Attention: You are using an outdated browser, device or you do not have the latest version of JavaScript downloaded and so this website may not work as expected. Please download the latest software or switch device to avoid further issues.
1932-1943 June Flewett
June Flewett spent the whole of her primary and secondary schooling at Sacred Heart in Hammersmith and after leaving, went on to train for her life-long career in the theatre.
I first attended school aged 5, in the kindergarten in September 1932. During that year, Reverend Mother paid us a visit, and we performed 'Little Miss Muffet' for her. I was well cast as the spider, being extremely thin with long hairy arms. It is my strongest memory of Kindergarten and perhaps indicates that I was already something of an actress.
When I was nine, the school mounted a production of 'Alice in Wonderland'. We rehearsed for a term during which it took over my life. The Bishop who attended made a speech and was very complementary about my performance. Being praised like that (at a time when it was not customary to praise children) made me feel confident and had more effect on my future than he could possibly have imagined. It was from then on that I knew I wanted to go into the Theatre.
In 1939, I was in the Senior School, and we were evacuated to Oxford. Mother Hutchinson was Head Mistress and Miss Corvesor taught me English. They were the strongest influences on me, in the absence of my parents. We were all very frightened of Mother Hutchison but I came to love and respect her. Miss Corvesor gave me a love of poetry which I still have.
We returned to London in 1942 when I was 15, and I took School Certificate. When exams were over, no-one suggested that I should stay on in the sixth form, but Mother Hutchinson had obtained details of all the London Drama schools for me.
I eventually went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from where I took a London University Diploma, with two distinctions. I have worked in the theatre for over 60 years, and am still running a company.
I am grateful to the Sacred Heart School for my education and for the opportunities it gave me and I remember my time there will affection.
Image shows Operation Pied Piper evacuees arriving at Oxford on the same day that our own pupils took this journey. The children here are not from Sacred Heart, but shows a little of what it would have been like.
1935-1945 Evelyn Rush
Evelyn Rush attended Sacred Heart in Hammersmith from 1935 to 1945, both as a junior and as a secondary pupil. Her mother Cissie Cordingley, her aunt and uncle had also attended the school at about the time of the Great War 1914-18 (when boys under the age of 8 were also admitted in the junior school).
Some of the people who were in the Junior School at the same time as I was, were the Kearns sisters, the Flewitts, the Hendersons, Anne Sheridan, Monica Pleschette and June Catliffe with her two brothers.
I became, and still am, great friends worth Joan Catliff. I was convinced that she was called June Catholic because she was a Catholic!
