Eleanor Stewart - New Habits

In September 1961, aged eighteen, I went to France to enter the Noviciate of the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Evron with the intention of becoming a nun and dedicating my life to God. After two and a half years I took my vows and a short time later returned to their main English convent, Mary-Mount in Liverpool. As a nun and encouraged by the Mother Superior, I became a student nurse, leaving my convent every day for Broadgreen, a big inner-city hospital, and returning each evening to my religious community. After qualifying as a registered nurse I trained for my midwifery diploma at the Liverpool Maternity Hospital. These were wonderfully happy years. I was contented and fulfilled. I enjoyed the community life and felt empowered by my vows. At all times I was surrounded by affectionate support from my sisters.

However, during my midwifery training I began to feel an immense desire to have a family of my own: a husband and children. I remained faithful to my vows, but became convinced that my life was turning in a different direction. In 1969, after eight years in a convent, I left the community. The sisters continued to be loving and supportive; I faced no antipathy, only sympathy.

The story of my life during those years is told in my book Kicking the Habit . What follows is my new life after the convent and my efforts to find my place in the modern world.

The girl sitting opposite me blew out her cheeks, raised her eyebrows, examined her fingernails and, rustling in her bag, produced her cigarettes. Taking one out, she lit it, inhaled deeply, then turning her head, presumably to avoid my face, blew a steady puff of blue smoke toward the window. When she turned back toward me, she was grinning. Tell me again. Eight years? You were in a convent for eight years? Youve got a lot of catching up to do.

Once the train pulled out of Liverpools Lime Street station, she had begun to interrogate me with great persistence. Mother Henriettas robust recommendations about finding a husband before I embarked on motherhood, which my travel companion had obviously overheard, had left me in a state of shock, but it had galvanized her curiosity and I faced a barrage of questions. She sat forward, crossing and re-crossing her legs, her shiny silky knees rubbing against each other. The sound was intimate and secret, as if her limbs were making quiet little murmurs of astonishment. My neat grey suit and pretty green blouse, chosen for me by Sister Mary, which I had thought smart, suddenly felt dowdy. My skirt was far longer than my companions, which appeared to me extraordinarily brief. Every time she moved, it rode up a little more, revealing an expanse of plump brown thigh.

In an effort to turn the conversation away from what I felt would become prurient or more than inquisitive, I said, Your tights are a pretty colour.

American Tan; its the new thing. She looked doubtfully at mine. Yours are a bit pale, if you dont mind me saying so. She obviously felt that this unasked-for sartorial opinion would be acceptable to me, given my status as an ex-nun. For the next half an hour I was subjected to a persistent inquisition about convent life in general, and my own role in particular.

It was irritating, but I suppose not unreasonable. Its not every day that one comes across an ex-nun and one whose ex-status is so new, so her curiosity was understandable.

Would you like a drink? She was on her feet before I could reply. Theres a buffet car on the train.

Thank you. A cup of tea would be lovely. Can I give you some money?

No, no! Dont go away. Ive got lots more to ask. Outside in the corridor, she pushed cheerfully past standing passengers waiting for their stop. Excuse me. Excuse me her voice faded as she disappeared from view. If I strained my ears, I could still hear her chattering away in the distance and I could only imagine what she might be saying: Youll never guess Im in a carriage with an ex-nun. She was obviously finding the whole thing an exotic experience.

She arrived back with tea in one hand and something else in the other.

Thats not tea, I said.

No, she grinned at me. Its G and T.

G and T? It was so long since I had heard the abbreviation that I had forgotten it.

Gin and tonic. Gosh, you dont know much, do you? And theres not too much tonic in it either. So she crossed her legs again and her nyloned knees whispered like old ladies sniggering behind their hands, where were we?

As the details of convent life are, in the main, extraordinarily mundane I think my interrogator was beginning to feel some disappointment. It is difficult to explain to someone who has absolutely no knowledge of the religious life just what it involves: a community life, in all its simplicity, its order, its discipline, and the vows.

Ive seen The Nuns Story . Is it like that? Id often been asked this, and I guessed that she would pose the question too.

No, nothing like it really.

What about whipping yourself? Do you have to do that?

No, not in my community.

What do you mean, not in my community? Do some nuns do it?

Yes, some do, but its not a big issue. Its mainly symbolic. Almost nobody asked about obedience or poverty, but all were fascinated about the absence of men, and by men they meant sex. It seemed to most people that the lack of sex was a major stumbling block and one that they imagined (erroneously) would be the hardest aspect of a nuns life.

By the time my tormentor left the train at Birmingham, I felt exhausted and was only too thankful to sink back in my seat and hope to be left in peace. Nobody came to disturb me, but the curious glances from passengers passing my carriage convinced me that my erstwhile companion had indeed spread the word. I decided there and then that I would keep very quiet about my past and recent life, unimpeachable as it was.