Newsletter for past alumni of The Abbey School,
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Dear Friends,
Here are some comments on Krishna´s resume on the event:
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Abbey Reunion 2008
Nigel P. Boos
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 8:18:23 AM
Dear
Thank you for your kind words and for the affection which I can feel, pouring from your eloquent testimony.
I am so happy to know that the
Yours is the first report I've received from anyone who attended the
I hope that the next effort will be equally successful and that many more will attend.
I look forward now, to hear from someone who had gone on the Mayaro trip, to see how that went.
Thank God, it seems, there were no accidents.
Hopefully, precautions were in place with life-guards, etc., just in case.
I do not know what can be done to restore the old building from its present state of disrepair, but surely, the Government could be asked to assist in covering the costs involved.
Has anyone considered this?
Of course, negotiations would be necessary between the Abbot and the PM, but why not try, to see what can be done.
Manning himself owes his education to the Presentation Brothers in San F'do. (we were in school together) and he surely knows the value of a good Catholic education.
Thanks again, and don't forget to say your prayers.
Nigel
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Glen Mckoy
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 10:03:22 AM
Jerry,
Thank you very much for all the kind words, and this wonderful letter you have sent to so many, I have read it, and will write to you on certain observations I made, through your eyes, more of your letter,
later my friend,
Glen.
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Oscar Cantore
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 1:51:13 PM
My friends, pity I lost this reunion sounds like it was fun and very gratifying, I will definitely make it for the next one, God Willing.
Regards to all
Oscar Cantore
67-69
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"kentrini@aol.com"
Monday, November 24, 2008 8:22:34 PM
Dear Ladislao,
Sorry that you were not at the recent reunion.
I had hoped to meet the person responsible for the publication of the circular which has helped me to keep up with activities of old boys.
I enjoyed the reunion very much being able to see 3 students from my era and making some new friends.
I have sent some photos from my time at Mount by Manuel Prada who will get them to you.
Perhaps sometime you may be able to include them in one of the circulars.
May I be one of the first to wish you Feliz Navidad
Kenneth I
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Don Mitchell CBE QC
Sunday, November 30, 2008 1:30:48 PM
Hello Ladislao,
Krishna Toolsie’s account in Circular No 369 of the 2008
His kind remarks about the organisers, in particular, is well deserved.
I am grateful that he left out all mention of the grace before meals episode at the Saturday Reunion dinner.
Since any lack of grace in the story is mine, perhaps it is proper that I should tell it.
Also, I had better put it down in black and white now.
It won’t be long before the blessed amnesia that falls over all painful memories, and makes past events glow as through rose-tinted spectacles, takes over.
I am sitting at dinner with a group including Kenny and Stuart Henderson.
My back is to the microphone.
I am talking during meals, always a punishable offence.
I hear Peter Tang doing the master of ceremonies thing over the loudspeaker.
I hear him announce, “Now, can we ask Don Mitchell to come up to the microphone and say grace for us?”
I do not know what to do with myself.
He has not alerted me before hand. I am stumped.
The last time I said grace before meals I was a callow seventeen year old.
I have not had the time to make one up for the occasion.
It is too short a notice to do so now.
I stand up. I have a couple of choices.
I can decline as gracefully as I can, indicating I am microphone-shy. No one will believe that.
I can brazen it out and pretend that I know what I am talking about and risk sounding like a tongue-tied idiot. I am not going to do that.
I decide to just say what comes naturally, no matter how irrelevant or beside the point.
That, I knew from experience, comes easiest to me.
I take the microphone from Peter. I do not have any idea what I am going to say.
I begin, “Let me thank Peter Tang for inviting me to say grace.
It has been a long time since I have said a Christian grace.
We Chinese Episcopalian Buddhists have our own way of saying grace.
We don’t do it in the standard way.
We are accustomed to go out into our garden before meals and look at our flowers.
We smile at the hibiscus, and meditate on the wonders of the bougainvillea.
But, I do not know the garden at this place, so I cannot invite you to accompany me outside.
So, let me just say that for many years now my prayer has been to sit down one night to share a meal with my fellow “old boys” of Mount.
I am so happy that my prayers have been answered tonight. Thank you.”
And, with that, I put down the microphone and resume my seat. I sit there, waves of failure anxiety sweeping over me.
After a few silent moments, an unctuous voice comes over the loudspeaker behind my back, “And, now let us pause for the invocation!”
I do not recall what he said.
Then, Peter pipes up over the loudspeaker, “There, Don, that is how it is done.”
A young lady comes up to me afterwards.
She tells me that her radio station has broadcast the whole thing live for
She tells me that she has recorded my grace on her cellphone. She shows me a clip.
Since then, I have tried to contact her by email to get a copy.
I can add it to my videos on the “facebook” account my niece set up for me: .
Perhaps, alongside the clip from Bill Mahr, “Roman Catholic Church: The Bear Sterns of paedophilia”.
She won’t respond to my requests. More failure anxiety.
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From: nigelboos@eagles-wings.ca
Subject: The Grotto in the
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 23:16:45 -0400
What a great story, Glen.
Thank you for sharing it with us.
I too have a story like that, but we didn't build a den.
We built a grotto - in honour of Our Blessed Mother, Mary.
I must have been a devout kid, or something.
There were three of us - Lawrence Scott, Thijs Koenraadt (the older brother of Jan), and myself.
Jan was a Surinamese boy who became a monk at
I was just a Trinidadian kid with no particular desire to go into the religious life.
That came later. But it probably was as a result of our common interest in religion that we were thrown together.
