Sarah Helliwell née Harland

(OG 1967–1972) learning their cultures and ultimately knowing myself better. We also attended many school trips and took part in activities, so I didn't feel stuffy in the boarding house. In addition, the range of facilities allowed me to explore and utilise a variety of art techniques, so I ended up missing these facilities during my time at university.

Three years before Prior’s Field, I had lived in RAF Changi, Singapore. My father was a career RAF officer and we moved every two to three years during my childhood. Singapore was a life-changing experience for me. I attended Changi Junior School, and then RAF Changi Grammar School.

At the junior school, our language other than English was Malaysian. We usually went to the street market once a week, and occasional trips to the city. Our house was on the point at Changi, surrounded by mangroves and forest. It was exotic, but so safe; I remember going for a midnight walk around the station one night with my brother on our own.

Following in my Old Girl mother’s footsteps (Doreen Harland née Romanis (OG 1935–1939)), I started Prior’s Field in the second term of Third Form in January 1967. I was ahead in Maths and Science and these were my favourite subjects. We cycled to Charterhouse every day to study Biology, Chemistry and Physics for our A-Levels. It was certainly accompanied by an amount of freedom; we didn’t wear uniform and we rode our bicycles between the schools every day. There were three of us in that cohort – me, Alex Kerr and Catriona Lumsden.

I took a Foundation Diploma in Art & Design course at Camberwell – University of the Arts London and went to study BA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. After I graduated from university I came back to South Korea. I had a solo exhibition in my home city, Suncheon, earlier this year and I have also been entering art competitions throughout Asia and preparing for my next solo show. Having spent many of my formative years at PF, it has helped shape the person I am today.

After Prior’s Field, I went to London and trained as a nurse at St Thomas’ Hospital then went to Southampton University and studied Physiology and Biochemistry.

With my degree I returned to nursing with a special interest in nurse education. I married David and soon after our wedding we emigrated to Australia. We lived in a couple of different places in New South Wales before coming to Nimbin and setting up a General Practice here in 1982. We had three children, and I retrained as a High School Science teacher in 1996. I have been working in that field ever since and I am retiring in a couple of months. I have loved teaching.

Retirement means moving to Queensland and living closer to our eldest daughter and her delightful son. I can’t wait for travel between states to become a reality and being able to visit family more often.

Layla Hariry (OG 1986–1988)

I was born in Saudi Arabia to a Meccan father and an American mother and raised between Jeddah and California. For most of my childhood I studied exclusively in Arabic, attending Dar Al Hanan School in Jeddah, the first girls’ school opened in the modern kingdom by Queen Iffat, the wife of King Faisal. I still vividly remember my first arranged marriage proposal, at the age of fourteen. While it was turned down, several of my closest friends accepted similar offers. Instead, I was sent to complete my secondary education at Prior’s Field. My only education in English before Prior's Field was to read fiction for my own pleasure. I started with the Narnia series and Enid Blyton, then eventually took to older classics by Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë. Though I pushed back my own traditional ArabMuslim marriage until age twenty, I received my Bachelor of Arts from the University of Maryland, married and pregnant. It was while I was on bed rest reading a work by Amy Tan, that my lifelong affinity for escape into the novelist universe of fiction, sparked into inspired novel writing. Soon after the birth of my third child, I relocated to the Boston area and began creative writing night classes and novel writing workshops at Harvard University.

Tale of a Modern Concubine: Nights of Arabian Terror by Layla Hariry is now available from Amazon.

Izzy Ledbury

(OG 2009–2016)

After Prior’s Field Sixth Form, I went on to study Spanish and Italian at the University of Bath. We had to spend a year living abroad, which was a fantastic experience.

I spent half of the year in a small city called Parma in Italy (where Parma ham comes from) studying History of Art and translation, and then enjoyed the rest of my year in Madrid at Universidad Carlos III where I was studying Political Science and Sociology.

Everything was taught in the respective languages and although it was tricky to begin with, I was so grateful when I reached my final year at university because we were then expected to be fluent in both languages.

I loved the degree and the entire experience and I hope other girls at PF consider studying languages with a year abroad for their course at university.

I now work in information services for investment clients, using both languages on a daily basis alongside a bit of French and Dutch which I have learnt on the way.

I have noticed that since Brexit it’s been extremely valuable to have a language degree, as so many companies want EU language speakers but struggle to hire them from abroad due to visa requirements.

Sonia Andreeva (OG 2011–2014)

The start of the pandemic allowed me to re-evaluate the direction of my life, so as education moved online for the following year, I decided to take a risk and do something different.

In April 2020, while in lockdown, I took an online Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course and contacted a few agencies that I found online. I chose a big city on the map at random and after some deliberation and family discussions, I picked a school, completed all the paperwork and flew to South Korea.

Because of the pandemic, I had to fill in piles of paperwork and I was constantly escorted and monitored by volunteers until I reached my new home in Daegu. Adjusting to a new culture, work environment and country wasn’t easy at first.

The academy that I worked for provided only extra curricular lessons; kids would come after school to better their English. My job was to make it as fun as possible. I would often think back to my PF lessons and the techniques our teachers would use to make them more fun.

I made a few friends in the beginning, but it was difficult to find time or even a place to socialise, which led to the cold winter days being pretty mundane. The months got warmer, my circle of friends grew and with it, my adventures. I went surfing, hiked up mountains and visited temples. I went on a three-day trip to the historical city of Gyeongju and spent an exciting week exploring Seoul.

The year flew by and my last week was filled with sad goodbyes. At the beginning of the pandemic, I felt like all the doors were shut and that there were no opportunities left for a young graduate like me, but if it wasn’t for the pandemic I wouldn’t have taken the risk to go abroad.