Circular No 693

Newsletter for alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.

Caracas, 14 February 2015 No. 693

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Dear Friends,

This has been a slow month.  Maybe we should call it quits??

The Circular is lacking news, or you are forgetting to forward your comments made on the WEB page, or the Blog.

I have placed as a goal, Circular No. 700.  Which is not too far away.

From then on maybe we can just publish the obituary pages, and a sad passing away.

When you leave us, only your accomplishments will speak for you and only if they are chronicled somewhere.  Please use the CIRCULAR.

The only place where all Mount Boys have a place, and where historians will search.

Just to make sure, try and place your name in Google search and if you have written to the Circular, you will appear.

This is the way that many of us have found classmates and lost friends.

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Michael Azar

Owner, Cool Ice Blendz LLC

Portland, Oregón, USA

Cool Ice Blendz LLC

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Kazim Abasali

Feb 10

Hi Guys,

I have added Hugh's message to our MSB Batabase to show that 'Neil' is alive.

Thank you Hugh and Nigel for following up on this.

Blessings to all.....

Kazim

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On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 11:20 PM,

Nigel Boos <nigelboos@yahoo.ca> wrote:

That’s great, Hugh.

I’m happy to hear that he’s still in the land of the living.

By any chance, did you ask him whether he had an email address which we could use to contact him, or even a telephone number?

Or, did he let you know his mailing address?

Thanks anyway, for keeping in touch.

Regards to all the family.

Nigel

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On Feb 9, 2015, at 9:18 AM

Hugh Henderson <hnjhenderson@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, Nigel.

All the best to you and yours, especially your dear mother. 

I don't know where the Neil Woon Sam saga has reached but I know for sure that I had a surprise phone call from Neil just before Christmas as did Joe Azar, so unless Neil died in the past two months,

I think I can firmly confirm that he is still breathing.

At this stage maybe no-one could care less, but I thought you might like to know. 

It was the only call I have ever had from Neil and I told him he was supposed to be dead so he had a good laugh. 

To make assurance doubly sure I asked him if his birthday was on November 02 and he nearly fainted on the phone that I had remembered!   

So the Old Boys have a choice - they can believe that Neil is alive or dead - up to them.

All the best and God bless. 

A special hello to John.   

Hugh Henderson.

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Glen Mckoy

Feb 9

Muchas Gracias for this email Sir George,

I am sending this message out to: Sir Laz, Sir Nigel, Sir Don, Sir Jon & Sir Kazim,

Sir Trevor E., Sir Bandit & Sir Phil..Cheers To These Brothers Now In Their 80's.

Sir Cornel: Thank you also for your phone call this morning. 

Sir Trevor called me this morning.

We had a wonderful conversation about our homelands and the great life we had on the Mount.

He came from Guyana when Sir Tony was a boy ha! ha! 

He said, he is around 82 yrs old now, and we don't know when the guy up stairs will call upon on any of us, so he was questioning, what do we do with all our artifacts or left over’s from an era past, which we shared collectively.

I can only say the artifact that Sir Bandit has secured, is the oldest artifact, of my knowledge in the Club, and where that is going is a secret, it’s a religious artifact, that was found in an old wall on the mount, in the 1940's,

The words that are embedded on this artifact, are sacred and we believe its represents our Order Of Knights.

We believe this artifact legitimize our Brotherhood.  

To some we may come across as just a social club. 

To the rest we are a living group of brothers sharing a great journey, we started so young, and still going strong. Our Realm.

What do we do with our intrinsic stuff, medals, badges, trophies, class photos, letters, stories, tales, circulars, memoirs, & artifacts.   

Do we share our history with our descendants, something we feel proud about, what do groups like us to do, what are other alumni doing ?  

I need suggestions and we need our younger members to execute this impossible mission in the future.   

All we can do now is secure, storage of these things in the US & Canada until we get an official notification.   

Just keeping all informed about what's on our agenda, regarding The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad. 

Yours Faithfully –

Glen McKoy.   

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Here is the second episode of my adventure at the Abbey School.

Again, I am enclosing a letter for Fr. Cuthbert, this time one that was sent a year later.

From the letter we can see the end of the motorbike that Fr. Ildefonse used.

