Catherine Coldstream seems, on the face of it, an unlikely person to have become a nun. She grew up in a bohemian household in north London, daughter of the distinguished painter William Coldstream, who was, for 26 years, head of the Slade School of Fine Art. And when we meet on a February afternoon in Oxford, in the university rooms of a friend of hers, it is easy to picture her in a younger version, because she still, in a sense, resembles an arty north Londoner.
In her early 60s now, she has a keen, bright, boyish face, glasses with fashionable blue frames and neat beige boots with little heels. Her blouse is quirkily patterned with capering bears and antique gramophones. She comes across as a free spirit, which makes it all the more unfathomable that in 1989, aged 27, she should have joined Akenside Priory (not its real name) in Northumberland and remained there for more than a decade. In addition, she is so animated that it seems inexplicably punitive that she should have chosen to join a silent Carmelite order where conversation was permitted only once a day, confidences frowned upon and enthusiasm discouraged. I admire her blouse. “Do you like it?” she exclaims, delighted. What is missing in her is any obstructive piety. I feel she is someone I could have been friends with for years – I am no longer sure who it was I expected to meet.
