CHAPTER 2
Training for the Priesthood

In 1935 I was fourteen. My dreaming was interfering with my schoolwork. Brother headmaster said I was lazy, but I think I was too busy daydreaming. My father saw no point in my staying in school and paying the fees, so he asked me if I wanted to leave school and work with him and learn the business.

After he paid the termination fee, I was free to leave school and began a real life for me. I didn't mind my dad having "'bought me out of school" I loved working. I learned how to type invoices and answer the phone. I went out to deliver packets or messages in and about town. It was a very happy year.

On my first day at work, I had gone to the Labour Exchange for an errand. I couldn't remember how it happened but I lost my bike. It was very devastating. My parents' printing business had an outstanding bill with a bicycle company in town (they owed us money) so I got a bicycle as part payment. It was listed at five and a half pounds and, with a twenty-five per cent reduction, I paid four pounds and pennies. I was now in heaven. It was a sports bike. It was light and I could keep up with the best. It opened new horizons for me. I had this bike for a long time, up until my ordination into priesthood (when I reluctantly sold it and bought another one). Most Sundays I would go off on my own or with a friend into the countryside, away from the drab city with its soot and grime.

I worked through the summer, fall and until Christmas. Being the son of the boss, people called me "Mr. Kevin." I participated in an office party where a customer's daughter named Jessie Combs was invited. I wanted to take her home but my parents would not allow me.

My favourite pastime was hanging out with the boys on our bikes and doing tricks with them. A friend, Bill Hayes, and I bought a tent together. His sister Eileen borrowed it to go tenting with her friends, Pat and Joan, in Baslow.

One evening on the way back home, I started to worry because it was getting dark and I didn't have a light on the bike. With this lightweight bike, I went downhill so fast that I passed a car. The driver was furious and wondered what I was trying to prove. I went home and never gave it a thought. The following day, Mother asked me where I was last night. She said she read in the "Letters to the Editor" about a driver complaining of a young cyclist who overtook him. This driver mentioned that when he asked this lad, "What are you doing?" the young lad replied, "You should see me when I try."

In the fall of that year, I met a French priest who was dressed in white. He was a White Father. I met him at the Carmelite convent at Kirkedge. I remember him telling me, "If you want to be a White Father you will have to write to Father Superior with the White Fathers at the Priory, Bishop's Waltham, near Southampton." It was rather a shock. I was very happy with my life. I loved my job. I was making friends and this man just comes to me and redirects my dreams. I brushed the idea aside until later in the fall after Benediction in church one Sunday evening. I was waiting for the tram to take me home when suddenly I decided I would write. I wrote a letter to the Father Superior that night and mailed it next morning. I did not tell anyone until a letter came in the mail telling me to come after the Christmas holidays. I think it was on January 17, 1936 (before my fifteenth birthday).

When I told my parents about the letter, my mother was quite happy . She had always hoped I would be a priest. My father was not enthusiastic but did not say much. I had a list of things I would need to take with me to the Priory, which was a kind of high school seminary. I needed bed sheets, towels, two suits, etc. Mother helped me get things together and bought a ticket for the train.

On January 17, a very anxious fourteen-year-old boy who thought he was very grown up but in reality was confronted with uncertainties, set off alone on a train journey of more than two hundred miles. To comfort me, Mother had made substantial sandwiches and a huge piece of fruitcake to eat on this trip. To this date I can still taste it.

It was dark when I reached Winchester. At the railway station there were some boys wearing the same school cap and I looked at them and wondered. Eventually, a priest with a black beard came and asked, "Are you Kevin Wiseman?" His name was Father Gaffney. We all walked with our suitcases to the bus stop. This was in January but the bus we boarded had an open top and we all went up and sat in the fresh air. As the bus rumbled on its ten-mile trip to Bishop Waltham's, Father Gaffrey led the boys in singing, "Rolling home to the Priory, by the light of the silvery moon."

Photo (left) : Fr Francis Bernard Gaffney at The Priory

I was shown my bed in the dormitory of perhaps fifty boys. I felt like a very little child over two hundred miles away from home and I did not know a soul. It was a lot to ponder for a fourteen-year-old. I had left high school in the third year without completing it. Here I was put into the Poetry, the fourth year, and halfway through the year. I guess it was a mistake but I could hold my own in mathematics and even French. Latin was a problem but I tried very hard and by July I had completed Poetry and could graduate to Rhetoric, the fifth year. But again I was told I was lazy and would have to work harder. (Give a dog a bad name!)

I went home to Sheffield for the holidays and I think I was sick. I had dreamed for so long about taking my bike and riding it out into Derbyshire with my friend, Bill Hayes. We went together just once one morning and I fell sick, went to bed and stayed there for a couple of weeks. I felt the sting about being lazy. I did believe that eventually I got up but my skin was peeling. It is possible that I had scarlet fever. This was not the summer holiday of my dreams.

(Source : Celia Bermingham — Fr Kevin Wiseman's sister)

An official Priory postcard

In September I was back in Bishop Waltham's for my fifth and final year. I was fifteen and I was chosen to be a substitute prefect. Shortly afterwards one of the prefects left and I was promoted and got a special school cap. It had a Maltese cross on top of it.

