Profile: Dorothy Bell
I was born in Lincolns Inn, London the home of lawyers. My father was a barrister who had been wounded during the First World War. My mother's first husband had died of wounds in 1917 leaving her with a three year-old son. He was 10 years older than me as I was born in 1924. At that time neither of my parents was a Catholic.
My father became a Catholic in 1935. As it had already been decided that, as an only child, living in Central London, I would go to a boarding school, my father was anxious that I should go to a Convent school. Having got various prospectuses my parents visited Roehampton first (the nearest). My mother who was still not a Catholic and still against the idea of a convent school said At least they let them have teddy bears on their beds, so she may as well go there! I am in the Society because of those teddies!
And so I went to Roehampton School run by the Society of the Sacred Heart.
I entered in August 1947 at Hove, moving with the rest of the novices to Woldingham the next year. Though I did think about entering the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary when I was in India during the war with my parents, I always knew that the Society was where I should be. So many of those who taught me at Roehampton, were my role models.
As a young nun I read for a Geography degree at Oxford, and then taught at our boarding school at Woldingham for some years before being appointed as Principal of Digby Stuart College, Roehampton, after teaching Geography there for a year. I retired from Digby in 1989 after 22 years. Those were the years covering changes from a teacher education institution, the advent of B.Ed. degrees, and the association with three other colleges leading first to the Roehampton Federation and then to the Roehampton Institute. I then became the Southwark Diocesan Co-ordinator for HIV/AIDS. I was also asked by Cardinal Hume to be on the newly established Westminster Diocesan Education Board as well as to lead the setting up on the St. Charles Catholic Sixth form College. This led to involvement in the Council of all the 105 Sixth form Colleges and for the last 6 years to 2004 I was Chair of the Council a task I loved. I have also been the governor of many schools.
I have loved all of my ministries. I have been so blessed as these have given, and continue to give me, a deep sense of mission. I have always been happy to serve the People of God in and through the Church and in various ecumenical opportunities.