THE Rev Mother Birin, daughter of a Wiltshire farmer, was back at her old home near Malmesbury in 1968 for the first time since she left more than 40 years before.

Her return was the result of a decision of the Vatican Council which brought about a lifting of some of the restrictions imposed on members of religious Orders.

For it was after reading a book about the life of Father Damian that Miss Nancy Collingborn decided to become a nun. 

After teaching for two years at St Joseph’s RC School in Malmesbury, she joined the Order of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary where she took the name of Birin, an Irish Saint.

Now the Rev Mother Birin was back at her old home, Snell’s Farm, Grittenham with her brothers and sisters.

For 16 years, Mother Birin had been living in Australia where, at Mount Alvernia in Mittagong, she was in charge of a very successful Friesian stud farm and was more recently in charge of running a secondary school and a home for elderly women.

Now staying with a sister not far from Snell’s Farm, which was still being farmed by her youngest brother, Mrs Birin said, “It is wonderful to see the old place again. Everything seems to have changed so little.”