AN INTERNATIONAL lawyer and his wife turned detective to track down a beloved former teacher from the old St Joseph’s School.

David R Bradshaw and wife Philomena’s search for the kindly nun, Sister Ethelfridis, took them first to Swindon’s German twin town of Salzgitter and later to the industrial Ruhr region.

Along the way they discovered that Sister Ethelfridis had left holy orders, later married and become Rita Lewe, the adored stepmother of a large family.

David and his future wife first met when they joined Sister Ethelfridis’ first year class at St Joseph’s, and never forgot her kindness.

“She made you feel at home,” said Philomena.

David believes the nun may have been new to teaching at the school. “She was diffident, and as a result of being diffident she was kinder to us than some of the more dyed-in-the-wool characters.

“It was our first teacher on our first day at our first senior school.

“Not only were we meeting her for the first time, we were meeting each other for the first time because we came from different schools.”

David is the author of two works of autobiography, Growing Up Barefoot and Swimming Without Mangoes, and more volumes are in the pipeline.

When he arrived in Swindon from Montserrat with his brother on New Year’s Eve night in 1961, he was nearing his ninth birthday.

When he left 10 years later, he embarked on a career that saw him become a banker, a lawyer, a lecturer and finally an author.

Old school friends and teachers were invited to the launch of Swimming Without Mangoes last year.

David said: “There were a few missing teachers and one of them was Sister Ethelfridis.

“The last time we had seen her was in 1974 on my wife’s first trip with me to Salzgitter.”

David himself had already been in 1971, 1972 and 1973. Sister Ethelfridis was among the people who helped to forge Swindon’s early links with its twin town.

Wanting to find out what had happened to Sister Ethelfridis, the couple enlisted the help of contacts in Germany, plus a reporter called Irmgard Behnke, who works for the local Salzgit-ter Zeitung newspaper.

They also asked Wroughton friend Kevin Bizley for help, as Wroughton had been the location of Sister Ethelfridis’ convent, since demolished.

Kevin was referred to a Sister Carmen in Dublin who put him in touch with the order’s headquarters in Holland. There a sister Agnes was able to supply Sister Ethelfridis’ maiden name – Rita Breitenbach – along with her dates of birth and of leaving the order.

Feeding this information back to Irmgard, the Bradshaws were eventually able to make contact with their old teacher after 40 years.

She had left the convent in 1972, gone to Salzgitter and become an English teacher.

In 1977 she married a widowed head teacher whose sister, herself a nun, introduced them. Rita became stepmother to two boys and three girls aged from eight to 15 and moved to the Ruhr region.

The similarities to The Sound of Music are not lost on the Bradshaws.

“She became something like Julie Andrews in the film,” said Philomena.

“The youngest son, Wolfram, said it was the best thing that could have happened to them.

“He said she was an angel sent from Heaven.”

Now 88 and widowed, Rita suffers from dementia, but memories of long ago are still with her, and her recall of her St Joseph’s days is very good.

Philomena said: “It was like stepping back in time. I recognised her immediately.”

David said: “The relationship was warm from the start. I thought we would be able to stay for maybe an hour but we stayed for four.”

Swimming Without Mangoes, ISBN 978-1-906978-29-7, is published by Hobnob Press and has a recommended price of £12.95.

It is available from Pen And Paper in Victoria Road and can also be ordered from other bookshops and Amazon.