Newsletter for
alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.
Caracas, 17 March 2018 No. 854
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Dear Friends,
--------------------------------------------
Dear friends,
Recently I
have been dealing with more health-related issues. And I have to cut down on my
work load to get my health in order. Still working to bring down my blood
pressure for months now.
So with
that in mind, and the fact that if something happens to me and I cannot attend
to the website anymore, there will be no continuation.
So I created
a free WordPress website https://msbasaa.wordpress.com/
And hosted
all the photos on Google.photos which is also free.
Ladislao
and Don, can you please share this info on the Blog.
Blessings
to you my dear friends.
Love you
all.
Kazim
Focus on your health
and get better!....thanks for all your work....
Hope things work out
for you.
Get better soon and
thanks for everything.
I need a 2nd opinion
on your condition, your high blood pressure, this is too long now, they have to
bring it down, call me on messenger OK,
I may have to come
and visit you in May or so, I don't like what ah hearing Kaz. cheers - take it
easy bro, One Luv The Club.
Kazim, call me at
+18686845385 on your BP. I’m sure I can help you!
--------------------------------------------------------.
Brian Goddard wrote
Ladislao:
Yes, certainly, Richard lives in Florida but he was in Trinidad
for vacations at the moment of the photo, and Randy Galt was not in it because
he is a hardened player of the poker and that day preferred the game than to
meet with us.
Maybe next time there won´t be any poker game and I´ll get to see
Randal ("Swami").
I shall keep you informed when I shall return from my next visit
to Trinidad at the beginning of March.
Thanks for the photo of class 58, they are just a little bit
older than we.
I recognize the majority but I do not remember many of them.
Do you have the names as indicated by the numbers?
(No. I have only
some of the names, the majority have not replied, or maybe they do not
recognize themselves, Ed.)
Good Ladislao, I think that I have to go to Caracas once or twice
before my trip and I will call you with anticipation, ok.
I spoke with Farcheg a couple of weeks ago and he mentioned that
they thought of meeting and that he would call me to confirm the date and he
has not done so.
Did they meet or have not done so as yet??
(The old old boys
are suffering from stress so that for the last 6 months there has been no
meeting, Ed.)
Please call me when they are going to meet as this would give me
a good excuse to program a reunion with my company and to go to Caracas on that
day. Please advice me, ok. –
On your friend Steven Tempro in Barbados, I shall try to look him
up when in Barbados.
I do not know if of Peter Boos is somebody from Trinidad or
Barbados.
If he is from Trinidad like I believe he is, is because I knew a
Boos when I was at the Mount and I have a curiosity to know if they are family?
(Peter Boos is in
Barbados, is a cousin of Nigel Boos (1960), Ed.)
Remember that I left MSB in July of the 58 and I needed two or
three years to finalize the baccalaureate (level...??)
I am not as old as the friends in Caracas (Urban, Isaias, *
Lipaski, * Azier Atela, * Castro, Manuel Parra, Csaba Jacobzen, and others.
My contemporaries were: Mussolini, Marini, the Sol and others
that I do not remember at this moment.
Where are they now: Lipaski, Azier, Manuel Prada and the Castro
brothers.
With this I take leave and you do not forget to confirm if
reunion is before 21 of February and/or the possibility of doing one on Monday
23 of Carnival, when I shall go to Caracas; since on Tuesday 24 I leave
Maiquetia to Barbados via Piarco.
Saludos,
Brian
---------------------------------------------------------------.
An interesting e-mail was received some time ago. Hope Elizabeth can
forgive me for bringing up her letter after so long.
Guys, please write her. My answers to her questions
are in parenthesis.
On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 15:07:57 EST,
Dear
Ladislao Kertesz,
I am a novelist living in New York.
I was born in Trinidad and left there when I was 19. I have
written five novels and am now revising my sixth novel.
For this novel, I need some information about the boarding school
at Mount St. Benedict. Someone told me that you may be the person to help
me.
Can you help me with the following information?
(Yes I can, I have
looked at you page and it is great. Ed.)
When did the boarding school open? 1942?
When did it close and why? (Boarding school in 1973, and the school in 1985. lost
its economic proposition. Ed.)
Why did the monks open up a school? (I
presume for economic gain and seminarian support. Ed.)
Who, generally, were the students? (Sons of British civil servant parents and well to do
Trinidadian parents, those from other islands and Guyana, the Venezuelans to
study English. Ed.)
I need a sense of their socioeconomic backgrounds and why they
chose to go to the school. (The school had a
very good reputation and the Venezuelan got there because of a favourable
exchange rate. Ed.)
How did the students address the monks? Did they say
Brother X? (Yes and
Fr. Y. Ed.)
What did the monks wear? (Cream
coloured habits.)
Where did the students sleep in relation to where the monks
slept? (Schoolkids slept
in dormitories at school where some priests were prefects, maybe 30 kids with
one priest in a closed off area, the rest of the clergy at the monastery. Ed.)
Did the students eat their meals with the monks? (No, separately. Ed)
Did the monks observe silence and for how long during the day?
(I do not know but
at meals they kept silence to eat and listen when one of the clergy read from
the books. Ed)
Were the students expected to observe the silence? (We
kept silence at the beginning of the meals so that food could be shared
in an adequate manner. Ed)
I know these are many questions, but as a writer I need to know
this information so that the scene I am developing will be believable.
