Back to school memories

More than 140 alumni of a Nelson catholic school which closed 42 years ago will travel near and far to reunite in mid-November.

Sacred Heart Girls’ College, which was renamed Redwood College in honour of Bishop Francis Redwood, educated thousands of young women in third to sixth form between 1892 and 1982.

The college was housed in a large, five-storey convent on Manuka St, once considered the largest wooden building in the Southern Hemisphere.

With an annual enrolment of up to 130 students, the institution also operated as a boarding school until the late 1960s.

Several of the original convent buildings are preserved at Founders Heritage Park, including the Granary, which once served as the students’ art room, and the Port Museum was the former nuns’ chapel.

Bernadette King-Turner is co-organising the reunion with her Class of 1975 friends Clare Haycock, Mary McKinlay, Anne Kennedy, Erin Silke, and Paddy McBride, along with St. Joseph’s School past pupils Pat Wilson and Denis Moriarty.

She says the reunion was brainstormed following a 90th birthday celebration for former principal Sister Celine, in 2022.

“We have been putting it out there through all the different catholic parishes throughout the country, through the newsletters and just through word of mouth and connections,” she says.

“The outcomes are that we all just have a wonderful time reconnecting with our best friends from years ago.  Some of us have not seen our classmates since the day we left the college.

“There are some classmates I have not seen or met since the 70s, since the last day at school, and there are others who will be joining us who were at the college in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.”

Bernadette says reunion guests will be travelling from as far afield as Europe and the UK. The reunion will be in session between 15 and 17 November.