Newsletter for alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.
Caracas, 18 June 2011 No.502
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Friends
The latest from Dave De Castro, thanks “Bandit”
http://www.myspace.com/calypsobandit/music
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Newsletter for past alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.
Caracas, 13 of April 2002. Circular No.22
-----------------------------------------------------
Dear Friends,
Due to our country’s undetermined situation, this circular is sent late.
Here is another account of the Man of all Seasons, by Don Mitchell.
Hi Ladislao,
I do remember the play. It was "A Man for All Seasons" written by the British playwright Robert Bolt. I do not remember all the roles or details. The year must have been 1962 or 1963. I believe that I played the part of the Duke of Norfolk, some sort of a judge at the trial of Moore, but it has been a long time and, though years later I saw the movie, I cannot remember for certain. M.J. de Verteuil played Moore with gusto and conviction, and Robert Azar, I believe, played the cowardly Richard Rich. Michael, I believe, played his competitor as Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey. I cannot recall who played Henry VIII or Roper, the son in law, or the other parts.
For me, the most memorable thing about the play was that two lovely young women, a Fanfan and a Myling, played Moore's wife and daughter. I do not recall the school ever before having allowed girls to act in a school play. The two ladies were so lovely, I recall, that each evening when practice finished, all the windows of the school were stuffed with young male faces peering out for a glimpse of them as they got into the cars that came to collect them. They came from a convent in St Augustine to practice for several evenings after school. It must have been a terrifying experience for the two of them, but they carried it off with style and panache. I knew then and for all time that women were superior beings to men.
Don
I am including additional information on the demolition of the old Abbey
Last days of old.doc attached.
I hope you remember this part of the Monastery.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Here I am continuing the who is where, thanks to Roger Henderson:
11. Gregory (not Geoffrey) Farfan is a leading insurance executive
-------------------------------------------------------------.
Also here is some more information
LADISLAO--CIRCULAR 494 JUST JOGGED MY MEMORY
david decastro to me, ladislao
17 Jun (9 days ago)
ANOTHER STORY ABOUT MOUNT [the golden years} BY DAVE DE CASTRO--"THE BANDIT"
In 1947 when DOM ADELBERT VAN DUIN was made Abbot of Mount Saint Benedict I was 11 years old.
Father Dom Adelbert was also a teacher in a class.
One day I guess I was interrupting his class with my stupid antics and he called me out and said De Castro you are interrupting my class and you will write 1000 times:
THE WAY OF THE TRANSGRESSOR IS EXTREMELY HARD INDEED-INDEED-INDEED.
And you will give it to me in 2 weeks.
I said under my breath this s.o.b is mad no ass.1000 lines nobody ever got that.
The most in those days was about 50 lines.-- remember 11 years old.
The 1000 lines was now the talk of the school and that this new Abbot was mad no ass.
I said to the other boys well**** him I am not doing that he is crazy.
After fuming-- fussing-- and cussing for a day I decided to take my case to the headmaster Father Benedict.—
let’s see what BOBO will say, and what do you think that IDIOT said ????
THE SOONER YOU START WRITING IT --THE SOONER YOU WILL FINISH IT.
You talk about cuss--ah cuss every priest and everybody in that school to the boys.
But it took every spare minute of my time for 2 weeks to write the dam thing.
EVEN UP TO TODAY AT 75 YEARS OF AGE EVERY TIME I REMEMBER THAT INCIDENT AH STILL CUSSING.
SOME PEOPLE JUST HAVE TO LEARN THE HARD WAY AND THAT WAS HOW IT WAS IN THOSE DAYS.
PEACE AND LOVE "BANDIT"
---------------------------------------------------------------.
Article by Dr. David Bratt in the Newspaper Guardian (courtesy DB)
Would you like to take a walk with David??
I spent most of Wednesday morning at the Licensing Office on Wrightson Road and an experience it was.
The place offers splendid opportunities for the Tourism Development Company, what with being just down the road from the Hyatt and all.
I want to suggest that walking tours from the Hyatt and Crown Plaza be offered.
This could be a money-maker akin to walking in old San Juan or the Via Veneto.
The theme of the walk could be “The Descent” or “To Hell and Back (without Audie Murphy).
One leaves the Hyatt Hotel, the epitome of modern Trini elegance, albeit cloaked in European and PNM ideals, and gradually moves upstream, past the old post office on the left.
