen Crowley, Vale Armstrong, June Fright, Anne Roper, Nora Kent, Kay Daly, Odette Almeida.

 

 

 

   

 

 

From Annette Franklin (updated 12 August 2007) - many thanks Annette!

Anna Ktowitch

Catherine Blunt

Liz Melsen

Myra, Magda, Jane, Tina and Shane, possibly?!!

Rosie, Nicola and Mary Jo?

Cat, Michelle and?

Anne, Zanda, Me, Sally & Belinda?  Can't remember many of the surnames.

Zanda & Michelle

Celia Stocker and others? Can anyone name them?

Nicola Rock

 

I think is Mother Cyril (Squirrel) of Msongari
with a predecesor to the devoted white Sealyham we knew in the 60's, (Pongo?) and rather nastily nicknamed Stinkie as it always carried a whiff of the Science Lab.in which its mistress spent all her time!

 

 

Many thanks to Carolynne Priestley for the following photos obviously taken in the 60's or early 70's!  Love the clothes!  More details please Carolynne.

 

 

Home Photographs