St Joseph's Society
My early years were spent at St James’s School, Bootle before moving to St Mary’s College, Crosby in September 1957, and from there to Upholland in September 1959.
The first night at College was spent in the dormitory annex located in the area supposedly haunted by the ghost of “Betty Eccles”. The dormitory prefect was Head Prefect Anthony Stringfellow, more commonly known as “Ropey”. At lights out there were a few sniffles, and after a short pause a voice rang out in the darkness, “for many of you this will be your first night away from home and you will be feeling very sad. This is normal. Indeed, if you hadn’t come from a good home, you wouldn’t feel like this at all.” With that, the whole dormitory burst out crying. Anthony Stringfellow was ordained within two years, and I didn’t see him again until 1969.
I left Upholland after Christmas 1964 and started work at the Inland Revenue, Bootle in February 1965, before transferring to H.M. Customs & Excise, Liverpool in July 1966. One morning in 1969 I boarded a vessel in Liverpool docks in my capacity as a Customs Officer, and who should I meet but Fr Stringfellow? “Hello Father, what are you doing here?” says I. After exchanging pleasantries, he then explained his role as Port Chaplain and he invited me to come down to do some voluntary work for seafarers at Stella Maris, Bootle New Strand (Apostleship of the Sea). At first I was non-committal, saying that shift work made it difficult to give regular attendance, but he insisted saying “come when you can.” Eventually I took up his offer of doing voluntary work for the seafarers, mainly on Sunday evenings, and there I met my wife Joan, who was doing voluntary work also, and we married on 2nd June 1973. My best man was Mike Hawkins, who was also at Upholland, and a concelebrant was Fr John Harrington, who was in the class above me at Upholland. We were blessed with three children, and every time I met Fr Stringfellow thereafter, I used to say, “It’s all your fault Father, because if I hadn’t met you on that ship I wouldn’t be saddled with a mortgage, a wife and three kids.” He would then lean back with a broad grin and laugh out loud. May he rest in peace.
I took early retirement in 2001, and in 2002 the Apostleship of the Sea advertised nationally for ship visitors/chaplains to relaunch its mission to seafarers. I was interviewed by Fr Pat Harnett and Monsignor Michael McKenna, a former student at Upholland and ordained while I was there. I attended a chaplaincy course at Ushaw College, linked with Durham University, and underwent training nationally with the Apostleship of the Sea. I then spent over 11 years, mainly part-time, serving seafarers visiting the port of Liverpool, Garston, Birkenhead and up the canal to Runcorn. This was an extremely rewarding and humbling experience. There is no doubt that my time at Upholland, and in particular my contact with Fr Stringfellow, had a major influence on my spiritual and family life, and for that I will always be grateful
One of my first friends at Upholland was Vincent Fedigan. He certainly lived up to his name. Every day he would complain, saying “I’m fed up and I want to leave.” I would say, “But what would you do, Vin?” and he, a big rugby league fan from Wigan would say, “I think I’ll become a Customs Officer.” Ironically, it was I who became the Customs Officer and he became a priest. I met up with him many years later when he was parish priest at St William of York, Thornton, and reminded him of this, telling him that it was I who became the Customs Officer. I’m informed that he made reference to this during celebrations of the 25th anniversary of his ordination!
At College, there were only two ways you could ever get out during term time; by playing football or singing in the choir. I managed to do both. The latter, ably led by the laughing Fr “Sam” Snape, more commonly known as “Sammy Snap.” In those days, the College choir would sometimes sing at the crypt in Liverpool for major celebrations prior to the Cathedral being built. After Mass, we were allowed to meet our parents and permitted to accept a parcel of goodies from them. Then, the only time you were normally allowed such a parcel was on your birthday, so this indeed was a treat. The joy of singing in a choir has stayed with me throughout my life, and I still breathe during singing the same way that Fr Snape taught us. One of the highlights at Upholland was the singing of Vespers, live on the radio, and I still have the “Liber Usualis” proudly displayed on my bookshelf. As St Augustine said, “To sing is to pray twice.”
On the sporting side, I was in Cuthbert Mayne’s House led by Fr Tom Cheetham. I asked him once how he managed to have the most successful teams year after year, with all three House Masters picking in turn from the newly arrived 11/12 year olds. “I always look for the tall skinny ones who could get bigger,” he said, because he believed that a team of big lads would beat a team of little ones any day; and it certainly proved to be the case. It is probably because we were in his House that he picked Anthony Tobin and myself to help out in the College Printing Press. This was a very enjoyable experience, and I still recall Anthony carving out in lino the outline of a mask for the cover of a College play programme; a far cry from today’s modern media. As a reward for our work in the Press, Fr Tom took us for a meal at the Brocket Arms Hotel, Standish. It was there that I tasted my first glass of red wine, “Nuits St. George”, as recommended by Fr. Tom, and I still enjoy my glass of red wine to this day!
One of the best lessons of the week was English with Fr Dennis Harvey first thing on Monday mornings. He would bring in a pile of newspapers and read out the weekend’s football reports from the tabloids, alongside The Times, Telegraph and Guardian. The idea was to demonstrate the different ways in which the same incidents could be reported in the English Language, and it was a great way to motivate our interest.
Silent Retreats were quite an experience. I especially enjoyed the extended boundaries we were allowed to walk around, and particularly the lakeside around the front of the College. I can remember walking there in quiet contemplation one day, when the silence was broken with cries of “Help! Help!” Someone had taken a boat out into the centre of the lake, where unfortunately it started taking on water and began to sink rapidly. A rescue operation was undertaken, but I can’t remember what the repercussions were, if any!
In winter the lake would freeze over enough to skate on, but it was our visits to Wrightington Lake for skating that I particularly remember. I didn't have ice skates myself and someone suggested I ask Monsignor Leo Alston for a loan of his. Apparently, unlike myself, he was a very good ice skater, and his boots were in pristine condition. He graciously lent them to me and I had an enjoyable time learning to skate for the first time, but falling regularly onto the ice until I could stay upright. On returning to the College Boot Room I set about polishing the boots to achieve the condition in which I had received them.
Unfortunately, I noticed that nearly half of the screws holding the skate to the boot were missing, no doubt attributable to my appalling efforts to skate. ‘Whatever am I going to say to Fr Alston?’ I asked myself. As I thought about it, I noticed all the other skates around me, and decided to take one screw from each of them, the round black shiny ones, to replenish the borrowed skates, and then I returned them “good as new.” However, Fr Alston was such a gentleman that I doubt he would have let on even if he had realised that there was indeed something amiss!