Four Decades of the Rosary in a Three-Door Car

A decade of the rosary is ten Hail Marys. That is forty Hail Marys between the school doors and the car park, and I have never prepared anything that thoroughly for anyone.

Her morning, which I have printed out and annotated, goes like this.

Before nine: the entire squad bundles into her eldest’s three-door car, because her own car, Windsor, “is recovering from an encounter with a bollard in Bolton”. The journey is quiet.

Nine o’clock: the doors open. Off he goes.

Shortly after: her daughters suggest music, or a game. Declined.

Then: some experimental “positive chanting”. Abandoned.

Then: the rosary. Four decades.

Then: a boy ambling across the car park, a shy thumbs-up, a super set of grades and breakfast at Maccies.

There is no step in which the mother goes inside. I have checked twice.

Inside, meanwhile, a teacher had asked him to stay behind at the end for a photograph, which he took as a good sign. Nobody passed this on to the car. Some schools put the arrangement in writing. The King’s School in Pontefract wrote to Year 11 families in July 2024 that family members were welcome, and asked “that family members wait outside whilst students collect their results”. A parent collecting on the child’s behalf needed the child’s own email or signed letter, and photo ID. To see your child’s results, you need his permission and your driving licence.

The pupils plan too. One on r/GCSE in August 2026 wanted to open results with a friend, but not leave Mum on her own, but not bring her into conversations with teachers either. That is a seating plan. I have been seated.

So I am ready. I am not Catholic, so I have prepared the nearest thing I have, which is the seven times table, backwards from eighty-four. Our daughter has a playlist. The youngest has a game. I have practised telling a shy thumbs-up from a shrug, using my husband.

On Thursday the doors opened at nine. At 9.24 he came ambling across the car park, gave a shy thumbs-up, and got into the car behind ours, where his friend’s mother had bacon rolls.

I was on twenty-eight.