(I am giving you the
address of Wayne Vincent Brown, classmate, whom you must know through the
literary circle, some say that he could be a Nobel prize winner??. Currently he
is in Jamaica. Ed)
I would truly appreciate your help. You can get information
about me by logging on to my web site: www.elizabethnunez.com,
All the best,
Elizabeth
Nunez
(I have answered in italic letters,
can anyone help or better yet, write to her, she is a splendid woman!!)
-------------------------------------------------------.
From:
"Cecil & Liz Ince" <shadowlawn@sunbeach.net>
Date: 10 Mar 15:08 (PST)
Dear
Laszlo:
Here are the boys that I remember:
RICHARD DE VERTEUILS recollection of the Boy Scouts from Mount in
Arima – 1948 - 56.
I actually lived opposite Lord Harris' Square where the group
stayed under tents (I think) –
I spent a lot of time with the boys I knew –
ALAIN DEVAUX (Raymonds younger brother) - Arima was then a quiet
town so the invasion of school friends (I was a day boy) from Mount was a great
interlude.
My recollection of FATHER ILDEPHONSE - he expelled me from his
History classes - I just could not grasp the subject due to a rather sketchy
earlier education.
In my more mature years, I developed a great love for the subject
in general - a bit of irony.
I wrote to 'SCROOTS' in the early 80's for some special occasion
in his life, and he replied saying that he had not been a contented person, for
most of his life and that it was only in the late 60's to early 70's that he
had found the Lord.
So we reconciled any hard feelings of my youth and his History
classes.
FATHER BERNARD VLAAR, just weeks before he died, visited Barbados
and for the first time, he and I spoke as adults - he said that the original
objective of the Mount was to cater to a select elite group of boys –
I was only a day boy from Arima - one of about nine or ten day
boys - inference was that we were seen then as rather second class citizens - a
bit of tokenism to the community on Mounts part.
So of course, my achieving the Cambridge Exams of 1949 at First
Grade was significant in my life –
NOEL LLANOS was 1948 - brilliant boy (I think l4) and he gained
lst Grade and was awarded the JERNINGHAM Medal for his outstanding marks.
I called PETER BOOS - he was there 1954-55 and says he hears from
you.
I tried STEPHEN TEMPRO who runs Smugglers Cove, a hotel on our
West Coast (Payne's Bay) but got no reply.
SCIPIO SOODEEN lives 3 houses East of me - we became very
friendly over the past several years - he celebrated his 72nd birthday some
weeks ago. One of his daughters, NEYSHA, publishes from Trinidad - a highly
successful glossy magazine called MACO - covers architecture and some culinary
fancies indigenous to the Caribbean.
RICHARD DRIVER is a cousin of mine and lives somewhere on the
West Coast of Canada. My telephone number is 246-427-7521 - my fax at home is
246-228-1810.
JOHN DULIEU lives in St. Lucia - as per my last contact some
years ago - sorry I cannot help more on him. Years, ago, he and his family
lived several houses East of me on the same ridge when he was a Captain with
the airline LIAT. (Lost contact with
him also last year, ed)
Regret, I do not have any class photos - but my Form Four
classmates (and most moved up to Form Five - with some who were in Form Five
doing a repeat year.
ANGUS FRASER (studied for the Priesthood and was last heard of
somewhere in Africa) –
LOUIS ACHE,
TREVOR EVELYN lives in Canada but we are in occasional phone
contact –
HAMIL MARCELIN,
FATHER VINCENT COMPTON then a Seminarian
GERALD FARINHA from then British Guiana - aborted his Seminarian
studies when last I saw him over 30 years ago –
SYDNEY RAYMOND I think now a Priest –
RAYMOND DEVAUX,
RAYMOND 'FRENCHIE' VIVIES Guadeloupe - where he became a Prefect
in Government.
ANTONY INKIM also from Arima. I do not recall if there were
others.
Our Masters were:
DOM BASIL MATHEWS,
FATHER ILDEPHONSE, former was English Literature - latter
Geography and History.
FATHER PAUL, Math’s –
FATHER LEO, Latin,
FATHER CHYSOSTOM LEE SING - French and Spanish.
All for now - congrats on your superb effort to cement the group
of yesteryears.
P.S. On February l5th - I spent one night at the Mount Guest
House - Room #l4 - overlooking the airport and what has become a tapestry of
colourful lights after sunset - sat on the bench which we used as day boys
waiting for our Abbey Bus - some of my friends in that group were Franksie
Cook, Ian Lee Kam (Guinea was his nickname) - Archie Didier and Anthony Inkim
(the three of us usually came to Tunapuna from Arima on the same bus) –
DESMOND BRUNTON (brunts) –
PHILLIP (PIP) VIRE who were also in my class
I was unable to get into the College on this visit.
CECIL
INCE
(I am sure that the new Abbot is going
to change the routine so that when an oldboy, alumni would like to return to
the Monastery, there is going to be a way to contact someone, ed)
------------------------------------------
EDITED by Ladislao
Kertesz, kertesz11@yahoo.com, if you would like to be in the
circular’s mailing list or any old boy that you would like to include.
--------------------------------------------------
Photos:
87UN0015JUBILEUM p.43
49AL0001ALU, Anthony Lucky
10LK0327FBRLIGRPA, Roberto Lipasky and group
12UN0001MLA, Michael Laughlin
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