Sister Christopher’s century

Sister Frances Orchard CJ (Congregation of Jesus), Provincial Superior and school governor, led a whole school assembly on Wednesday 30 November to celebrate former student, Head Prefect, teacher and ultimately Headmistress of our school, Sister Christopher (Ruth) Angell CJ, who will be celebrating her 100th birthday before Christmas.

Born in Sandy, Sr Christopher was Head Prefect in the academic year 1933/1934, and joined the Mary Ward sisters and studied sciences at university. Her great loves as a youngster were sport, singing and ecology, and as a Science teacher here she loved taking groups to Wicken Fen. She became Headmistress in 1949, where she remained until she retired in 1972. Nuns, however, do not really retire; they just get re-cycled so since 'retirement' Sr Christopher has volunteered with the CJ community for the mission in Zimbabwe where she specialised in teaching women about child care and hygiene, and looked after the Sixth Form boarders once girls started attending the school. Sr Christopher is as close as one can be to sainthood, being close to God and having dedicated her whole 100 years of life to Him through the service of others, and we look forward to divulging more about Sr Christopher’s life in this year’s Magnolian – please do look out for it at the end of the academic year.