There is a track leading from the NW corner of the basketball court.
It leads slowly downwards at an angle, and is dug into the side of the hill.
Within 400 yards or so from the School, one suddenly enters a magical world of bush and wildlife.
The sounds of the School disappear and is replaced by the silence of the forest and the occasional sound of chirping birds.
One comes across a small shrine, with a statue of Mary set into a little nook of a concrete structure built by some long-forgotten monk, perhaps.
We would sometimes go for walks along this track, and talk about this and that.
We'd come across the tiny reservoir where, we were told, the monks used to keep an alligator.
This was the tiny stream which provided the water supply for both the School as well as the Monastery, and it is still a mystery to me that such a small dam could have supplied all our needs.
Occasionally, yes, there was a water shortage, and on those days, truck-borne water would be sent up to us from
Along one stretch of the track, we would come across a concreted section supported by a metal sub-structure, so far as I can remember, which, we were told, was erected by the original Benedictine monks as a way to get down from their mountaintop retreat to the village below, to celebrate Holy Mass or to shop.
The story goes that a mule / donkey carrying a monk panicked when crossing this strange bridge and threw the hapless fellow to his death in the ravine below.
Some distance beyond the concrete "bridge" we came across a wonderful place, where one could imagine miracles could take place.
It was quite damp, and there were lots of dead leaves lying everywhere, atop a rock-strewn natural forest "shelf".
But the best feature of the spot was a tiny waterfall, with a gently trickle of water which flowed down a sloping black rock face, about eight feet long, and ending in a 3' deep rocky pool filled with more dead leaves.
We were intrigued with the place, and we determined that we would make it a pet project of our own.
From then on, whenever we could spare the time, we'd hike into the forest and move rocks around. scrape away leaves, move branches, cut out small bushes growing among the rocks, clean the rocky pool, and so on.
We worked at it for a number of weeks, and eventually, we thought we had prepared the place well enough to be able to place a statue of the Blessed Virgin at the top of the tiny waterfall.
Somehow we obtained a statue and Thijs, I believe, asked Fr. Peter O.S.B., a very holy man we all respected, to come with us to bless "our" grotto.
I was not there the day that Fr. Peter came, and I cannot now remember how come that happened.
I was assured, however, that he did come, he did bless, he did NOT fall into the water.
From that day on, I believe I made only one more trip to the spot.
This was just before I received news of my father's death in
I suppose that some of the boys who followed me at MSB must have seen the grotto in the years that followed. For all I know it's still there.
Lawrence Scott left the monastery and has become a writer.
Thijs Koenraadt (Brother Alphonse) was recalled to
For my part, I joined the Holy Ghost Fathers in
I wonder whatever happened to the grotto?
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Jan, in 1958 to increase the water supply, a pump and a 4 inch pipe was installed at the play field. The pipe went alongside the shortcut that ended at the Pax guest house.
Also that was the time when the shower stalls were modified to the 5 min wet soap rinse procedure.
To avoid the spin and dry procedure, I used to bathe at the sports field next to the sports house.
I presume that by the time you were there, the supply just did not cover the needs.
Does anyone remember, Mr. Tom´s three legged dog,!!
Ed.
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Smoking at the
Jan Koenraadt
Sunday, July 6, 2008 3:17:10 PM
Dear Nigel,
I have this attached scan of my Terminal Report dated July 1965 to add to your memorial.
I would like to add this story to it about smoking at the
Smoking cigarettes at the
But as good as I can remember a lot of boys smoked almost every day.
The toilets on the playing grounds were a favourite place to smoke, almost every day.
The monks must have known because all the students knew it.
Once in a while they "raided" the toilets to catch some smokers.
The safest place to smoke was somewhere in the hills, and the best place to hide your cigarettes. Just bury them in the ground in a plastic bag.
The hard way was to get cigarettes.
A package of Snow Flakes was 40 cents, we could easily pay it with our weekly allowance of one dollar.
Sometimes some boy would sell them, and we brought one or two packages from home. If you had permission to go down town, the first thing we did was to buy cigarettes.
I must confess, once I started smoking, although it was forbidden, I smoked almost every day at the Abbey school.
But one day I was caught buying cigarettes in the shop just below the swimming pool.
From the monastery I was seen through a telescope.
Nobody said anything, but when the weekly pocket money came, there was no envelope for me.
I had to figure out for myself why.
The whole rest of the term there was no more pocket money for me.
In spite of that I still smoked almost every day, there were some boys who felt pity for me and gave me a cigarette.
But at the end of the term, there was still a surprise coming for me.
Although I was fifth in my class during exams and satisfactory promoted to Form III, just at the moment you feel great and longing for the summer holidays to come, this little sentence was added in my Terminal Report: "Jan must give up smoking. This is strictly against the rules".
My dad was old and did not understand English at all.
That I was fifth in class hardly got his attention, but this sentence about smoking made him angry for some weeks.
When I look back, it had this lesson to me, that I kept on smoking for fifteen years on, and at my own free will and at a time I chose myself I stopped smoking in 1982 and never smoked again.
I never smoked before my children but gave them the freedom to choose for themselves at their own free will.
And the result is they never took up the habit of smoking.
Regards Jan Koenraadt
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That is for now, till the next one
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65JK0001JKOTERMREPT, Terminal report of Jan 1965รง
08DM5191REUNION2008, UNKNOWNS
08DM5192REUNION2008, George Laquis and Christopher Knowles.
08UN0500REUNION2008, Fr. Benedict and group in front of church.
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