Halfway there one comes upon the most important small park in Woodbrook, now converted to a walkway and a car park in honour of the Motor Vehicle Association of Cobeau Town and on the left, fire brigade headquarters, where you can spot some of the oldest fire brigade engines, dating from the building of the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway, and probably abandoned here by the Americans when, in that petit spasm of fury and intellectual dishonesty, our valiant forefathers retook, in that famous march in the rain (imagine Trinis walking in the rain), the property that had been taken from small-time farmers and returned, not to them, but to the State, for cultivation, years later, by Cuban farmers who, in their country, “cah make” but brought here to Trinidad and Tobago to teach locals, with hundreds of years of farming in their blood and one of the best agricultural schools in the world, how to plant bodi.
There a stop can be made to look at imaginary videos of farmers’ crops being bulldozed by another non-imaginative government, put into power by those selfsame farmers, who rashly believed in the words of politicians and who believe that politicians are really concerned about them.
Continuing our walk, we successively pass on the left, the right hand side being given over to old-time Woodbrook houses with fretted window work and hanging gables, ripe for destruction and conversion into insurance agencies, the most ramshackle police station in town and what used to be the best calypso tent before Americanisation and PNMisation took over and calypsonians “had was to sing” for the freshwater Trini and their political masters, all in the cause of racial equality, let it be immediately said.
Past the former MAD outlet, where Benbow pool used to refresh young men (and not a few young women) and the Licensing Office is upon us.
You can detect its presence any morning by the line of cars illegally parked in front of it and causing a massive traffic jam.
There the tourists, after handing over their jewellery, wallets, car licences and sundry other personal effects, can spend the next several hours eating bad food and Trini-watching.
Now let me say right away that I am not talking about the people who actually work in the Licensing Office.
Apart from the obvious problem of having only one cashier (poor cashier!) about which the entire population comments, the service we received was good.
Not first class because you cannot talk first class when the facilities themselves are at the level of a pig sty, but we were very satisfied with the job that was being done in very difficult circumstances by the Licensing Office workers.
No, it was the environment and the Trini public in that environment that would engage the attention of my tourist.
The parking lot, which surrounds a number of ramshackle, colonial-type, one-floor office buildings, some made for waiting with heavy wooden benches built specially for the natives, open to the air, rain and general filth of the area, constitutes most of the immense area and, by 8 am is filled with every type, shape and age of car.
To the east of the buildings are three or four, it’s difficult to say, they seem to blend into each other, like drunks supporting themselves, little food shacks, made of plywood and two sheets of galvanise where, from the mouths of the men surrounding them, sweet drinks, pies, sweeties and cigarettes are sold.
Not a doubles vendor in sight!
The area has obviously not been cleaned for decades and is littered with piles of dirt, cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, old newspapers, cigarette stubs, rotting leaves and pothounds.
Even they have attitude.
The pregnant bitch refused half of my homemade cheese sandwich.
Under a low overcast sky, the morning humid and sticky without a trace of breeze at 7.30 am, a multitude of middle-aged, coarse, vicious looking, hoarse-voiced men and women, dressed in tight pants and faded jerseys or blouses, fat overflowing front and sides, feet carelessly stuffed into worn-down sandals or narrow, pointed shoes, wander about the huge, dirty compound, smoking and aggressively shouting at each other.
They look like characters out of one of Dante’s levels of hell.
Where have all of these ugly Trinis come from?
It wasn’t so 30 years ago.
---------------------------------------------------------------.
FW: Donald & Christian with his sons
From: dgodda1@lsu.edu
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:30:39 -0500
Mis panas:
Aquí unas fotos tomados durante un fin de semana de descanso en un bosque de pinos en Texas donde "Little Chris" (como llamamos al hijo enano de Christian) jugando en un torneo profesional de Disc Golf (o frisbee).
"Porcia" no se han dado cuenta, los gordos son los viejos y los flacos son los jóvenes.
Un abrazo para todos,
Donald
Donald A. Goddard
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
225.578.4538 skype 225.578.4538 (office) 225.975.0222 skype 225.975.0222 (cellular)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
Re: Old MSB - Contact
From: kazim abasali <kazim.asaatt@gmail.com>
Hi Jerry,
Nice to hear from you.
I am forwarding your emails and info to Ladislao, Nigel, and Don who have been facilitating the boys so faithfully over the years.
