T
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1949:
28 YEARS IN A CONVENT
The daily life of a silent nun
Her austere cell : Bare boards and whitewashed walls : Sheets
were washed once a year
After 28 years in a convent of a strictly enclosed order of nuns, MONICA BALDWIN, cousin of the late Earl Baldwin, returned to the outside world to take up the threads of ordinary life again. Here, in the second instalment of her story, she describes the austere simplicity of life behind the convent walls.
by
the Adoration of the Magi, a Marriage of St Catherine.
And, behind the prioress's table, a great, tragic conves of child-angela who held chalices beneath
the the wounda of
MONICA BALDWIN the Crucifixion, with weeping
HE first night away Even in the convent, I tortured Chris.
from the convent I nimost invariably experi- spent with an uncle enced this rather childish of plaited rushes hung behind and aunt in Portland-place, thrill on first awakening. London.
Under the pictures n
the narrow benches.
dado
Long. massive, polished dark with age, stood, like the benches, on a platform of boards raised a couple of Inches or so above the level of the four,
It helped me to bound out After dinner somebody of bed when the calling-bell tables, turned on the radio. My changed ruthlessly nt il frst Impulse was to By
quarter to five. from the room, shrieking "Witchcraft !"'
for
the
And nobody
No
290
In such a cell lived Monica Baldwin. In the corner a small earthenware jug and bains her furniture, a prayerstool, one chair and a hard bed.
who hasn't
Nothing here had been quite hanged since it was built 360 feels
years ago. unin-
The
thick paned Kame in
wonder that the walls (ten minutes of it were enough. windows Jatuced
overlooked
saturated with the to send me speeding same high wolled seemed the
bare gak silent aspirations, the unspoken search of oxygen) to the domed
sorrows--sometimes Renaissanco church, with garden; the
so many human altar of apricot-coloured tables were set with the Famoys and
pewter and pronien-ol pistes of linted brown earthen mugs
gramophone had been in tried it can imagine its earlier and most ex- how disinclined one crucinting stages when I for bounding at that band gone behind the con- spiring hour, especially vent walls 28 years before, winter, when your sponge is It was, I suppose, inevi- a frozen fosall and you have table that the
the fee in your room in tamash which I was
put to sleep waterjug with your hair- appenred
me almost brush handle before you can
wash. palatially luxurious.
to
A nun's cell la se small that there is only room for herself, tiny chest of
IL
drawers, and
EL
prayer.
a minute
stool, one chair, folding table, and a hard
Ittle bed.
1 remember, as a novice, how much difficulty had in getting accustomed to the rough woollen sheets, which incredible as it may neem-wero washed unly ouce a year.
There is no washstand; Instead, s small oarthen- ware jug and basin stand in a corner on the floor. Bare boards and plain white- washed walls intensify the austerity..
Once I was appointed to do for a time, which the calling n.cont getting up half an hour carlier
the then
rest the community.
пато
marble and windows.
away in
its
stained glass
hearts.
For nuns, after all, are only
until a kind of High up at the back of the mysitcal death has taken place church and over the lay sisters" In the earthly nature, resulting chapel was the long, beauti-
SHE COULD be human, and
unpleasant
FURTHER along the cloister important-looking double into the Com-
of
doors opened munity Room.
It gave one an odd, ghostly feeling to tiptoe about all alone lighted Jong. Fra that
dimly dormitory of sleepers.
Lis the triumph of what is fully proportioned choir. spiritual over what is merely tuiturat, avoided.
suffering cannot
be
wrought-iron had a fine 11 Krille before it, and the double stallk on row of dark carven
It has been truly said that either side were reflected in a મ the price of parquet floor, so highly poilshed as to suggest the sea of glass
The light from its long row Auffering af - olas! - almost Invariably sanctity. closed windows poured in upon what was practically the living- tom of the nuns.
barc scrubbed to an
In the Apocalypse.
Неге 100, the community
for recreation Assembled the evening, after supper.
In
*
the convent
After ringing the heavy ironi Whitewashed walls; a
Throughout The prioress sat at the top of bell, it is the caller's duty to go boarded floor, Found from cell to cell, épenlag ench door just wide enough to unbelievable degree of spot- the long row of tables with the except in the nuns' cells, which
The Mother Sub- nurs down elther side.
bear
the answer when she lessness, offers The inorning salutation prioress
were as stanil as possible--one the same almo- was met by with sphere of cold. clean spacious-
could be thoroughly The rule of silence no longer
of Dro gratias (Thanks he to unpleasant to people, especially held; the walls echoed God).
蹿
nevices, who come in from the laughter and conversation.
uddy garden without wiping their feet.
Here was an ugly. carved aliar with twisted columns and 4
It always amused me to Renaissance
barley-sugar
AN enchanted kingdom
study the different reactions of The various nung to this stern display of aspidistras, and a command of duty.
Berics of narrow oak tables Most of them were already where 60 runs or more could AT the end of the
No one may enter your cell except the Superior, or, splashing by the time I got to should you fall ill, the nun them; but a few-one knew who holds the office of Instinctively which they would a volley of be-needed quite apothecary.
Deo grailares before they could The cell is always a place be persuaded to grunt & sleepy of silence. Drawers, doors, answer from beneath the clothes,
must be
really heavy sleepers and windows opened noiselessly. Outside were apt to be tiresome. Some- times you had to stand, saying white-habited figures move "Deo gratias" at their doors till up and down like shadows. you were nearly hoarse. Not a sound must break the stillness neither the sound
of voices, feet.
nor of passing
The
**
*
*
Once a dreadful thing hap pened. Mier A more
than
I COME back usually lengthy effort to elicit
to luxury
JUB
answer, the caller
got worried and entered the cell to investigate.
