Circular No 713

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

Caracas, 4 July 2015 No. 713

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Dear Friends

Some more stories on the activities that took place at our school thanks to Fr. Theo.

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19 Jun (9 days ago)

Hola Salvador,

I guess the boy-girl socializing parties did continue, but, if I remember correctly, to a much lesser degree, and not so much at the Mount any longer.

Right after Fr Theo left, they did diminish in frequency, at least they didn't do the dance parties at the Abbey School grounds itself.

We boys had to be bussed to the girls school.

I remember that the St. Joseph's girl's Academy down the hill was an international boarding school, not just for Venezolanas only.

It was sort of the counterpart to the Abbeys boys School, and their patron saint was Santa Scholastica, the twin sister of St. Benedict. I don't remember the Coromoto part.

Oscar Cantore's older brother, Fulvio Cantore, who graduated in Form V with me, had a steady girlfriend at that St Joseph's girl Academy.

Her name was Paola.

They got married after returning home to Venezuela.

I am sure you'd have quite a few more memory contributions to add to the list?

Saludos,

Arrila Gyuris

1964-1968

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On Jun 18, 2015, at 6:28 PM,

Salvador Coscarart <salborbolla@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hello to all.

Attila the parties with the girls did continue.

We used to go to the Saint Joseph boarding SCHOOL, where the Venezolanas studied.

I am still in contact with them and in 2010 I met and had lunch with two of my friends from Cumana that attended the St Joseph.

The called me El Rey Coromotano.

Also in Pto Ordaz visited with Luciano Mellone, his sister Also Went to the SCHOOL, so I did continue with the gatherings.

We also played friendly games of Volleyball. Ok .

Have a great weekend.

God bless. Salvador

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On Jun 18, 2015, at 18:01, gyuris <gyuris@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi George,

I was there from Sept 1964 till July 1969, starting in Prep A and graduating from Form V. 

Yes things did get a bit more liberalized after you left.  

So our paths never overlapped due to the time difference in attendance.

For example, One of the main reasons was Fr. Theo, ( a Dutch parish priest on a two year sabbatical at the Abbey School during 1966 and 1967.

He was the brother of Fr. Gregory, - Duck- and he was put in charge of discipline at the school during his 2 year tenure. 

He was a very progressive & liberal minded priest who believed in us having social interaction with girls, that it would be good for the boys' morale and social skills.  

He influenced the school management to allow for supervised social interaction functions with girls at the school.

Hence the parties and social gatherings at the Abbey.

After he left in 1967, these social gatherings sadly stopped. Too bad! 

I just remembered and added a bunch more items of memories to the list below.....

They are in no particular order.  

Some pertain only to my time at the Mount, others are more general stuff that everyone can identify.

Attila Gyuris

1964-1969

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On Jun 18, 2015, at 8:01 AM,

ANTONI MICKIEWICZ <amickiew@att.net> wrote:

Which years did you attend?  

My perception is that the monks became more liberal as the years transpired.

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On Jun 18, 2015, at 7:07 AM,

GEORGE MICKIEWICZ <amickiew@att.net> wrote:

When reflecting on this topic, it is amazing how many and varied they were. 

To the best of my recollection for my years there, they were:

·        Sports – Football, cricket, volleyball, basketball, tennis, table tennis, baseball (played by the “pagnols”)

·        Track and Field

·        Swimming, diving, water polo

·        Reading

·        Music

·        Theatre

·        Serving mass

·        Stealing and pelting mangoes, oranges, grapefruits

·        Liming

·        Climbing and exploring

·        Eating

·        Ogling our brothers’ “Sistas”

·        Photography

·        Trips to the beaches and the islands

·        Listening to the radio

·        Attending cricket test matches

·        Board games: cards, chess, checkers, monopoly

·        Extra studying hours in last year in preparation for the GCEs

·        Playing marbles

Adding some more things I remember:

- Playing Tops during recess.

- Scouts, and scout troop meetings every Saturday morning.

- Playing an instrument in the Marching Band.  In my case, the drums.

- Playing an instrument in a rock band.

- Building dens in the bush, and camouflaging it.

- Going hunting in the bush behind the refectory with pellet guns

- Hunting cats around the Refectory at night with bow and arrow and flash lights.

- Forms IV and Form V "boys rooms" (where smoking was allowed and we had a record player and played dominoes at the tables) 

- Throwing paper airplanes down the hill from the study hall windows.

- Zampat!  In the hedges.

-Saturday night movies in Bennet's Hall above the Refectory.

- Waiting on the staircase by the Refectory for Fr Rughead to open the library to borrow library books.

- Private Piano lessons in Bennet's Hall.

- Playing hide and seek with Br Camillus(?) down by the beehives to steal mangoes from the trees.

- Standing in line every 5pm to take cold water showers.

- Supervised dancing & parties in the basketball court with the girls of St. Joseph's Girls Academy down the hill. 

- Arriving to the school for the very first time in Sept 1964 into Prep A. Pablo Kecskemeti, Gabor Hoefle and Paul Stein were my first "old boy" friends on that first day. 

- Scout camping and building bamboo structures in the river.

- "borrowing"  the priests’ Lambretta motor scooters from the garage shed at night for joy rides down to Tunapuna and St. Joseph's then returning them.

I was introduced to this by my good friend Jan Koenradt at first, then I did it occasionally by myself after he left the school.

If I had been found out I think I would have been expelled for sure...

But I never got found out, lucky me!  

I took a few friends in the backseat with me on those night rides.

One I remember well was the older of the Malaver brothers, because we almost got busted since Fr. Cuthbert was returning late that night in the school van.

