St Joseph's Society
I left a few days after my last A-level, only to return the following week for the Rhetoric end-of-year formal meal. I stayed overnight in my old room and slept on the bed that only had a mattress but no bed clothing, as I had returned them the week before, and I had to borrow a tie and a very large blazer for the farewell photograph!
Looking back, I remember my time at The College for the three main things that have stayed with me to this day and shaped the person that I am,
The most influential of these was MUSIC, so I will deal with that one last.
MIRTH
To this day I often use humour to diffuse difficult situations. I used it a lot when working in a betting shop and as a civil servant. It can get your ‘customer’ to laugh, it stops them being aggressive and it wins them over.
I use puns too often, according to my daughters, and Father Austin is to blame for this. He truly was “The Father of the ‘Dad Joke’ “!
For example, he had us read Billy Bunter in Latin! He also set us the task of translating the following
Its total nonsense of course, until you read it in a Yorkshire accent.
In the More House Christmas Party, whilst in Underlow, I did a comedy double act with Anthony Price. Fr. Peter Doyle later told my parents that he was impressed with my…timing!
Mirth was also present in the school plays, Christmas concerts, and the Lower School magazine ‘Insite’. All of these relied on manuscripts of one form or another.
MANUSCRIPTS
I’m still an avid reader to this day, and over the years I have written for Trade Union magazines, as well as contributing to publications for one of my former employers. As an avid reader before starting at the College, and as someone who liked his own company, the Lower Line Library was a cornucopia of never ending delights. I spent a lot of time reading in there, and it was where I, and two other classmates, found some old postcards of the college.
We took them to Fr. Butchard who allowed us to keep a collection of them, and I still have them. The Lower Line Library also had a collection of back issues of the ‘Upholland Magazine’.
That magazine was produced by the Senior House and printed externally, although the College had its own printing press. The latter printed ‘Insite’, with edited versions of essays and poetry written by students, and I have them from issue III published in March 1971 through to issue VI published in December 1973.
‘Insite’ III was edited by Fr. Denis Harvey, Sister Marcella Clerkin and Mike Aiello, and I was fortunate enough to be published in it.
It was Fr. Harvey and Sister Marcella, who encouraged my literary endeavours, as did Fr. Wilf McConnell in later years. Sister Marcella was also responsible for casting me as ‘Santa Claus’ in the Underlow Christmas pageant performance of ‘Jabez Dawes, the boy who laughed at Santa Claus’; to much amusement of those in the audience!
There were also books available in the Lower Line Common Room. One I remember reading was ‘Vice Versa’ by F Anstey (1856-1934). It told the story of a father and child exchanging bodies, via a talisman, resulting in the father suffering at ‘Crichton House’ boarding school, with son Dick able to enjoy his father’s more comfortable life.
Fr. Cheetham also recognised my love of reading and made me a librarian. Adrian West was my mentor in this. Fr. Cheetham also organised a book selling club. Michael Fairclough was one of the people in charge of it. Books were mostly from the publisher Puffin, a subsidiary of Penguin books, who specialised in books for younger readers, and I still have the books that I bought then, including ‘A Wrinkle In Time’ by Madeline L’Engle.
The book club enabled me to order ‘The Slade Story’ by George Tremlett, a book that I later discovered contained a number of errors. I’m now an administrator of a Slade group on Facebook and I have been involved in a small way with the Slade CD re-releases, and other things.
Slade were my biggest music love at one point, and that’s what many people remember me for.
That takes me onto music.
MUSIC
I can remember once waiting in Fr. McConnell’s room to find out what my detention punishment was going to be. Paddy McAloon was there asking what books he should read to help him write lyrics? The three of us ended up talking about books, and I mentioned that I had read ‘1984’ and ‘Brave New World’ and that I preferred the latter. Wilf was very surprised that I had read it, and asked me how old I was? ‘15’ was my reply.
Paddy McAloon was one of the big influences on me wanting to play music. Before the Ushaw students came to Upholland, the music lessons, run by Mr Terence Duffy, were somewhat boring. I hated playing the descant recorder. It sounded far too squeaky, and when played badly, it produces harsh overtones, with evident quarter tones. This results in a cacophony of squeaks, squawks and shrieks, and we were forced to play it in Underlow.
Mr. Duffy almost put me off playing music for life. Ironically, in the academic year 2002/2003 I did a Music Access course at Hope University, where Mr. Duffy’s brother, Philip, was one of the tutors.
Other people who influenced me musically were Michael Carroll, Francis ‘Franny’ Hughes, Sean Quirke, Paul Heald, Stephen ‘Zip’ Nolan, Chris ‘Paddy’ Noade, Father Mercer, Father Chris Cunningham and Mr John Jones.
Michael, Francis, Sean and I all started in Underlow together, and Michael and I met up on September 7th, 2018, forty years to the day that we first came to the College. He played piano and acoustic guitar, and I bought the guitar off him. I still have it and play it all these years later, and he was delighted to see it after all these decades. It originally belonged to his older brother. Francis and Sean also had older brothers, and Sean’s brother Brendan was also at Upholland.
When I visited their house, I was introduced to my first electric bass guitar. It was a Fender Jazz copy, and I saw their record collection too, and it’s were I first heard of Genesis and Black Sabbath.
Through Franny, I got to hear Uriah Heep, and I organised a trip for 15 of us to see them live at the Liverpool Empire on their ‘Return to Fantasy’ tour on December 9th, 1975. As I’m writing this, I’m listening to a Uriah Heep ‘live’ album. If you had told me in 1975 that I would know their current bass player, Davey Rimmer, I wouldn’t have believed you. He is a contemporary of mine from the local Liverpool music scene which I have been involved in ever since I left Upholland.
One day in the Lower Line Library, Sean, Franny and I decided to form a band. It was going to be Sean on bass, Franny on guitar and vocals, and me on drums. We were thinking of names for the band, and I came up with ‘Eagle’. As I said it, the DJ on Radio One, that we were listening to on a ‘breaking the rules’ radio, said ‘Here’s a song from a new group from America, called ‘The Eagles’! That put a stop to us using that name!
Paul Heald and Steve ‘Zip’ Nolan both started in Poetry in the September of 1974, and they exposed me to a broader musical base. Paul performed (mimed?) ‘Changes’ by David Bowie at one of the Christmas concerts in the gym.
At the Christmas concert in December 1976 when I was in Rhetoric, I performed Slade’s ‘Mama weer all crazee now’, with the help of Michael Lavery on piano, Paddy Noade on bass, me on guitar, and Mike, whose surname I can’t now remember, on vocals, and I do know that we changed the lyrics from ‘…enough to fill up ‘H’ Hill’s left shoe’ to ‘…enough to fill up Roger Finn’s left shoe’; to the mirth of all!
Isn’t that where we came in? I am still writing and playing music to this day and I have recently started having piano lessons, which is something I wanted to do back in 1970. It has only taken me 48 years!