Sr Mary Totton taught me history at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Woldingham (now Woldingham School), writes Caroline Wyatt.

To us, it was always known as Wolditz, set in Surrey’s rolling hills, with a two-mile-long drive that in our younger years kept us safely cloistered from the world outside. When I was there in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the majority of our teachers were nuns, though few by then wore a habit.

We had many inspirational teachers, especially in arts subjects, and the nuns fascinated us. They were more interesting than the dependable but often rather duller lay teachers, who tended to teach sciences.