Thanks to the inspiration and the perseverance of Ladislao over the many year.
Please visit the newsletter that Ladislao does in the blog that is put together by Don, and Nigel will include your contact info in the database.
Please make sure and get in contact with them.
The newsletter and blogs will have more and better photos.
And you can update Ladislao with your journey since you left school to share with the boys.
Blessings to you brother.
Take care......Kazim
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 3:24 PM, Jeremy de Barry <tobagojo@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello Kazim (& Don),
[Wow, I'm so out of it at this time!]
Kazim,
Was having a browse around and discovered that you're the webmaster for (The Abbey School) Mount St. Benedict Alumni Association of Trinidad & Tobago - site.
I don't know (or can't remember) you as an old Abbey School boy, however, thanks ever so for doing a lovely job and keeping us informed as you do.
Can somebody email me some larger size version of the 'Class' and 'Scout' pictures that you have on this site (with the name notes attached somewhere); as I'd like another stab at putting some names to some faces. One (or two) of the 'scout' pictures look like the 'Coura Camp' of XXXXX (at this time) that I attended.
And A Lindsy Moffat + Charles(? - Or something) Moffat from St Lucia appeared unnamed;
things like that I'd like to check. (If not already done by others.)
----------------------Now this next comment is probably 'Old Hat'; You do recall that 'Vush' or Father Benedict had his photo lab under the old dormitory (next to the 'Seniors' room); out back.
Has anyone managed to get all his negatives?
That's an historic MSB gold mine!
PS is 'Vush' still alive?
---------------------Nice.
What qualifies as Alumni?
See there is a list = Mount Old Boys (1945 - 1955); on the site.
Well it also did 1956 to some time in the early 1970's; when it all crashed out.
Can we do this list of the next lot for this site?
-----------Look forward to a comment or two.
Very best regards
Jerry
Jeremy de Barry - EEEng (MSB 1961 - 1967) DOB20110111
------------------------------------------------------------------------.
Ladislao Kertesz at kertesz11@yahoo.com,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Photos:
Mount Inside No. 10 page 22
08UN1510JBEGRP, Photo from the reunion 2008
60LK0002GCE, GCE Model Answers in Mathematics.
73LM0001LME, Luciano Mellone
Caracas, 18 June 2011 No.502
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Friends
The latest from Dave De Castro, thanks “Bandit”
http://www.myspace.com/calypsobandit/music
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Newsletter for past alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.
Caracas, 13 of April 2002. Circular No.22
-----------------------------------------------------
Dear Friends,
Due to our country’s undetermined situation, this circular is sent late.
Here is another account of the Man of all Seasons, by Don Mitchell.
Hi Ladislao,
I do remember the play. It was "A Man for All Seasons" written by the British playwright Robert Bolt. I do not remember all the roles or details. The year must have been 1962 or 1963. I believe that I played the part of the Duke of Norfolk, some sort of a judge at the trial of Moore, but it has been a long time and, though years later I saw the movie, I cannot remember for certain. M.J. de Verteuil played Moore with gusto and conviction, and Robert Azar, I believe, played the cowardly Richard Rich. Michael, I believe, played his competitor as Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey. I cannot recall who played Henry VIII or Roper, the son in law, or the other parts.
For me, the most memorable thing about the play was that two lovely young women, a Fanfan and a Myling, played Moore's wife and daughter. I do not recall the school ever before having allowed girls to act in a school play. The two ladies were so lovely, I recall, that each evening when practice finished, all the windows of the school were stuffed with young male faces peering out for a glimpse of them as they got into the cars that came to collect them. They came from a convent in St Augustine to practice for several evenings after school. It must have been a terrifying experience for the two of them, but they carried it off with style and panache. I knew then and for all time that women were superior beings to men.
Don
I am including additional information on the demolition of the old Abbey
Last days of old.doc attached.
I hope you remember this part of the Monastery.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Here I am continuing the who is where, thanks to Roger Henderson:
11. Gregory (not Geoffrey) Farfan is a leading insurance executive
-------------------------------------------------------------.
Also here is some more information
LADISLAO--CIRCULAR 494 JUST JOGGED MY MEMORY
david decastro to me, ladislao
17 Jun (9 days ago)
ANOTHER STORY ABOUT MOUNT [the golden years} BY DAVE DE CASTRO--"THE BANDIT"
In 1947 when DOM ADELBERT VAN DUIN was made Abbot of Mount Saint Benedict I was 11 years old.
