Helen Bennett-Jones (nee Cornish)

Beaulieu student 1966 – 1980

The Beaulieu Convent at which young Helen Cornish began her schooldays in the mid-sixties was a very different place from what it is today.  As Helen has two daughters who have come through the Junior School and are now in Year 7 and Year 12, she is very aware of this.

She started in Kindergarten in the current Year 6 classroom and remembers the old “tin gym” where the Junior School stands today.  First teachers were Miss Bastin,  Sister Margaret (later to become known as Sister Suzanne) , and Miss Connery, all teaching in the main house. One of Helen’s early memories is of Sister Marie-Louise, in those days called ‘Reverend Mother’, “Sweeping down the stairs in full habit - quite an intimidating sight for a small girl!”  It is the presence of the Sisters in those days which is one of Helen’s abiding memories.  “They were so much in evidence,” she says. “I had, as form teachers, Sister Joseph, Sister Aline, Sister Emmanuel and Sister Marie-Elizabeth.  And in the sixth form, it was Sister Marie-Louise herself!  I was proud to be a member of St Agnes House.  What a pity it doesn’t exist any more.”

Helen contrasts the experience of her younger daughter Katie, who has last year transferred into Senior School along with 29 others from Beaulieu Year 6 and 70 from other schools.  “When I made that move,” says Helen, “we hardly noticed it.  We moved from downstairs in the Middle School (M3) to upstairs (M4) and were joined by half a dozen “new girls” from other Primary Schools. And elder daughter Louise is now part of a 130-strong sixth form whereas Helen at that stage in her education was in a 6^th form of approximately 20 girls.

Languages were popular with Helen and she attended Spanish ‘O’ level and French ‘A’ level lessons at De La Salle.  “But I was no good at Maths!” she adds.  Helen well remembers the weekly tests and the giving out of the yellow report books by Sister Marie-Louise.  The results for the whole class were read out in front of everybody, from highest result to lowest, and the report book stated the class average mark. Hers was not a controversial year but there was one incident when some of Helen’s class locked a teacher out of the room and refused to let her in.  The arrival of Sister Marie-Louise at the scene stopped that.  “She did it with one of her looks, nothing more!” laughs Helen.  Male teachers were a rarity then (so different from today) but one, Helen remembers, had little classroom control and lessons often turned to chaos.

That small sixth form of the late seventies were given a special privilege:  although they had to wear uniform, they could choose a material for their summer dress and have it made up in the style of their choice.  But it had to be worn with the blazer.  “We decided on something very flowery and floaty.”  (Helen seems to have mislaid a photo of the group, taken on the Main House stairs, so if anyone has a copy of it, we’d love to see it.)

Two other teachers who were teaching at Beaulieu when Helen was a pupil and are still teaching now are Louise Warran and Ev McNulty and she is very pleased that both have taught her daughters. Other little memories include the Christmas Bazaar in the dinner rooms and the sixth form common room in the Summerhouse.  “And one weekend, we called in to school to find one of the sisters balancing precariously on the parapet of the second floor of the Main House cleaning the windows!”  (Not so many Health and Safety regulations in those days)

Helen has always loved the ethos of Beaulieu and is sure that it will be maintained, with the best of the school’s past combining with its exciting future.  She is so pleased that her daughters have followed her and she hopes that daughters of other former pupils will be able to as well, ensuring that links with the past are preserved.

DCT

Feb 2010

Helen models the First School uniform c. 1968

Helen and Friend at Sports Day