Pattie Boyd says Sister Mary helped her to understand and love poetry and the written word

+++ Pattie Boyd’s new book of memoirs, “Wonderful Tonight,” was one that we borrowed from the Esquimalt branch of the Greater Victoria Public Library recently, after putting it on hold, and awaiting it with keen anticipation.   Boyd was nominally Anglican, but actually received much of her schooling in a number of strict Roman Catholic English girls’ boarding schools.  Here she admits the limits of her faith, but pays tribute to a certain ‘Sister Mary,’  a Roman Catholic nun who may very well have inadvertently prepared her to later recognize, encourage and support the budding genius of her husband-to-be George Harrison, he of the fabled Beatles.  ”I was hopeless at English, hopeless at math, loved history, geography, and art – but that was due to the teacher, Miss Hill, who decided she would pay me some attention.  She was the only teacher who was not a nun.  My piano teacher was a nightmare.  Every time I made a mistake she would hit my hand with a ruler.  Religion, inevitably, played a large part in my education.  We had to go to church on Friday evenings and twice on Sundays.  I have no idea why I was sent to Roman Catholic convents: we were Church of England.  My mother was quite religious and we went to church every Sunday.  Yet at school I had a very different experience with priests, nuns, and lots of incense, which I loved.  However, I had difficulty accepting much of what I was taught.  How on earth could Jesus have been born from a virgin?  How could he have risen from the dead?  None of the nuns was prepared to explain anything: we had to take it all at face value.  None of it was inspirational because they weren’t – except for one, Sister Mary, who, I decided, had probably had a tragic childhood or a crisis in her late teens.  She had a passion for poetry and the written word.  She helped me understand and learn to love it too.” - Pattie Boyd, with Penny Junor, “Wonderful Tonight,” Harmony Books, New York, 2007, pages 28-29. +++