Circular No 703

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

Caracas, 25 of April 2015 No. 703

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Dear Friends,

By now you have realized that we passed the 700 mark. No piece of cake!!!

You are still receiving the Circular, and the photos.

Do not forget me.  I expect a little help from you

Ladislao

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Glen Mckoy

24 Ap

My Dear Sir Phil,

I got this from Sir Bandit.

I wrote to him and asked him, if he will tell you?

Still waiting for a reply, but in the meanwhile, I am sending you this, because I promised you, I will give you an answer.

This is it.  I hope this will bring closure for you, on this matter.

I know you both were only little boys, really so young, but so much heart & soul, and yet very aware of personal feelings.

I went to Mount when I was all most 12 yrs. old, any younger than that would be crazy, too young.

I love you guys, for living through all that, and still turning out to be really good people.

Thank you for your trust in me,

I have the greatest respect for you, my brother & friend.

I will cc. Sir Ladislao & Sir Nigel also, as we three work with many brothers on personal matters, also its good to know, mission accomplished,

God Bless Our Brotherhood.

Yours Faithfully

Glen McKoy.    

My cell -902-237-7139. Have a good day.

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From: calypsobandit@live.com

Subject: RE: ATTEMPTING TO STRAIGHTEN OUT MY RECOLLECTION

Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:38:54 -0400

Hi glen,

The more I hear the more I think I am somewhere in that picture with Phil,

It could be very well that I am the boy that attacked Phil for no reason

I remember myself as a little small wired up terrier always ready to cuff or kick or pelt a stone in your ass or hit you over the head with a book.

I remember they stop me once from beating a boy name Peacock because he was always sniffling with a handkerchief to his nose.

Then, once little fat Azar said something to me and I kicked him down a hill - then I stole Azar’s birthday cake that his mother had brought for him so that me and my boys could eat it and he cried like a baby so we gave him a piece of his own cake.

I was always fighting a boy called Maingot.

Fought a guy name Collin Phillips in a football match on the field and kicked a few others for spite instead of the ball.

I was not very good, and I guess that was my way of making up for it, and ready to take on anybody, and I was frigging very small and tiny,

Maybe that was my way of saying, don't fuck with me.

Regardless, good - bad or indifferent - I loved my days at Mount - shit started early in my life, and you know something, glen?

I think they still have more to come

"Bandit"

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From: mckoy43glen@hotmail.com

Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 20:50:32 +0000

My Dear Sir Phil,

Thank you for your letter, I am still absorbing same.

I cannot say for sure the name of who told me this, I mentioned but lost exactly who said it.

Please forgive me I hear so many stories from so many brothers, from so many different years, that some of the stories begins to sound the same ha! ha!

Sir Bandit or Sir Trevor were there, I am not from that circle, however I will try my best to give you an answer, to your question.

Now, you guys are from the begining of our existence, I was not even born yet, however I will take on this impossible mission.

Take Care My Dear Brother, Sir Phil, so good to hear from you, all the best

Glen.

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Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 01:08:22 +0000

From: heatherset8@yahoo.com

Hi Glen,

As you are aware I don't as a rule have anything much to say on this site.  However, ever since it transpired that someone had recalled the event of my very first day at MSB seventy years ago now, when as it happened I was attacked by another boy, I have been intrigued as to who it was that had remembered the seemingly obscure event of my first day as a boarder at the Mount and having been attacked firstly by someone that I couldn't recall to mind, and then seemingly thereafter by the whole school as I remember only too well.

As I had told you previously, I was absolutely astonished to find that there was someone that could actually recall to mind what to anyone else must have been an absolutely obscure happening, and as a consequence, ever since learning that there had in fact been such a person, I have remained in a twist over it wondering who on earth it was that could have recalled to mind what must to anyone else have been an absolutely obscure event that happened such a very long time ago, and so one supposes as a consequence that it must have been meaningful to them for some reason or the other.  

As a consequence, I have remained curious to say the least, and with a nagging desire to know who it was that had in fact been able to recall such an event that took place all of those years ago, as I had assumed that I would have been the only person in the whole world that would have been able to recall the event of which I speak, inasmuch as I do not think that I myself would have recalled it had it not been such a meaningful event in my life due to my upbringing, and so I am still flabbergasted, intrigued, and very curious indeed to know just who on earth it was that had informed you of the event to which I refer.

So staggered am I to have learned of that individual’s recall that I would quite simply hate to drop dead still in ignorance of who it was that had told you about it.  It had to be someone that is at least as old as I am for them to have been there to observe it.  So interested am I to know who it was that I have been attempting to back-track one way or another to see just who had commenced their sojourn at the Mount at the same time as myself, only to have my recall shaken up a bit more when referring back to a most interesting communiqué that you had received from Desmond Smith back in 2010 telling of his first days at the Mount, being something that I thought to be extremely interesting indeed, and thinking that we are all lucky to have had someone like him to be able to go back to the very start of it all and to let us know what it was like at the time.

