History23

EDITORIAL OF THE PELICAN, SUMMER 1966
Author Unknown
Taken from The Pelican - Summer 1966, lent by Mike Byrne

Looking back over a seminary year as it draws to a close, one is always faced with the greatest difficulty in making a fair assessment of the accomplishments and progress which the year has brought.

Not only is so much dependent on the spiritual aspect, which can never be fully assessed, but there can always be found within the community itself some critics and even cynics who unconsciously do much to distort the overall picture. But it would be to the lessening of truth if one were to omit to mention that spirituality has not been so obviously dominant as it might have been; the same lessening effect would be realised if one also forgot that occasionally critics have been rational and constructive.

It is thus hoped that the articles in this edition of The Pelican are written by rational critics in search of a fair assessment. In this respect gratitude is due to those contributors, such as Mr Mills of St John's College, and Brother Bernard Mahon of St Mary's College, Southampton, for providing objective and "outside" views, one of Priorians at St John's, and the second more specifically of the prowess of our actors.

Those articles from Danby Hall are taken from the periodical issues of their own community magazine, "Yure Danby."

The year has seen zest displayed in several fields, although on the whole it has not been an exceptionally spirited twelve months. Sports and studies have been attacked with all due fervour, perhaps the latter with over-due fervour, and the result has been for the most part to our advantage. Enthusiasm was marked during Retreat at the beginning of year and our debt to the preacher, Father E Mahoney, during those three days is unforgettable.

Other visitors, in the persons of variously experienced missionaries such as Father G. Taylor, fresh from Kipalapala, and a Dutch White Father working in Zambia, Father H. Hinfelaar, kindly served to cal the missionfield in Africa to mind. Father Walsh, Assistant to the Superior General, paid us a prolonged visit during which he apparently made provisions for the Priory's gradual demise; the provisions are outlined by Father Superior in his article below, Another visitor, a regular one, has been Brother Kelly who for occasional week-end retreats from his Architectural studies in London has busied himself at the Priory. His useful hands have presented us with items such as a new notice board and have assured him an always warm welcome.

Visiting however has not been only a one-way business. Raymond Sweeney fell seriously sick during the Easter Term, and since his emergency, a danger which necessitated Extreme Unction, Priorians have frequently visited him in Winchester Hospital. Gratitude is due to his efforts in hospital which have produced our magazine cover.

In a different regard, visits were also paid to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in their local appearances and one group attended a Sadlers Wells performance of "La Boheme" at Southsea. These were the first outings of such a cultural nature within the memory of present Priorian `and their appreciable success apparently assures them of continuation in the future.

Manual work outside the seminary has also played a considerable part in the past year. Besides the work carried out for some profit in the yard of a local builder's contractor, work elsewhere described in this magazine, many boys volunteered their services to work for various people during the two weeks prior to Easter. In a different kind of way, this work was also for profit. However, the money earned was put into a collective fund aimed at sending a physically handicapped boy to Lourdes with the National Handicapped Children's Pilgrimage. The fund had been initiated from the proceeds of a complicated sweepstake on the results of the General Election, and finally achieved the £35 necessary to serve its purpose. For those taking G.C.E.'s this summer charitable social work, similar to that engaged in last year, is being planned to occupy them during the last two weeks of term.

So, although with the closing of the year much may be difficult to gauge, an admirable practical spirit has undoubtedly played its part. Zest may have been lacking where it is necessary, but it is always easier to note where it amply exists than where it is perhaps absent. One can certainly hope that Priory zest will find its way into all aspects of its dubious future. Then we will be able to thank God even more heartily than we do now for the way in which He has blessed this past year.

BISHOP'S WALTHAM COMES TO ST JOHN'S COLLEGE
By Mr Ronald Mills
Taken from The Pelican - Summer 1966, lent by Mike Byrne

Some years ago, after years on the staff of St. John's College, to my surprise, since I had always prided myself on getting to know at least the face of every boy in the school by the time he had reached the top forms, a crop of new faces began to appear.

This would have aroused no comment were they those of the very young, but obviously these belonged to young men: some slender, some round, some tough; some looking firm, adult and more than razor-familiar.

Moreover, a priest, other than the school chaplain, was seen as often as any regular member of the staff. Masses could be attended at lunch-time and a group of these mysterious newcomers were observed to stay on for devotions long after anyone else and with apparent attachment to the Blessed Sacrament unprecedented, in such a number, in the history of S. John's.

Gradually, we, the uninitiated, upon whom changes at this school seem to materialise and organically grow rather than be foreknown and anticipated, came to realise that this was "Bishop's Waltham." Now, by a happy trick of our language, this metonymous appellation is used by everyone: "Oh, Mac So and So, he is Bishop's Waltham, isn't he?" or "Have 'Bishop's Waltham' arrived"? if by accident or design the vehicle peculiar to "Bishop's Waltham" is late.

Only during the past two years have I come into contact with their interesting personalities. First, through the arts. For the poetry prize, more interesting entries, in greater numbers, came in from this group than from the rest of the school. These poems showed some interesting stresses, conflicts and probings revealing, in some cases, rich interior lives. Not one of these entries won the prize but, for the first time, personalities became more than passing figures The veil which always obscures new people flying suddenly into one's life, began to lift a little. As time passed, one, leaving all competitors behind won the public reading prize, another showed prowess in games, another excelled in athletic events; so the strangeness wore off: here was not an aloof, pious, clique, catapulted into an alien environment merely for academic convenience, but warm living folk whose one desire was to integrate and contribute.

What that contribution is, it is difficult to make clear. Psychologically, those of us labelled "lay" are bound to be influenced by those who have chosen a service dedicated to God and sacrificed to man. All that this must mean: discipline of body and mind; often being avoided; celibacy: in being given to all; suffering, as must be at times, the apartness which every cleric feels. Coupled with this the deliberate choice of serving, if such be the will of God, in the most difficult missionary work, exciting perhaps, but dangerous; amongst people, alien in race, colour and custom and most certainly, materially unrewarding. It is necessary to mention this "lay" attitude because, whether "Bishop's Waltham" realises it or not, in assessing their impact on us at St. John's this a priori knowledge of them, which their very choice indicates, cannot be excluded.

To return however to the contribution. Generally, their presence has immensely enriched the school. This is undoubted; they are joyous, they see things fully, sometimes with sympathy. sometimes with pity; the most abysmal depths to which some of the fictional characters they study fall, leave them aware, sorry, but undismayed. Their standards are different. One of them regards King Lear in his early, autocrafic period as not overwhelmingly powerful and magnificent but very self-centred and petty. A view which by Christian standards is true enough, but one seldom heard voiced by hardened, Shakespearean critics. Another difference, apart from the sartorial one of yellow-badged A-S-A' d blazers, which occasionally appear because of cleaning exigencies, is the interest they take in people. School-boys are notorious for being able to assume "dead-pan" masks or building retreat walls in time of danger. Not these, they wish to know and be known.

So, rightly or wrongly, these are my own findings of this group who are fated to have to give loyalty to two establishments at once, to move in two spheres which they seem to unite successfully. Do they leaven the lump? Does our lump need leavening? This I will not answer. I will end with this remark. Every member of the Staff, without one dissident voice, says that the school would be the poorer if, for any reason, "Bishop's Waltham" has to be withdrawn.

(source: Tony Smyth)

L - R:

Robert Dempsey (The Promoter) , —— , (Fr) Richard Kinlen (First Soldier),
—— (in white at front), Michael Cairns (Second Soldier), the back of ?
(Philip Mason?), Adrian Moran (Archbishop of Rheims), Cedric Pollard
(The Dauphin) , John Corrigan (Page) , Peter Shorrock (Joan).

(source : Cedric Pollard)

Cedric writes (November 2011):

"I was the Dauphin and Agnes Sorel was my friend Simon Blandford".

MID-TERM IN BLUNT'S YARD
By Andrew Murphy, Form V1
Taken from The Pelican - Summer 1966, lent by Mike Byrne

Less than six years could well have convinced me of the maxim—to be a White Father you must be a jack-of-all trades—but I never before had the occasion to consider the hardships of a seminarian labouring in the yard of a builder's contractor.

This exceptional undertaking was suggested to our Superior, Father Fowles, by the familiar and good-natured Mr Blunt. Such an offer would undoubtedly have met with little response had not the question of payment balanced the rarity of vacations and the need to recuperate. But, nevertheless, large numbers deserted the ranks of the unemployed, commenting enthusiastically on the exonerative terms of employment.

The inclemency of Saturday morning's weather, despite its benumbing effect on exposed and more sensitive parts of the anatomy, failed to dampen the animated spirits of the workers, steadfast in their resolution to prove themselves worthy of their wage-packet. Throughout the early evening little was heard of working conditions, but conversation evolved solely and characteristically around the problem of the day's earnings.

Talk at supper table was depressing: sullen faces expressed the mood of the evening and the food was turned aside. Determined to free the remaining recreation from the intermingling of customary holiday gaiety and working-class distress, the burden of representation was immediately imposed upon the college captain and an assistant. Shortly afterwards, the delegation, emerging from the cover of darkness, was overpowered by hordes of expectant Priorians. The facial expressions of the former, revealing the paradoxical combination of success and failure, suggested a compromise.

Mr Blunt, though a shrewd and business-like man, decided with a little persuasion that his capabilities did not yet extend to the out-maneouvring of seminarians, who, though hired as cheap labour, resolved to draw the line above a slavish income. On Monday morning, having discarded the Labour Party's motion to strike, as a solution to Saturday's apparent injustice, the considerably reduced rabble, selected from the age-group sixteen and above, sallied forth, informed explicitly of the employment conditions stipulated by our new boss.

Housebuilding was out of the question. We had to satisfy ourselves stacking heavy crates, pyramid fashion, despite the interior protestations of the foreman. Work finished promptly at five. Our boss was as good as his word. We received our twelve shillings respectively and set out on the long trek home, weary but thankful.