Remembering Nuns

First published in Column 8, date unknown, but some time in the 1990s.

 In the memory course I did a while ago I was supposed to learn how to remember where I'd put things years before, and how to recognize faces from the distant past. 

One face eludes me. Try as I might, I can't remember the face of the teacher, (a nun), who tied me to my desk with a belt because my childish exuberance was somewhat over the top! 

On the other hand, during a recent visit to a convent, (for a friend's Jubilee), I was amazed at the phenomenal memories nuns appear to have, particularly those who claimed they'd taught me at primary school, forty years ago.

 (None of the sisters took responsibility for tying me to the desk, however, and my memory failed to recognize any face that connected to my "traumatic" experience.) 

I don't think these ladies have done a memory course - it just seems to come naturally. If I was a teacher, I'd find pupils' faces blurring into one big Mr Blobby after a few years. 

For instance, the sister who greeted us at the door instantly knew me, and said she'd taught me. As usual I had to ask who she was, and still remembered her not at all. 

Perhaps it's because when I was a lad all the nuns wore long, black, person-enclosing garments that hid them almost entirely from view. The only identifiable parts were the hands and the face. 

I'm not good at remembering hands at the best of times - and faces that used to be tightly framed in black change out of all sight when viewed in ordinary everyday gear. 

But not all the nuns at the afternoon tea were unremembered. One I met again had had the misfortune to follow in the footsteps of my favourite music-teaching nun of all time, the one I adored, and for whom I actually wept when she said she was being transferred. 

This other lady, whose qualities and abilities, while different, were no doubt as excellent, suffered badly by comparison, through no fault of her own. 

Naturally, she remembered more about the past than I did. (Do they keep dossiers?)

She spoke of my poor practice record and the strain it had on my mother's nerves, as well as my embarrassment at bringing her flowers (perhaps as a peace offering). I apparently came half an hour early to escape the unwanted attention of my mates. 

I remember none of this - surely I used to practice perfectly? 

Embarrassed about bringing flowers? Never.

Later, as I was sitting down balancing my cup of tea in one hand and in the other one of those soft, fluffy cakes filled with mock cream and smattered with icing sugar, (the sort that sticks to your beard and can't be wiped off because you don't have a third hand), I was approached by a six foot vision from the past. Someone I could never forget. 

This nun, holding a tray in her hands and encouraging everyone to eat more cakes, turned out to be my first and favourite music-teacher of all time. And she was the only nun that day who didn't instantly recognise me.

(She soon made it clear that this was hardly surprising: when I was seven, I didn't have a beard.) Her delight was even greater than mine, and she greeted me with the warmth of someone to whom everyone is a long-standing friend.

She was as full of beans as ever, words high-tailing it off her tongue as though she had so much to say the day would be over before she'd finished. And she still had an enthusiasm for life that hasn't changed in forty years.

It's curious how we so easily forget the names and faces of some people who leave an unpleasant mark on our memories. This sister, however, had made music a delight to her pupils, opening up a world formerly unexplored. More than that, she filled life with laughter. How could anyone forget her?