Circular No 955 Extra

Newsletter for alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I. 

Caracas, 25 February 2020 No. 955 extra

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Dear Friends,

Here are some of the possible reasons why the Abbey School did not survive, as elaborated by some of the Oldboys.

I would like to add a few words to the demise of the school, that have not been analysed, the necessity for experienced administrators.

This also has been felt and condemned the Monastery??

In both cases there was and is a lack of entrepreneurial understanding of how to manage an enterprise.

I had talks with key persons on the different monetary topics that have not been understood and in most cases you notice that the answers showed that lack of knowledge on how an enterprise should be run or what to expect.

When there are no experienced administrators, no enterprise can survive.

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On 2013-12-09, at 12:14 PM, Glen Mckoy wrote:

Dear Sirs,

Thank you or all the replies, and some really good ones too, we will have to access all this information and see how we will write that ending ha! ha!

However, there is no one ending.  It still remains an enigma to me.

I am only showing Attila’s name, but don't worry all are present, as he requested this quest to find out these answers.

Now, is this the final conclusion???  Or just another mystery, tale, story, rumour or legend of our history.

I will pay attention and see what comes out, in the Circular, to the Blog, as time moves on.

Cheers Mis Amigos –

Gracias - Glen.

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Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:02:02 -0800

From: gyuris@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: Why did the Abbey School not survive? – FINALLY, THE OFFICIAL ANSWER.

Wow, Jan...

Thanks for sending the Flickr document.  

Awesome quick response and thanks for taking the time to scan that historical document about the Mount.

(Unfortunately, I could not download and save the flickr images, as they are "locked from downloading by the author.  I could only read them.  But that is OK.  I got what I wanted.)

Well, that explains almost everything in pretty good detail.  

I now understand much better what and why it happened.

I am still not clear on some of the exact dates.

For instance, what year did the boarding school actually close?

Was it in 1982 or even earlier perhaps?

It is not clear from the book pages.

One thing is clear though, we were there during the golden pinnacle years of the Mount, the mid to late 60's and I feel I left at the right time, graduating in 1969, because it seems that by the following year (1970) and onwards, the school's problems and its long decline had started.

What a sad moment (or perhaps not?) it must have been when the last student departed the Mount.

Regards to all, 

Attila Gyuris

1964-1969

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From: Gmail Jan <jankoenraadt@gmail.com>

Sent: Sunday, December 8, 2013 5:32 PM

Subject: Re: Why did the Abbey School not survive?

Dear Guys,

I'm reading this question why the Abbey School ended.

My sister visited the tourist shop of the monastery a few years ago and bought me this book about Mount St. Benedict. (It was before the Centennial).

There are three pages inside the book in which they describe why the Abbey School ended.

I put them up in a dummy set on Flickr.

Please use the link to get to the set with pictures.

At the right edge there is an arrow to proceed to the next picture.

If you right click on the picture, choose "Original" and then right click again on the following picture and then you can choose Save As to your harddisk.

Here is the link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/70756908@N04/11277239115/in/set-72157638486234895

Maybe all of you already know how Flickr works, it's just a large stream of photo's sorted by time of uploading.

In the menu you can choose to create all sorts of Sets of the stream to your likings. 

A Set is in fact a Photoalbum.

Please ignore the others sets, they are dummy stuff for other friends at home.

As for the reasons why the Abbey School closed, the book says:

One of the original aims to build the Abbey School was the promise it would be a source of new monks.

But in the end, it hardly ever happened that a student joined the monastery.

It happened on a few occasions, but they don't mount up to the expected promise.

The 24-hour surveillance of the students was a tough job.

The monks like Fathers Cuthbert, Augustine and Benedict did the teaching for free.

After the oil crises in 1973, the monastery delivered fewer monks for the teaching work, so more costly civilian teachers were needed.

Also, the monks working at the Abbey School, did not take part in hardly any monastic activity or monastic life.

After each term they were like strangers to the other monks.

(From 1970 on the system of boarding schools in the Netherlands was abolished.

Also, the division of separate boy and girl schools.

The amount of new religious monks declined rapidly in the Netherlands since 1970.

The source of new Dutch monks to do the teaching for free at the Abbey School dried up.

At this time, 2005-2015 about 1700 church buildings were closing down in a period of 10 years.

That amounts to demolish three church buildings each week!

Anybody interested in a conference facility all blessed and sacred?)

By inflation the cost of civilian teachers went high and the amount of students declined.

At the end of the 70's father Abbot addressed the Trinidad Government for financial aid.

The book says the letter was left unanswered.

Maybe you guys know better.

As I understand, at that time parents didn't have to pay for secondary education in Trinidad.

The Abbey school was in fact the only school in Trinidad where parents had to pay for the education.

If the government would have given the financial aid, it would have been the only school in Trinidad to get financial aid for education on top of the free education that already existed.

(The inflation part of the argument, that costs of civilian teachers went high, doesn't fit in here).

And then subsequently the question arises, who is getting the financial aid?

In fact, that would be pupils who were rich peoples’ sons from the whole Caribbean region.

The poor people’s children would be left out of the financial aid . . .

It seems there was a social uprising amongst local people in Trinidad getting ready for a protest march to the Mount.

