New biography of Sonia Orwell
Martha Bridegam
<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n08/disk2408.htm>
Courtesy of *Arts & Letters Daily*, as usual.
/MAB
John Rennie
"Martha Bridegam" <brid...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:3CC8E398...@pacbell.net...
Well now isn't nice to be able to repudiate with some confidence
fiction posing as documentary.
" When she was six, she was sent, as if to complete the gothic theme, to the
same awful convent school that Antonia White attended and wrote about in
Frost in May. Vicious nuns, a minimal education for middle-class marriage
and - something, at least - a powerful enemy to kick against."
The convent was The Sacred Heart then at Roehampton - the most select
convent in the UK.
So select that all three of Joe Kennedy's daughters attended there. My
mother in law
assured me that it was a splendid place and that with few exceptions, the
nuns were kind
and helpful. Sonia Brownwell was her contemporary in the form above her
and her
stay there was notable for only one thing in ma-in-law's memory, the length
of it. She
stayed there for an extra year at least. So the time she spent with a
Swiss family
could only have been during a holiday as she was still at the convent when
she was 17.
My wife attended the same convent when it moved to Woldingham - I visted it
with her for reunions etc. Its educational standards were of the highest
only matched by
it's sporting activities. Sonia's school years would have been in the
early 30's - all girls'
public (American private) schools endeavoured to prepare their pupils for
marriage.