He was coming up the hill, and we saw the headlights in the distance.

We had to quickly turn around and race back up.

We skated on that one.

Since then I am a motorcycle long distance travel aficionado.  

- Long hikes up to the White Stones ... and beyond. Sometimes practicing morse code communications using a pair of ship's semaphore lanterns we had, with other scouts stationed down by the Refectory. 

- The stench of the septic tank behind the toilets during dry season (around March / April).

- In the Form V dining hall, waiting for Fr Bobo to leave so we could snatch up his orange juice and toast that he didn't finish.

- During breakfast, shaking the bread slices in the bread dish to get rid of the occasional ants. Also swatting the black bees from the honey bottles.

- Being sent by the table prefect to go stand up in front of the supervising Father's dining table as punishment. This meant being put in the black list, and no movies on Saturday night.

- Having to raise the bread dish or the rice steel dish at the table to get refill for more food.

- Standing in 3 separate lines outside to enter the three dining halls. PrepA , Form I and II in the one closest to the kitchen, Form III and IV in the middle hall ( Fr Cuthbert supervising at the head table) , and Form V in the last one furthest away from the kitchen ( Fr Bernard supervising).

- Playing backyard cricket during recess using the wooden soft drink boxes as wickets.

- The yearly "Marching of the Flags," put on by the scouts during Parents Day, for a few years I was there. Each country of ancestry or origin for every student was represented by its country flag. It turned out to be a LOT of flags from all over the world. It was quite a show. 

- Every student using his bathrobe to go to class during the "cold/ rainy and windy days", usually around November - December.

- The Ray-Ban gold wire rim aviator sunglasses craze. Everyone had to have one for the " Bad-boy look". It was the fashion. 

- While playing " Wall-Tennis" against the Refectory retention wall, the tennis balls would occasionally go into one of the many square drain holes in the wall, and having to climb up precariously to get them out.

- Sneaking out behind the Refectory for a smoke.

- Buying sweet tamarind balls at the religious store down by the Guest House on the way down to the sports fields.

- Passing by the little cemetery on the right, opposite the Guest House, and looking at the grave head stones. There was one in particular grave head stone that always drew my attention, it was of a "Lt Cdr Wilson". I wonder who he was.

- Up in the dormitory, chatting with the always friendly and wise seamstress lady, Mrs. Wilson, and getting good worldly advice about everything. 

- Having to store the travel suitcases in the Attic in the top dormitory.

- Making emergency long distance phone calls to home at the office of Mrs Kitty. 

- Getting soft drinks and the occasional fresh popcorn from the soft drink window at one of the two back cross hallways. The Cantore brothers were in charge of that concession. Soft drinks and the bag of pop corn were 10 cents each.

- Getting your sundries, toiletries and weekly pocket money ( $1) disbursed at the Bursar's office in the back cross hallway.

- Racing down the stairs at bath time to be the first in line for showers.

- Watching the Cantore brothers' father buzzing the school with his Bonanza airplane as he flew back to Anaco, Venezuela after leaving the two Cantore brothers ( Fulvio and Oscar) and Pablo Kecskemeti at the school during the start of each Term.

- Getting "licks" (swats) in the bare ass with a cane in the office for misbehaving.

- Going down to the school nurse after faking a fever, hoping for a sick slip to skip class, and not getting one.

- Waiting in line to brush teeth in the morning.

- In Form V, hosting tours of outside visitors to our Chemistry lab. Our school had the best school Chemistry lab in the country at the time. They said it was better equipped than the University of West Indies had. We were proud of it. The lab was equipped so well thanks to Mrs Kitty Marcus, our Chemistry teacher, and it was the reason I chose to go on to study Chemical Engineering in college.

- "graduating" from "small boy" short pants to "big boy" long pants in the school uniforms.

- Changing the formal ( external) uniform pants colours from white to blue, and all long, sometime around in 1965 or 1966.

- Finding and eating the rare ripe cashew fruits from the cashew trees on the way down to the sports field.

- Watching Roger Gibbon, the Trinidadian bicycling world champion and a national celebrity at the time (mid 60's) come visit the school and do a bike racing demonstration with the boys around the sports field.

- While doing a Scout honour guard, watching Haile Selassie, the ruler of Ethiopia at the time on a State visit to Trinidad in 1966, ride by on the road in a open car, looking straight at me and acknowledging and waving at me.

- Getting on the school VW van to go to Port-of-Spain for shopping on Saturday mornings.

- Hiking through the northern mountain range from the White Stones all the way to Maracas Bay for as one of the requirements for my Venture Scout badge.

- Getting into a fist fight with some bully in the school yard to defend Salvador Coscarat (he was a small boy at the time), because this bully took away by force Salvador's pellet gun. 

- My school clothes tag number was No 9. It was sewn into all my clothes. And my clothes still got lost in the laundry.

- The cubicles with privacy curtains in the Senior boy's dormitory. Paul Quesnel was the Head Prefect in Form V that year, and he had the best cubicle, with a lockable and all, it was almost like a suite! 

- Finally getting my Queen's Scout award in Form V, along with my good friend Andres Larsen. 

- Leaving the school for the last time on the VW van enroute to Piarco in July 1969. I had donated all my left over stuff to my friend Alfredo Montiel.

.... I will add more as I remember......

Regards,

Attila Gyuris

1964-1969

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Photos:

Bandit p32 The Early Times

80JD0003JDAWFE, John Davenport and wife

13LK7304FBSOC, Sean O´connor

73UN0003CLASS74, Class 1974