Father Dom Adelbert was also a teacher in a class.
One day I guess I was interrupting his class with my stupid antics and he called me out and said De Castro you are interrupting my class and you will write 1000 times:
THE WAY OF THE TRANSGRESSOR IS EXTREMELY HARD INDEED-INDEED-INDEED.
And you will give it to me in 2 weeks.
I said under my breath this s.o.b is mad no ass.1000 lines nobody ever got that.
The most in those days was about 50 lines.-- remember 11 years old.
The 1000 lines was now the talk of the school and that this new Abbot was mad no ass.
I said to the other boys well**** him I am not doing that he is crazy.
After fuming-- fussing-- and cussing for a day I decided to take my case to the headmaster Father Benedict.—
let’s see what BOBO will say, and what do you think that IDIOT said ????
THE SOONER YOU START WRITING IT --THE SOONER YOU WILL FINISH IT.
You talk about cuss--ah cuss every priest and everybody in that school to the boys.
But it took every spare minute of my time for 2 weeks to write the dam thing.
EVEN UP TO TODAY AT 75 YEARS OF AGE EVERY TIME I REMEMBER THAT INCIDENT AH STILL CUSSING.
SOME PEOPLE JUST HAVE TO LEARN THE HARD WAY AND THAT WAS HOW IT WAS IN THOSE DAYS.
PEACE AND LOVE "BANDIT"
---------------------------------------------------------------.
Article by Dr. David Bratt in the Newspaper Guardian (courtesy DB)
Would you like to take a walk with David??
I spent most of Wednesday morning at the Licensing Office on Wrightson Road and an experience it was.
The place offers splendid opportunities for the Tourism Development Company, what with being just down the road from the Hyatt and all.
I want to suggest that walking tours from the Hyatt and Crown Plaza be offered.
This could be a money-maker akin to walking in old San Juan or the Via Veneto.
The theme of the walk could be “The Descent” or “To Hell and Back (without Audie Murphy).
One leaves the Hyatt Hotel, the epitome of modern Trini elegance, albeit cloaked in European and PNM ideals, and gradually moves upstream, past the old post office on the left.
Halfway there one comes upon the most important small park in Woodbrook, now converted to a walkway and a car park in honour of the Motor Vehicle Association of Cobeau Town and on the left, fire brigade headquarters, where you can spot some of the oldest fire brigade engines, dating from the building of the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway, and probably abandoned here by the Americans when, in that petit spasm of fury and intellectual dishonesty, our valiant forefathers retook, in that famous march in the rain (imagine Trinis walking in the rain), the property that had been taken from small-time farmers and returned, not to them, but to the State, for cultivation, years later, by Cuban farmers who, in their country, “cah make” but brought here to Trinidad and Tobago to teach locals, with hundreds of years of farming in their blood and one of the best agricultural schools in the world, how to plant bodi.
There a stop can be made to look at imaginary videos of farmers’ crops being bulldozed by another non-imaginative government, put into power by those selfsame farmers, who rashly believed in the words of politicians and who believe that politicians are really concerned about them.
Continuing our walk, we successively pass on the left, the right hand side being given over to old-time Woodbrook houses with fretted window work and hanging gables, ripe for destruction and conversion into insurance agencies, the most ramshackle police station in town and what used to be the best calypso tent before Americanisation and PNMisation took over and calypsonians “had was to sing” for the freshwater Trini and their political masters, all in the cause of racial equality, let it be immediately said.
Past the former MAD outlet, where Benbow pool used to refresh young men (and not a few young women) and the Licensing Office is upon us.
You can detect its presence any morning by the line of cars illegally parked in front of it and causing a massive traffic jam.
There the tourists, after handing over their jewellery, wallets, car licences and sundry other personal effects, can spend the next several hours eating bad food and Trini-watching.
Now let me say right away that I am not talking about the people who actually work in the Licensing Office.
Apart from the obvious problem of having only one cashier (poor cashier!) about which the entire population comments, the service we received was good.
Not first class because you cannot talk first class when the facilities themselves are at the level of a pig sty, but we were very satisfied with the job that was being done in very difficult circumstances by the Licensing Office workers.
No, it was the environment and the Trini public in that environment that would engage the attention of my tourist.