To her horror she found a NOW, here I was, in un corpse lying stiff beneath the
West End of London, bedclothes. The nun tucked into a nest of pillows died from heart failure during In a down-soft bed, between the night. delicately fragrant linen
sheets..
The room was large and high, with tall, wide win-
COLD CUT like
a
knife
dows; and there were pic. ONE of the things I found it tures on the walls, and mirrors everywhere.
hardest to get used to after I left convent was the Emaliness of people's houses.
The thick-pile rugs struck I suppose
this was because
a note of rich and satisfying the convent where I had spent colour; and for washing most of my life was so large.
Built originally there was a great, deep, blue-veined marble basin, call open courtyard, into which hot and cold grown with the centuries ill it
have sat comfortably,
was the library. enchanted kingdom
cloister
What an for anyone in need (as 1, alos, so often felt myself to be) of an escape!
The
From
Прог the
of dan- parquet to Against the walis, a row of gerously polished
rush-bottomed chairs e ancient cetling beams were
lier heavy
tier upon alternated with plain oak cup- stacked boards in which the nuns might books-each In its way a magle keep their books.
casement opening on the foam of-sometimes perllous seas. Above, the score of so pl prioresses
who had ruled the
library contained, in convent, looked down from un- fact, everything for Instruction glazed canvases-ster, ascetic or enlightenment faces, pale, tight-lipped, tran- possible aspect of the spiritual quil, under their medieval colts te.
and of fine starched linen shadowy veils.
Here the nurs sat sewing lofty. cool, from 9 .m. til 11, and from atmosphere 1.30 p.m. til 3; and again from silence.
4 to 5 pm. It was always "aut
of
upon every
Besides the Great cloister. others, wide, there were two
with their chili of perpetual
There was the stern, sombre that recreation," meaning nothing that was not absolutely chapter house leading through
unavoidable might be said. the stuffy ny sisters' chapel
Bring the machine as well as the man!
A
By Don Taylor
USTRALIA is shaping Skilled Yorkshire workers a new pattern for im- are there to operate the plant.
This amigrants, one in which a
development in of skilled transplanting bodies it had man not only does the same
British workmen across the
round
new
water cascaded from elegant lay clutching two other court-job he did in Britain but world, is tremendously signin
cloister garth may do it on the very ma- cant.,
chine he used.
taps.
yards
and
between its claws.
scale.
in the long run it may well only. factories,
whole townships.
In the convent I had been Here, In winter, the cold cut There is still plenty of room be that not
for the individual immigrant complete with staffs and tami- used to going to bed by the into you like a knife. light of a tiny oil-filled lamp Out of the cloister, heavy out of 120,000 Britons to settle lies, will be transported, but
In Australja since the war, like a small glass ink-pot, calt doors led into the rabbit about half travelled outside the with a wick that could only warren of the kitchen quarters official scheme.
to 1be Infmmary, to the be manipulated with a pin. Refectory, and to the Great But British industry itself
damp vaults below. Now I found An amber- shaded electric reading-lamp The Refectory was the oldest nt my bedside; and there part of the building. To the
jast, I never entered it with were switches which set out a feeling of reverence. other lights burning mira
The wide, open space in the culously in various parts of middle was paved, like the
Not only the jobs, but the It was recently reported, that cloister, with grey and white new factories awalt them, the Bradford Dyers Associa- the room...
fingatones, worn irregular by I leaned back, marvelling daily contact with generations South Wales stool
At Tomago, a surburb of New, tim, Lid. are lasking” for e
and in-cultable location for an indus at the luxury of it all.
of heavily shod feet.
Idustrial city of Newcastle, the try in Victoria," and the Siand- THE THRILL of was ornamented
The massive, beamed ceiling British firm of Courtoulds, Ltd, ard Motor Co., Ltd, at Coven- with sacred is putting up a rayon factory, try, have been discussing plans About 400 men, and their for establishing their works al monograms in low-rellof, and waking up
delicate mouldings whore fantiles, will be brought out -Fishermen's Bond. Melbourne.
had been from Britain to mãn”: the gu Azharp scoutlines
Australia la setting HAVE always felt that blurred by the repeated white machines.
Eventually
plant will style in Empire development Washings of centuries, A
employ about 8,000 people, penak EH BAND The unglazed paintings on In another case, a worsted Britain, and the rest of the you wake up in the morn the walls were such as one soos spinning, plant is being moved Empire, would do woll to fol
"Why build your new towns in Britain?" ask the enthusiasts. "Send out the entire com- la emigrating on an increasing munity--complete with pre- fabricated houseo and public Britons are leaving hoina in buildings": the company of their own
Many British firms have eaj workmates, their families ready tablished new or branch plants to follow,
In Australia:
the moment when first
Ing is the most wonderful in Continental churches: of the 24 hours.
afrom Cleckheaton, Yorkshire, low her lend, Nativliy," Flemish study of lo Shepparton, Victorino
a new
London Express: Seroiday-
ness...
The place breathed allence and consecration.
[World copyright] NEXT WEER
A visit to the Baldwins
London Express Service
The
GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Above, one of the many specially prepared lustrations to appear with "The Greatest Story Ever Told." Tisia ono la reconstruction of an etching by Rembrandt
Magnificent, New Version of the Eternal Christ Story
By
FULTON OURSLER
Written in the language of to-day and in modern narrative style, "The Greatest Story Ever Told" is a faithful and exacting story of the life of Christ throughout His 33 years. This story is being heralded by religious leaders of all faiths as one of the finest and most powerful works of our times. Beautifully illustrated.
STARTS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17
IN
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
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