What on Earth Would Miss Skinner Think?

Guardian: "I am standing in the hall of Coloma Convent girls' school. There are pupils writhing on the floor in front of me, twisting their bodies into letter shapes to spell out countries' names. This is a year seven drama lesson. The girls wriggle, their legs clad in the woolly white tights that the Daughters of Mary and Joseph - the order of nuns who founded this south London school in 1869 - decided would keep pupils safe on dark nights. You can see a Coloma girl's legs in a blackout. Suddenly, I remember a far-off drama lesson, more than 30 years ago, that saw me lying in a hall like this one, for a graveyard scene in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird."