Circular No 1048

 

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

Caracas, 8 of March 2022. No. 1048

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Dear Friends,

Continuing with the latest round of exchanges, this time those received from Jan 28 to Jan 27.

Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end, we'd sing and dance our life away, ta ra ra ra: GIRLS AT THE MOUNT

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GEORGE MICKIEWICZ <amickiew@att.net>

Fri, Jan 28 at 10:10 AM

Joe’s sharings are available in the subsequent memos.

George

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On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 6:55 AM,

GEORGE MICKIEWICZ <amickiew@att.net> wrote:

Thanks, Joe….for your personal reflections.

Can I share them with Ladislao?

Blessings,

George

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From: Joseph Berment-McDowald

Sent: Friday, January 28, 2022 1:08 AM

Dear George,

I should also say that in my time our teachers were very influential in helping us develop our critical thinking skills.

They encouraged us to question rather than to accept and as a consequence I and I presume others became quite independent minded.

The routine and structure were very helpful to me and I suppose that because I had taken to scouting that I had it on steroids to the degree that I remember someone who worked we me recently asking if once was in the military.

It would seem that ours was really an enlightened age relative to earlier times but I also tend to look at some situations differently from others.

Then there is the general personality of Germanic peoples:

the same mindset that makes them economically successful and masters of planning, organisation and the arts and sciences is the one which carried to an extreme to exhibit an exasperating tenacious unnecessary rigidity.

We can talk about this another time.

All the best: stay well.

Sincerely,

Joe

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On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 12:26 AM,

Joseph Berment-McDowald <bermentmcdowald@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hello George,

I read Jan's and Goddard's emails with great relish. 

I admit that my Abbey School experience left me wanting in many ways but without it I would have been definitely the poorer much poorer.

I don't blame the Abbey School for my defects and pathologies only myself and the situation in the home that I came from.

Fr. Cuthbert was real father to me and I needed one badly.

Many of the teachers were equally helpful and even inspirational like David Basanta, Abbot Hildebrand, Fr. Vincent Merrique, Mr. Lennox Seales, Mr. Macintosh and Fr. Ildefonse.

We had more than our fair share of bad teachers including monks and decisions not made in the students’ interest including a big one made on my behalf - -

I was forbidden from taking physics.

Certainly, things were not as bad as in their time.

One knew who to trust and who to avoid.

Miss Marcus and Fr. Cuthbert provided safety and protection.

Kindest regards,

Joe

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On Thu, Jan 27, 2022

Joseph Berment-McDowald <bermentmcdowald@yahoo.com> wrote:

Many thanks George.

Please let Jan know that if I will be glad if he cares to include me in future mailings but that I won't be offended if he chooses not to.

Yours sincerely,

Joe

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On Thu, Jan 27, 2022

George Mickiewicz <amickiew@att.net> wrote:

Hi Joe

Noted that you were not in the distribution of Jan’s note below.  

Not sure if you received the previous ones.

Cheers,

George 

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From: Jan en Berthy

Sent: Thursday, January 27

To keep 100 boarding school boys under control night and day with only two or three monks and maybe two brothers and some prefects, there were some strict rules applied.  But at any normal public school those rules didn't exist.

If you would compare the differences there may be a thousand rules, we could get a punishment for while on any ordinary school they would not.

Walking outside the borders was nowhere else punishable.

We sure did have a very different regime than others of our own age.

In your teens living by the bell or scout whistle or handclap day in day out for four or more years flushed out any form of self-discipline or practice in it.

It gave many of us a hardship later in life not being able to cope with lack of self-discipline.

Stuff like getting out of bed on time or on a time you set for yourself.

We never practiced that.

There are things you have to learn at the appropriate age.

If you don't learn to talk at the age of 1-2 you never learn it well.

If you don't learn to bike at the age of 4-5 you never learn it well.

If you don't engage with girls at 13-15 you never learn it well.

When I left Mount in '67 I came to a public school with mixed boys and girls who were mixed from kindergarten- or prep school age.

I was the only one without experience!

Maybe only ten years later, I must have been around 25 years, it dawned to me for the first time that the law was the other way around.

You were innocent until proven guilty in a fear trial where everybody could have their say equally.

At Mount it was always guilty until proven innocent, and anything you tried to bring in to prove your innocence was never believed.

And at some point you were forbidden to have your say and shut up.

Later on in life it was difficult to cope with this not having learned to fight for yourself and not being treated guilty from the start.

Being about 16 years, I had two metal marbles.

They were big, about one inch in diameter.

They were my most precious toys at Mount, I kept them in the drawer of my locker.

One day they were gone.

So, I got emotional, screamed "somebody stole my marbles".

The prefect was close by, I went to him to report.

He did nothing.

The Friday evening at supper in the refectory it was broadcasted through the speakers that I was on the blacklist (guilty until proven innocent with any proof of innocence waved away).

It turned out I had talked in the dormitory, because I said somebody stole my marbles, the prefect reported me on the blacklist.

But it had a tail.

The earlier mentioned Fr. Theo wanted modern things.

He erected a court with a judge and lawyers.

Sittings were held in the airconditioned room.

Fr. Theo chose me as the first guinea pig.

I did not have the faintest idea of what I was accused of.

I had no communication with my lawyer.

I had to stay outside the room which was airtight.

I couldn't hear a word that was said inside.

Then the judge called me, some older boy, he starts shouting at me, the lawyer said something, and then I was punished to write lines every afternoon in the studies for about a month!

Fr.Theo approached me at the lectern, asked if I didn't want to appeal.

At that age I did not know the meaning of what appeal meant, I was Dutch, never heard of that word.

I was scared of more trouble so I said no.

But when I figured out how much punishment I got I went back to Fr. Theo.

But his reply was that it was too late, I had had my chance.

So, I wrote lines in study in the afternoon for a month and delivered them to Fr. Theo.

I never comprehended this particular behaviour of this man. 

That same term it suddenly was broadcasted in the refectory on Saturday evening that a boy of 16 years was caught outside the borders below the swimming pool talking to two girls.

He was to write lines every Saturday evening during movie time for the rest of the term, about two months to go.

That was the last term I was at Mount.

I passed well from Form 4 to 5.

In Surinam the new school thought it not fit enough and put me back in the fourth class.

But with coping difficulties, I failed that year, my only time. 

Why coping difficulties?

It was a mixed boy-girl school who had been on boy-girl schools from kindergarten and prep school time.

They were acquainted with that their whole life.

I had none of that, only a boys-school.

While two months earlier I could get punishment writing lines for two months every Saturday evening talking to girls outside borders, now I could talk to any number of girls any time.

What was that supervision for by a nun and a monk during dancing with the girls Attila Gyuris is talking about?

At the new school there was no supervision at all and nothing went wrong either!

I got a motorbike and before and after school I could go anywhere in town, meet anybody, talk to any girl, and buy cigarettes in any shop I wanted without the fear some monk was spying on me with a telescope from the seminary and get blacklist punishment.

But to be honest, this fear haunted me for many years making me insecure and not upright sturdy and assertive ready to fight for myself.

Compared to other boys at the new school there was a big lack of experience to go along with girls.

I was way behind.

Getting acquainted with one in the second week was getting in an unknown field of tricks.

Just being toyed with, she broke up within a few weeks and her friends laughing out while I didn't understand any of it.

Imagine, four years Mount, then back doing fourth year again, and then fail that year.

I thought I had good education at Mount.

I never was able to talk to my parents about it.

They were too far away of the subject and too old, they wouldn't grasp this court experiment of Fr.Theo.

Wasn't it against the law to take justice in your own hands with your own court and punishment of one month carried out in reality?

I could never tell them; they were too old already.

Being at university living on your own in a room the lack of self-discipline and life experience came out to the full.

The other Dutch students who never were on a boarding school, were much more experienced than me.

I couldn't compete with them at all.

They finished university two years earlier than me, the smart one even four years.

It is truthful to say that was my cause?

If you take in consideration if the time at Mount was a jail-time or not, I think you should compare it with how it was for students at public schools.

Where would they get punishments for?

I think there is a big difference up to almost the opposite.

We weren't brought up to compete in a modern society.

The rules and punishments were just to keep 100 boys under control with as few people as possible, the punishments needed to be merciless with no consideration of any personal circumstance.

And the money our parents paid was to raise new parishes and finance existing ones.

At the centennial our existence wasn't even mentioned in the commemorating radio broadcast.

I don't know if the education at Mount was meant to suit for a job in the Netherlands.

And there was a lot of unemployment too after I left university the end of 70-ies early 80-ies.

One thing for sure, after all that education the society wasn't waiting for me.

Only when I didn't mention my time in Trinidad and Suriname, I was invited for a job interview and after a few interviews I finally got a job in my education level.

After marriage it took me years to adjust to family life seeing the joy of it.

During study at the university, on X-Mas, Easter and Pentecost all students went home to their mum with their laundry.

Mine were in an old age home or were already in heaven.

So, I spent those holidays on my own.

When I had children, it took me years to get back to reality and see the pleasure in those holidays.

The loneliness and stale time, it haunted me for over ten years, maybe 15.

Of course, I took care of all the safety of my children.

And of course, no things against the law where the police would come after you.

But for the rest I did the opposite than Mount.

No rules but reasoning, no punishment but have a good talk and explain.

Always allowed to have their own say, never a punishment or barking to them if they have a different opinion.

Every year the highest Dutch general says that freedom of speech and freedom of opinion are the most important to be defended first.

For me that applies also for young children.

I never forced them to go to church or say prayers.

In the Netherlands in ten years’ time (2006-2016) about 1700 churches closed down, are empty now or broken down.

That is 3 church buildings each week.

In my hometown in 1984 there were five parishes with priests.

Now there are none.

Since 1905 the Christian parties were always in majority and were in government in the Netherlands.

In 1994 for the first time, they were in the opposition one term.

While they always had 40-50 seats out of 150 in parliament, today they have 11 and the polls give them 6.

The generation who always voted Christian because the church told them so, without thinking of their own, has died out in ten years’ time.

Now it is the Flower Power generation with only thinking of their own, no priest or union to tell them what to vote, and they don't vote Christian parties anymore except some orthodox core.

This is not on anyone personal of the Mount.

It was the system.

Please let us be able to talk about it without taking it as offence.

This is the place we can share our memories.

After Mount you were on your own without any guidance from Mount in your new life.

The first twenty years no contact at all!

Father Cuthbert visited me twice in one month in the Netherlands.

One of my most precious moments in life.

His sister where he was staying lived in my hometown so he dropped by.

But besides that, I never heard from Mount St. Benedict besides maybe four or five contacts after I left Mount.

It's only because of the Circulars of Ladislao I got back in touch.

Only after 2010 I learned that peeping at minor boys through a telescope from a distance is punishable by law with jail sentence.

That's how I was caught buying two cigarettes in the shop below the swimming pool.

That thorough government investigation resulted in that sexual abuse in Dutch boarding schools between 1945 and 1970 was twice as much as in the rest of the Netherlands.

It was only for schools inside the Netherlands, not abroad.

I never experienced anything sexual at Mount, not with the monks nor the boys.

But there was a lot of bullying from the old boys.

After 1970 all boarding schools closed down in the Netherlands and after Woodstock no more separate boys and girls school.

I wanted for my sons a mixed boy girl school, but that was the only type of school I could choose from.

When I first came to Mount, I did not speak English.

So, if the rules were explained to the new boys, I didn't understand a word if it like in the movie La Vita e Bella.

I only learned the rules the hard way, by getting caught and punished without mercy.

Only after about three months I was able to understand enough English that other boys could explain me some rules.

In my case I was sent to Mount because things weren't going that well on the plantation.

So, my mother needed her hands free to cope with the work problems.

She was 46 when I was born.

Not everybody was at Mount with good education as the prime reason.

It was often because of the convenience. 

Much greetings,

Jan Koenraadt MSB '63-'67

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Op do 27 jan. 2022 04:06 schreef

Donald Goddard <liverpool.petroleum@gmail.com>:

Harold:

I'll write two books; one with no "naughty words" for the "holier than thou" amongst us and a twin book with plenty of "bad words" for the enjoyment of the majority of the guys who cuss a lot in between their prayers. 

You won't have to buy the book because I will give it to you for free.

I promise you that when I finish writing such a book, those who read it will be greatly enlightened as to the realities of "Mount" boarding school life, especially for those of you who have been living in a fantasy bubble for so many years.

So as not to offend the delicate ones among us, I shall entitle the book with no naughty, naughty words: "Mount Normal Guys of the 1950s vs. Mount Naive Children of the 1960s".

Cheers,

Donald Goddard

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EDITED by Ladislao Kertesz,  kertesz11@yahoo.com,  if you would like to subscribe for a whole year and be in the circular’s mailing list or if you would like to mention any old boy that you would like to include, write to me.

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Photo:

65JK0001SCOUTBADGE, Scout badge

08LK1799PTAREUNION2008, Peter Tang

06UN0122GRP, Abbey boys and staff

06WK0027BVI, Bro. Vincent