The year 1936 was quite significant in my life. I felt proud of my achievements, of leaving home, succeeding in my schooling and was now in the top class, determined that no one would call me lazy again. I had worked hard at my lessons. I learned the theorems of Euclid. I learned reams of Latin by heart. On December 26, 1936, I went home for the Christmas holidays.

I was a happier person when I returned to Bishop Waltham's in January 1937 to complete my high school and to pass the dreaded London Matriculation.

Bishop Waltham's was situated on the Downs in Hampshire where I enjoyed taking walks. Even more exciting were the bike rides on full-day holidays. We would visit the local towns and go to the seaside. Everything was so clean. I had a raincoat that I inherited from my dad but it was very dirty in Sheffield. Wearing it in the rain here in Bishop Waltham's made it clean again. The food here was simple but adequate. One day I confessed that when my mother made rice pudding I could finish the whole dish and that earned me the nickname "Guts" (meaning big eater).

(Source : Celia Bermingham — Fr Kevin Wiseman's sister)

Priory boys out cycling in the 1930s.


(Source : Celia Bermingham — Fr Kevin Wiseman's sister)

Roller skating at The Priory in the 1930s - but not on the best of surfaces, if you remember.

As spring approached, I began to hurt with headaches and strain. I was sent to the doctor who prescribed rest. I was sent home to rest! I know that during that time of recuperation, my parents didn't know what to do with me and they decided I needed a change. I went to Scotland to the White Fathers' school there.

I fiddled with a little car which was outside under a shed. I got it started and found out I could drive it. A teacher at the school had a motorbike and the boys used to push him to get it started. One day, because I was older and not a student, he let me drive it. It was heavenly. I had driven a motorbike from the college to the farm and back. In the future I would be taking trips on motorbikes.

I saw myself back in Bishop Waltham in September 1937. I was a vice-captain of the school and schoolwork was relatively easier. We had a new superior, Father Smith, who allowed us a more liberal way of life. Of the twelve students who went to Southampton to sit for the London Matriculation exam, only four succeeded and I was one of them. The liberal approach would need checking into. I passed with flying colors and now could advance to new things.

Brother Paddy with Fr Kevin Wiseman's father — at The Priory.

I was to start Philosophy in the seminary of Autreppe in Belgium. The address: Ormeignies Lez Ath.

Attired in a black suit and black hat, I crossed the English Channel on a ferry for the first time. It was an exciting experience. I even bought cigarettes duty-free and soon arrived in a strange land. At the seminary, two White Father uniforms were ready for me. The following day I got all dressed up and began my course of Philosophy. There were also walks allowed in the local countryside, a black hat was worn of course.

Meanwhile, when I was on home leave in Sheffield, my youngest sister Bernie was born in August of 1937, making me sixteen and a half years older than her. She was cute and cuddly and had a good disposition. Unfortunately, I didn't get much chance to enjoy her because this was the time I had to leave for Belgium. I have a recollection of my mother sitting by the fireplace feeding Bernie some oatmeal.

Within two months I was suffering again of an unknown condition. The French priest, Pere Antoine, drove me to the doctor who decided I was under stress and was in danger of casser la tete (breaking my head). They remarked at this time that although I was quite good at French, I would have to leave! I was sent back to England and reported to the Provincial, Father Brown. He had me examined by a Harley Street specialist who prescribed rest. Father Brown said that since I had broken down twice, I could try again but a third breakdown would indicate that I should look elsew here to serve.

It was late autumn when I returned home. Almost immediately at this time, my father's business was in serious financial problems, maybe bankruptcy! Dad went to bed. A customer friend came to the house to see if he could help. Our neighbor, Mr. Cawood showed up. He said he had a lady in mind trained in the secretarial field and needed a job for her. He had a bit of money, and he saw that the business was all right if properly managed. Within a week of the business being in the verge of failure, I found myself working with Miss Lindely and it was I who was teaching her!

I now was sporting a Clark Gable moustache. I wore my black hat to the office and I took the place of our traveling salesman, Mr. Bradley. My father's salary was seriously cut back but I was given a pound-and-a half each week and I asked them to add this to my father's salary since everything would have to go to help the family. I got a few shillings for pocket money, which was enough to buy cigarettes and I rode my bike or took the bus to visit with the customers. We survived the crisis. I loved every minute of my job, the new people and being respectfully called, "Mr Wiseman."

My friend, Bill Hayes, and I were riding our bikes in Darbyshire in a footpath when an overzealous policeman in plain clothes stopped us. He asked for our names and addresses. He said we were breaking the law and that we will have to pay a fine of five shillings. Instead of going to court which was far away, we were advised by Mr. Cawood, that a registered mail with the money would settle it.

Spring and summer came and my blood heated up again for adventure. News came that the White Fathers had let go of the seminary in Autreppe, Belgium and had bought a house called Rossington Hall some twenty miles from Sheffield. As the days got longer I would ride out after work and visit with my friends and see this fantastic house and grounds where I could perhaps continue my studies. It was August, we closed the business for a two-week holiday and I left home for good.

In the summer I was invited to come back to school, this time to Rossington Hall. I went to live there and to help get ready for the students' arrival in September. It did not happen. There were other clouds on the horizon. It was on a Sunday morning in September 1939 and I had just walked into Rossington . . . War had been declared.