Mary Renwick (1938 to 2022)

(Oswestry School 1957 – 2000)

Mary joined Bellan House after leaving Sixth Form at Oswestry Girls High School in 1957, where she was a classroom assistant for two years before heading to college for teacher training. Mary went to Charlotte Mason College in Ambleside in the Lake District for three years making many friends, and she loved the Lakes for the rest of her life spending many holidays there with her family. After Mary qualified, she returned to Shropshire to complete a one-year probationary teaching role at a state school in Newport before returning to Bellan House in 1963 to teach what was called ‘Boys 1’ aged 7-8.

In 1970 Mary married Philip Renwick, a Yorkshireman who had moved to Shropshire as an adult education officer. In time they had two boys, Andrew and Christopher, and settled in Oswestry ‘for the duration’, a very happy family life and working life.

Philip sadly passed away in September 1996, but Mary remained at Bellan teaching until her retirement in 2000. After a short break, she was asked to return to help at the girls boarding house which continued her connection with the School for another three years until she finally retired permanently; packing up her briefcase and essential kit for a primary school teacher of pens, egg boxes, toilet roll tubes, cereal packets, Sellotape and lots of paint.

It is rare these days to find individuals that ‘fit so well’ into their circumstances and are so happy in their work and their place in life that they start and end their careers with such continuity. Mary loved her work and the recognition she had from past pupils, many of whom brought their own children to Bellan for her to teach (over a 33 year career this was inevitable). Mary knew she had had a worthwhile and fulfilling career, and even during her retirement the sense of belonging and of place was still very strong.