However, what he had to say, although certainly ringing true in every respect that I was able to determine, did nevertheless shake me up a bit as he states that the boarding school did not open for business until 1945, when it seemed to me that I had commenced at MSB when I was seven years of age, this having been a year younger than what was normally permitted at the time, with David De Castro commencing at the same time as myself, he having been born in the same year, i.e., 1936, but early in that year, whilst I only turned eight in November of 1944.  It would not perturb me except for the fact that I do recall that there had been a considerable issue with the Monk that visited my mother’s Hotel in St. Ann’s at the time when assessing me for the purpose of permitting me to enrol that year - remembering that it had been important to my mother that I be able to attend as a boarder from that year inasmuch as she had sold her Hotel that was at that time called the MONACO HOTEL, it having been sold as I recall to a French chef whose name as I recall was, Pierre De Guillen (phonetic spelling) who upon purchase of it subsequently changed the name to the NORMANDIE which it still is today, although now a much improved place indeed.  It had been important that I be able to enrol at MSB for that year even though I was seven years of age and thus under-aged, as she had already bought another hotel in Guyana (British Guyana then) that she called the MONTROSE, in Georgetown.

So my recall of being seven years of age when I first commenced as a boarder fits with the year 1944, as I would have turned eight in November of 1944, which seems to fit nicely with my recall, however he states that the new boarding school on the Hill only opened for business in 1945 - can anyone enlighten me? Oddly enough I can in my mind still smell the new cement of which the school was constructed even after all of these years - an amazing mechanism the brain!

As an aside, as it were, now that I am getting on a bit I am being made to take note of my age by the fact that so many of my friends and even notable personages whose names I have been familiar with all of my life are now dropping around me like flies, making me feel a little as if I walking through a mine field, and that at some point one of them is of course going to get me.  I do not myself feel old at all, but one is made aware of one’s increasing age by others’ reaction to you - these days people are especially polite to me, and open the doors for me, and pick up things that I have been silly enough to drop, and do not talk dirty in front of me, supposing that such things are beyond my comprehension, forgetting that when we were younger we all did the things that the youngsters think that they have just discovered themselves. The only thing that seems to have changed drastically is the extent off risk-taking that young people now get up to, and of course the wish to disfigure themselves with deplorable tattoos, and getting so phased out on alcohol and drugs that every outing that they take must be perilous to the extreme, with there seemingly being not even a smidgen of forethought as to consequence of their actions.

Best wishes,

Phillip Clegg

HERE IS A COPY AND PASTE OF DESMOND SMITH'S EMAIL OF 2010

from: desclaire smith <desclairesmith@yahoo.com>

Date: 9 August 2010 14:35

Hi Ladislao,

Greetings, thanks for the very prompt reply, as well as the updates on the recent activities of the Association.

None of these names are familiar to me - there is one exception there were two Pradas in my time, viz. Charles & Jeffrey.

I do not know if these are the same guys from my period.

What I would try to do will be to provide the really early days.

As stated, the pre-cursor to the Abbey School was Mt St Benedict School.

The original intent was apparently to have a day school.

The start of the school was coupled with the start of the Seminary of St John Vianney

Both started in Jan. 1943.

The day school began with approximately 15 Pupils,

The majority were drawn from the Tunapuna Area, the exceptions were Pat Sellier from St Joseph and myself from San Juan.

In the Seminary were about six,

The most notable were John Mendes - later Fr.Mendes, and Urban Peschier, later Father Urban.

Some of the others that I recall include Andrew Joseph.

Another named Daly.

I understand he dropped after a couple of years.

Father Mendes had a younger brother Arnold who spent a few years before leaving.

The reason I mention the Seminary at this time is because following the first term, after missing quite a few days of school, Fr Bernard (the Cobra as we referred to him) suggested to my Dad that I should become a broader and he could arrange for me to live with the seminarians.

So I lived with and followed all of the seminarian activities and their routine.

I spent two terms (1943) with the seminarians.

In 1944, the true boarding school started, some of these names that I can recall are Darwents - John and Michael, brothers, and their cousin Walter, from Palo Seco,

The Marcellin brothers, Andrew & Hamil, from San Fernando,

Ian Mc Lean.

The Knaggs Brothers, Jack &Arthur.

We also had first overseas students, both from St Lucia.

In 1943 we had only one class.  In 1944 we suddenly had three classes.

From one broader, myself, in 1944 we had about twenty boarders.

From one class in 1943, come 1944 we had three classrooms.

The expansion in 1944 was so rapid, that we not only had priests as teachers, we got our first lay teacher.

(Subject to correction I believe his name was Nello Lambert)

In 1945, there was much further expansion of the boarding school.

Initially, we occupied half of the upper floor, the following year we occupied the entire upper floor.

Down stairs, Bro. Michael had the bakery and at the far end was where they extracted the honey from the honey combs (just to give you some idea of the location).

It should also be clear all of this was within the Monastery

If you had female visitors, Mom, Sisters, you had to meet them outside of the Monastery enclosure.

In 1945 the student body exploded and the eventual Abbey school site was excavated and levelled.

Boy, did we have fun on that site during the construction.

I was fortunate to be present at the laying of the foundation stone.

This was presided over by Archbishop Finbar Ryan.  Also present were Fr Prior Dom Hugh Van Der Sanden, Fr. Bernard, and also signing the document on behalf of the students was John Darwent.

The scroll was rolled and placed a large glass jar (alias a sweetie jar) it was then placed in a niche at the main entrance.

Brother Gabriel supervised the entire construction of the structure.

I never occupied this building as I left for CIC for the Sept term.

Best Wishes,

Desmond

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Juan Carlos Carretero‏

Where is he?  Does anyone know?

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Photos:

Bandit p22 The Early Times

06AL0010ALA, Andres Larsen

08LK8374FB, Raul Leoni and wife

04LL0005LLAWFE, Louis and Christine Lacour