Sr Margaret of Merseybank

Dear Sr Joan,

We the undersigned are strongly urging you to please reconsider uprooting 82-year-old Sr Margaret Morgan from her happy, productive & settled life in Chorlton, Manchester.

Although Sr Margaret has, with the very greatest reluctance, acceeeded to your ultimatum that she leaves her much-loved home, her work, her community of friends & neighbours after 23 years of living and working locally, & the past 9 years happily settled in her current council home, we are all of the unanimous opinion that to force this elderly nun to move when she so fervently wants to stay here, where she is happy and secure, will have a seriously detrimental impact on her well-being, particularly in the light of her age & disabilities.

As a registered blind & deaf person, Sr Margaret has adjusted to her home & the local community around her, & will, if forced to move, find it enormously difficult to adjust to a half-life in Rochdale. It is distressing that such a hardworking & unstinting nun feels under such pressure at this time of her life that she feels forced into this terrible acute disruption.

In contrast, through her long-term social work in this locality and popular management of the Treasure Chest Charity Shop on the Merseybank Estate where she lives, Sr Margaret has made a major positive impact on the lives of many vulnerable, disadvantaged & sometimes socially deprived friends & neighbours.

She is held here in the highest esteem & has a long-established close & loving circle of friends & associates amongst whom she flourishes. All of these are important reasons why Sr Margaret wants to stay here & continue to be at the heart of this close-knit community, whose welfare she has always cared so deeply about.

If you sadly continue to insist that she is forcibly uprooted & removed to Rochdale, Sr Margaret will find the upheaval near impossible to bear. Her advanced age & her difficulties in recognising people & places she cannot properly identify will render her unnecessarily vulnerable and redundant in any new place.

Here in Merseybank Sr Margaret is well-known & loved, & assisted where need be, thus ensuring her independence. This will soon dissipate and cause her unwarranted frustration if she is uprooted and forced to move to a convent in Rochdale

This threat hanging over her is causing Sr Margaret to be deeply despondent and unhappy. She has said she has no choice, no choice at all. You must understand that this situation is tearing her apart. She feels anguished that her value and worth to her Congregation have been so greatly reduced in this, her time of need.

In the light of all this, we are asking if you could please excercise Christian kindness and compassion and let Sr Margaret remain here in her home, so she can continue to live out a happy & productive old age free from the worry of such a massive counter-productive upheaval which we fear would dimish her so greatly in her old age.

Sr Margaret is, as you know, very happy & contented here so we are asking, please, if you will grant her the empathetic support you have extended to her in the past, so that she can cvontinue to live her life in this community as a much-loved & valued Ambassador for your Congregation.