The parking lot, which surrounds a number of ramshackle, colonial-type, one-floor office buildings, some made for waiting with heavy wooden benches built specially for the natives, open to the air, rain and general filth of the area, constitutes most of the immense area and, by 8 am is filled with every type, shape and age of car.
To the east of the buildings are three or four, it’s difficult to say, they seem to blend into each other, like drunks supporting themselves, little food shacks, made of plywood and two sheets of galvanise where, from the mouths of the men surrounding them, sweet drinks, pies, sweeties and cigarettes are sold.
Not a doubles vendor in sight!
The area has obviously not been cleaned for decades and is littered with piles of dirt, cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, old newspapers, cigarette stubs, rotting leaves and pothounds.
Even they have attitude.
The pregnant bitch refused half of my homemade cheese sandwich.
Under a low overcast sky, the morning humid and sticky without a trace of breeze at 7.30 am, a multitude of middle-aged, coarse, vicious looking, hoarse-voiced men and women, dressed in tight pants and faded jerseys or blouses, fat overflowing front and sides, feet carelessly stuffed into worn-down sandals or narrow, pointed shoes, wander about the huge, dirty compound, smoking and aggressively shouting at each other.
They look like characters out of one of Dante’s levels of hell.
Where have all of these ugly Trinis come from?
It wasn’t so 30 years ago.
---------------------------------------------------------------.
FW: Donald & Christian with his sons
From: dgodda1@lsu.edu
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:30:39 -0500
Mis panas:
Aquí unas fotos tomados durante un fin de semana de descanso en un bosque de pinos en Texas donde "Little Chris" (como llamamos al hijo enano de Christian) jugando en un torneo profesional de Disc Golf (o frisbee).
"Porcia" no se han dado cuenta, los gordos son los viejos y los flacos son los jóvenes.
Un abrazo para todos,
Donald
Donald A. Goddard
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
225.578.4538 skype 225.578.4538 (office) 225.975.0222 skype 225.975.0222 (cellular)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
Re: Old MSB - Contact
From: kazim abasali <kazim.asaatt@gmail.com>
Hi Jerry,
Nice to hear from you.
I am forwarding your emails and info to Ladislao, Nigel, and Don who have been facilitating the boys so faithfully over the years.
Thanks to the inspiration and the perseverance of Ladislao over the many year.
Please visit the newsletter that Ladislao does in the blog that is put together by Don, and Nigel will include your contact info in the database.
Please make sure and get in contact with them.
The newsletter and blogs will have more and better photos.
And you can update Ladislao with your journey since you left school to share with the boys.
Blessings to you brother.
Take care......Kazim
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 3:24 PM, Jeremy de Barry <tobagojo@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello Kazim (& Don),
[Wow, I'm so out of it at this time!]
Kazim,
Was having a browse around and discovered that you're the webmaster for (The Abbey School) Mount St. Benedict Alumni Association of Trinidad & Tobago - site.
I don't know (or can't remember) you as an old Abbey School boy, however, thanks ever so for doing a lovely job and keeping us informed as you do.
Can somebody email me some larger size version of the 'Class' and 'Scout' pictures that you have on this site (with the name notes attached somewhere); as I'd like another stab at putting some names to some faces. One (or two) of the 'scout' pictures look like the 'Coura Camp' of XXXXX (at this time) that I attended.
And A Lindsy Moffat + Charles(? - Or something) Moffat from St Lucia appeared unnamed;
things like that I'd like to check. (If not already done by others.)
----------------------Now this next comment is probably 'Old Hat'; You do recall that 'Vush' or Father Benedict had his photo lab under the old dormitory (next to the 'Seniors' room); out back.
Has anyone managed to get all his negatives?
That's an historic MSB gold mine!
PS is 'Vush' still alive?
---------------------Nice.
What qualifies as Alumni?
See there is a list = Mount Old Boys (1945 - 1955); on the site.
Well it also did 1956 to some time in the early 1970's; when it all crashed out.
Can we do this list of the next lot for this site?
-----------Look forward to a comment or two.
Very best regards
Jerry
Jeremy de Barry - EEEng (MSB 1961 - 1967) DOB20110111
------------------------------------------------------------------------.
Ladislao Kertesz at kertesz11@yahoo.com,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Photos:
Mount Inside No. 10 page 22
08UN1510JBEGRP, Photo from the reunion 2008
60LK0002GCE, GCE Model Answers in Mathematics.
73LM0001LME, Luciano Mellone
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