Patricia Clarke
Class of 1952

Patricia Clarke was just six years old when her father, Lionel Whaite, was killed during a mock battle training incident in Tamworth, New South Wales in 1942. Her widowed mother, Marcia, worked at David Jones for 35 years, a place which holds many memories for Patricia:

Patricia: She started at DJs [David Jones] and she worked there for 35 years. She started off selling bread in York Street, there was a little shop that DJs had in York Street, they closed that down, then she went to, in York Street. Then she came to George Street DJs and she was selling bread and that there and then she became a cashier on the grocery counter and if the nuns came in she used to go around to all the men and say, “the nuns are here, we’ve gotta give them food” and they’d all donate the food and the nuns would go back home again. And then she went into the dissection office and they used to check all the accounts because there was no, no machinery or anything in those days no…

Nicole Cama: It was all sort of handwritten…

Patricia: Yeah hand done. And she was there for 35 years. And I treated DJs like all those people in DJs were my aunties and uncles.

Life at St Vincent’s

Patricia attended St Patrick’s Catholic School, Bondi before moving to St Vincent’s College, Potts Point in 1949. She was immediately struck by the kindness of the Sisters of Charity:

When I came to Potts Point I thought, “I’m in heaven, they’re so ladylike, and so beautiful”. And in those days, they taught us it didn’t matter if you were rich or poor, everybody was equal and the old gardener you’d come in and say “hello mister so-and-so how are you?” and they did teach us that. And they used to go to the gaol, on the tram to Long Bay [Gaol] to see the prisoners, come and teach us and then at lunchtime if there was any food over from the boarding quarters the homeless queued up and they fed the homeless. So they…and they were gentlewomen, they were gentlewomen.

Her class was one of the ‘naughtiest’ in the school, talking when they weren’t supposed to, sneaking a radio into class and so on. The students believed the nuns were ‘witches’ with ‘special powers’ because they always knew what they were up to and seemed to have eyes at the back of their heads. She recalls Sister Helen would ‘stamp her foot’ and say to the students, ‘I’ll get my temper up with you!’ And Sister Laurence Young, the College’s principal in 1950, once reprimanded the students:

Patricia: And we had Sister Mary Laurence who was the head nun at the time. And it was assembly every Wednesday and we’d sit up, we wouldn’t move you know, we sat up very high and correct. And she’d say, “an ex-student rang today and someone didn’t stand up for a person on the train or the bus”, or we didn’t, we had to stand back to let the older people on the transport…and she said, “and someone didn’t wear their hat and gloves!”

Nicole: Capital offence!

Patricia: Capital offence.

It turns out, as Patricia found out much later, there was no ex-student who rang the school. Despite the discipline, she fondly recalls the other nuns and her teachers:

We had Sister Baptist [Whyte], the art teacher, she was wonderful. She was here for years and years and years and years. And I was hopeless at art so she made me learn tapestry (laughs). And there was Sister Helen and Sister Winifred, she was the Maths teacher and she could draw a circle on the board not looking at it. She was watching us, and she’d draw a circle on the board. And Sister Laurence taught us French, she had lived in France so she spoke French perfectly. And then Sister Laurence left and we got Isobel [Waldron] the head nun, you know. But when the nuns came into a room we had to stand up.

Patricia enjoyed life at St Vincent’s. Each morning students would sing hymns before class, say a prayer before morning tea and at lunchtime and have benediction on Fridays. They used to say the rosary at the grotto, frequent the tuckshop and watched other students play tennis. Sports days were held at Rushcutters Bay and school picnics at Nielsen Park. The nuns watched the students ‘like hawks’ during the school dances with Waverley College and St Joseph’s College, Hunters Hill.

Bodgies, widgies and milk bars

The students made their debut at the former Mark Foy’s department store, now the site of the District Court of NSW. The well-known ballroom dancing teacher, Phyllis Bates, prepared them for their ‘lovely’ evening. Patricia left in 1952, not continuing on to do the Leaving Certificate. Reflecting on her three years at the College, she says:

Oh I just loved it, I just loved St Vincent’s. I just loved, and the nuns, I thought the nuns were gorgeous and our two lay teachers, Miss Huxley and Miss Gallagher, they were beautiful, they were just beautiful, they just treated us like ladies.

On leaving school, Patricia used to visit her grandfather’s barber shop on William Street, Darlinghurst. It was there that she met Ben, a young man who was apprenticing at the shop and identified as a ‘bodgie’ – a male member of a rebellious movement which thrived among Sydney’s youths after the Second World War and revolved around African American culture. The female members of the movement identified as ‘widgies’:

Patricia: We weren’t allowed to, oh we weren’t allowed to have a tight skirt…And they had tight skirts and tight-fitting tops and a little bag, they had a little bag you know…Oh no I wasn’t allowed to be a widgie (laughs).

Nicole: They were just different weren’t they?

Patricia: They were different.

Nicole: They danced interestingly too didn’t they?

Patricia: Yes, yes they did.

Nicole: And they went to those milk bars…

Patricia: Oh milk bars and that, but we all went to the milk bars that was the meeting place for everybody. And we used to have…the church used to have, oh I’ve forgotten the night we called it now, every Friday night you went to a dance at the church and then you went to the milk bar.

One night, Patricia recalls Ben was escorting her back to her family home in Bondi when he suddenly said, ‘I’m going to marry you!’, to which she replied, ‘No you’re not!’ The couple married in 1958 and were together until Ben passed away in June 2018. Over much of their 60 years together they ran salons in Sydney including one near the Opera House, at which they had many interesting clients including the Italian operatic tenor, Luciano Pavarotti. Their clients also included the Sisters of Charity.

Patricia and Ben stayed involved with the College, helping start the Parents and Friends Committee and hosting a fundraiser for the school. They also sent their daughters to St Vincent’s. Reflecting on the values she learnt during her time at the College, Patricia says the Sisters of Charity were instrumental in teaching her the following moral code: ‘Treat everybody equal, and if they’re poor you help them’.