I come from a Catholic family, and go to church every Sunday morning. So when it was time for me to enter primary one, Daddy decided to put me to Kellock Convent. The old Kellock Convent was on the premises of St Bernadette Church in Zion Road, an imposing two-storey white-washed building.

From what I remember (gosh, it was forty-something years ago!), I looked forward to wearing the white tunic and blue pinafore everyday to school! And yes, school was fun! Yes, we had English, Maths and Science, and Chinese. And Chinese was my least favourite subject …. Coz well, no one speaks Chinese at home but, I’ll come to it in a later blog.

Let’s talk about my favourite subject, English. I was very fortunate, for two reasons.

One, Daddy speaks and writes fluent English. He had a HSC (Higher School Certificate), equivalent to today’s A Levels. He was a stenographer and later promoted to private secretary to his boss, an Englishman. In the 1960s, this was a big thing. Daddy worked in Mansfield Travel, frankly, I thought it was pretty cool, his job …. he takes shorthand, literally short hand, squiggles that have meaning to it and then transcribes it to a typewriter. A manual typewriter, that is.

Two, my school, CHIJ or Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus, prides itself on building values and character in the girls that walk in their doors. Steadfast but demure is what every Convent girl should be, and I am glad to say that it still is today. The teachers during my time were tasked with speaking and writing properly, and well, training came from the Irish nuns who also doubled up as teachers as well.