Sharing The Stage Wth Nuns
Tue, Jul 13th 2010
Last week I was invited to open a two day conference for Short Stay and PRUSchools (July 1st in York). Nervous as ever, early in the morning I went to look at the stage I would have to appear on – lo and behold two huge nuns were already waiting for me!
My heart raced. Wow, did they bring back memories. At the age of 6 I used to board at a convent. It was a long train ride from my home and I would sit on my big brown trunk (I have still got it) for a six hour journey. (The nuns took me in free for a short time as a gesture of kindness to my mum, an ex-pupil). I did experience lots of kindness, but why my knees trembled as I looked at these tall nuns was that strong memories came back of their disapproval of me and what they perceived as my waywardness – which was my inability to stop being left-handed. In those days left-handedness was seen, especially when making a sign of the cross, as a sign of the devil! (Check out the meaning of ‘left’ – equals sinister !!). I used to have a red ribbon tied around my wrist and “donkey” written on my back. It fried my brain trying to become right-handed and it just didn’t happen! I thought I was the only one who went through this experience – but in the 70s I listened with amazement to Dory Previn’s LP and there was a song on it called ‘My Left Hand’. I remember thinking that there might be loads of us left-handed survivors out there who might have to form a self help therapy group.
So there I was, about to go on stage, with the ghosts of memory flooding my brain and jostling for attention. Ah … but … my saviour was that, when you looked down, these nuns were naughty!!! One was in red fishnet stockings and high heels. The other was on a skateboard. They both had big grins on their faces. I thought about the children from Dane’s Gate who made them – what a sense of mischief and humour they must have shared as they painstakingly moulded these bigger than life size ladies!
Humour is a godsend. Really healing. Yet again, I was vividly reminded of how important it was to laugh. Aristotle is quoted as saying, “There is no learning without laughter”. No healing either, I would say. Fortified, I breathed deeply and went on stage to maybe 200 delegates and, that morning, we really laughed our way through the trials and joys of our complex, demanding jobs.
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