Reference to Michael Azar, who by the way lives in Portland Oregon..

Fr. Lee Sing, whom I remember for his peanut eating, every night while he was watching us trying to sleep in the small boys dormitory?

Fr. Bernard being the Abbot after Fr. Adelbert van Duin who went on loan to the Port of Spain.

I met Fr. Bernard while in wheel chair, luckily he was speaking by then or would have told me a couple of truths, jajaja

Fr. Gerome, my English teacher in Form I.

Fr. Benedict, who is very well for his age.

Bro. Bruno, and the dogs?? How many took German Shepherds back to Venezuela??

PART II

Now back to my story: In those days the refectory was an old wooden building near the main church. This two-storey building had the kitchen on the first floor and we eat in the second. There was a centre corridor with tables on each side. The prefect sat at the wall end of the table and four kids sat on either side of the table. There was an elevator that brought up additional food from the kitchen when there was need, although the tables were set before we arrived at the main door.

The prefect’s pets sat to his left and right and the youngest or less liked kids sat next to the corridor, the furthest position from the prefect, they were the last to get food if any was left!. This is where I sat during a couple months. First, because I was new and second because I did not know English, the third there was an empty place at the table. My arrival was not welcomed as the food had to be rationed from 8 portions to 9. All the kids at the table tried to teach me the name of the edibles but without luck. So next the prefect tried the rough way, he told Wayne Vincent Brown to get English out of me or there was no food.

I got bounced about but English was not easy.

Finally I got upset and decided call WVB “Topo” which is not offensive in Spanish but for those that only knew English found it puzzling and annoying.

It worked because when WVB got rough, I called out.

The end of this episode I cannot remember but I did not die of hunger and was not hurt except for my pride!!.

They got tired I presume or I began to assimilate English.

But this is not the interesting part, what was really intriguing was the quantity and quality of food that left the elevator to go in an open cart to the Priest´s refectory that was next to ours, while we eat in silence and had time to see and smell the food in the cart.

I could not figure it out why this food was being carted while we eat, and in front of our eyes and noses.

I presume that the kitchen had to serve us first and then the Priests.

This always caused lots of comments and the effort to steal some of the edibles.

The procedure to enter the refectory was to wait until the priest in charge arrived and at 7:00 am., 12.00 midday and 6:00 pm?? (some of you must correct the times if I am not correct) the door were opened and we had to walk slowly down the corridor to our table

We had to wait until we said prayer and sat down.

The Prefect had first choice of each plate of food that was passed down, he had to make sure that everybody got part of the dish that was passed.

There was no authorization to talk, one, because the fight for food would have been loud and second because some kids would only talk and not eat, third, we were next to the priest refectory and there was a lecture being read while the priest eat.

Ladislao

The third part shall come soon.

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From: salborbolla@hotmail.com

To: lagraveg@aol.com

Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:53:01 -0600

Hola Gustavo.

Un gran placer de tener la oportunidad de visitar anoche con tu llamada ,muchas gracias por acordarte de mi . Como te dije anoche .yo estube buscandote y por fin nos encontramos despues de 40 años ,que te parece ,!que milagros !. Bueno espero que ahora en adelante nos mantengamos en contacto. Mi nuevo cellular es : 337-412-8751. Y mi officina  es 337-837-4230.y mi computadora es : 337-214-4163. Bueno gustavo ya le mando a nuestro amigo ladislao kertez tu informacion para que te empieze a enviar los circulares que manda semanalmente . Y que te ponga en su listado . Escribele un sumario de cuando tu estuvistes en el abey school hasta el presente. Bueno un abraso .salvador coscarart.te anexo foto de mi familia.

Hello Gustavo.

A great pleasure to have the opportunity to visit with your call last night, thank you for remembering me.

As I said last night xo I was looking for you and finally we are after 40 years, how you like it?

That a miracle!  Good hope now on we keep in touch.

Gustavo, I shall send your information to our friend, Ladislao Kértez

Write him a summary of when you were at the Abbey School.

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Photos:

Bandit p12g The Early Times

13LK6362FB,  Douglas Houk

13LK6202FB, John Davenport

13LK6659LMA, Llewellyn Macintosh