Christopher Plummer and the Nuns

The death of the actor most famous for playing Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music reminded me of a couple of things. There was considerable excitement in our house when the film was released. My dad took the whole family to see it at the Odeon in Edinburgh. I was about nine years old at the time, and it seemed to me that for a Roman Catholic family, going to see The Sound of Music was as much a religious obligation as going to mass on Sunday.

As I say, I was only nine years old at the time. That’s my excuse for the following episode. At some point I felt my nose irritating me. I stuck the corner of a handkerchief up one nostril to induce a sneeze. Unfortunately it induced a sneezing fit lasting all through the scene where Rolf and Liesl are alone together singing I am Sixteen Going on Seventeen. This caused much merriment among my family, but I am not sure what the rest of the Odeon audience thought about it. It did the trick, however, relieving the irritation in my nose.

My dad remarked, ‘The hills are alive with the sound of mucus.’

We had a good laugh at the nuns’ big singing numbers. As an infant in Malta, I had attended a kindergarten run by nuns. I sometimes refer to them as the Sisters of No Mercy, but that is unfair. They weren’t cruel, there was just a communication issue between them and myself. Anyway, it left me without a particular fondness for nuns. And as far as I can remember, they didn’t do a lot of singing.

At some point thereafter, I became aware that I had a relative who was a nun. My dad’s cousin Kitty was a Bride of Christ, and had risen impressively in the service. She was mother superior and headmistress of a sought-after convent school in Edinburgh. Her nom de guerre was Mother John of The Cross. One Sunday afternoon, we went there for lunch and had a good time. Cousin Kitty seemed a very nice lady, not at all like my recollection of the nuns in Malta (and I have to admit that my memories of early childhood may be distorted).

As far as I was concerned, the visit to Cousin Kitty was just a day out for us all, but I have since been told that my dad, ever the social climber, had designs on getting my older sister Kath admitted to the school, on advantageous financial terms. However, at some point, apparently Cousin Kitty spoke to the old man privately and said something like, ‘We do our best, but most of the girls here are unhappy. Don’t send your daughter here, Tony.’

And he didn’t. Good for Cousin Kitty.