That was the time when the last Principal Fr. Vincent Merrique OSB voiced his "white boys" quote.

Upon that, the school closed down letting the last pupils finish their year and so.

At the Centennial, I received a link via the Circulars to the Trinidad TV-broadcast.

Also, the part where old students giving a present to Father Cuthbert was broadcast.

I didn't hear about the existence of our secondary school in that broadcast, only that the boys were some old handycraft students . . .

Much regards

Jan Koenraadt

MSB '63-'67

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On Dec 8, 2013, at 11:28 AM,

Cornel de Freitas <corneldefreitas@hotmail.com> wrote:

A most Interesting topic, definitely one that I too would like to know.

Why did a truly magnificent school like (and I truly believe this) "The Abbey School, Mount St. Benedict" suddenly / abruptly come to an end?

Why?

My hopes, my prayers go with this one, that someone or group of those of us each representing a tiny piece of that ever-eluding picture is pieced together and at last help "US" to understand what happened.

I am sure as everything came together when that 'First seed was planted', that evolved into what may have been the best boarding school at the time beautiful (and very modern) Refectory, Kitchen (with state of the art equipment at the time) and truly great Library, Modern Theater/Auditaurium/Stage (where we ALL enjoyed the very latest movies released, and memorable plays.

What went wrong ...?

I truly believe that at least half of the best times in my life were lived at that great school....

Cornel A. G. de Freitas

The Abbey School: Class of 1964

MSB 1959-1964

----------------------------------------------------------------------From: Father Harold Imamshah (frharold12@gmail.com)

December-09-13 2:48:38 PM

My brothers,

In 1980, my Novice Master asked me to join the Staff of the Abbey School and both my Junior Brothers Dennis Hamid and Symeon Faria were also invited to join the Staff.  (Both having left monastic life are now happily married).

Bro Ronald Yee Mon, now Fr. Ronald Yee Mon (ordained in 1985 with the current Bishop Francis Alleyne, current Bishop of Georgetown, Guyana).

This was a move by the Monastic Chapter of Professed Monks between 1979 and 1980 to add younger teaching monks so as to bring new life into the School and at the same time not to have to pay out more salaries, thereby saving more income.

Bro. Ronald at the time, stayed on the Teaching Staff until 1985 and I remained until 1984.  The others did not remain longer than a term.

In a very heated Parents' meeting at Benet Hall one Sunday afternoon, with Abbot Hildebrand Greene presiding, some parents expressed to Fr. Vincent Merrique that he should resign if he didn't want to stay on as Principal.

I spoke on behalf of some disgruntled Teachers who did not want to lose their jobs.

As far as I remember, Abbot Hildebrand had agreed that Mrs Pamela Roopchand-Razack and one of the male Teachers and I could begin the Mission of searching for newer ways of continuing the school, which included searching for a Principal.

Our search began with a really wonderful interview with Mr. Clive Pantin who had retired as Principal of Fatima College.

He helped us to see that a School the size of Abbey School on the East-West corridor and surrounded by such large schools like St. Augustine Senior Comprehensive School would not easily push the Ministry of Education to make us an assisted School.

Clive was not open to become the next Principal.

When Pamela and the other teacher went in to see the Abbot with a written report of our findings with our 3 signatures, they (the 2 lay teachers) had come up with the suggestion that I should be appointed as the next Principal.

I begged them not to push that suggestion, since I was still working on my degree at the Seminary and UWI, and also because of my respect for Fr. Cuthbert and Fr. Odo and their lifetime contribution to the School,

I felt they deserved to be in the leadership of the School and its future.

I was present at the Monastic Chapter meeting of Professed Monks that listened to the Proposals of our Committee of 3 and from what I can remember Fr. Cuthbert was asked to be the new Administrator to make things work.

I left the meeting with the impression that the Benedictine Community while there weren't that many able-bodied Teachers, they did see a reason to keep the School as long as the finances allowed.

After I left in 1984 to pursue the Diocesan Priesthood, I had met Fr. Cuthbert who had finally become the Principal, but it seems with the very sad task of closing the school, since the numbers of students had diminished and it just wasn't economically viable anymore.

With regard to an earlier comment about money going to Rome, that would probably be untrue and I'm not sure of the basis of such an unfair comment.

As far as racial comments of running a "school for white boys", I assure you that there were enough of us in the Community who believed and expressed in Monastic Community Meetings that Education at both of our Schools ought to benefit those students who were in our care, whatever their colour or economic standing.

To this day I am still in contact with a few of the boys that I taught, and they are really very happy to renew the old acquaintance we had and to share with me what they have been doing since Abbey School.

Some of these connections are via Facebook and others I've enjoyed meeting in person.

I do hope these few thoughts have been helpful.

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From: vcl28@aol.com

Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2013 17:21:10 -0500

An old boy's suspicions on why the school closed.

The school was as Glen has said expensive.

There were probably three reasons why the school closed.

1. Economics

2. Isolation

3. Lowering in academic standards.

What I am offering is a path to investigating why the school ultimately failed, rather than attempting to offer a meaningless opinion in a matter such as this which is clouded in time.

1.. How much did it cost to upkeep a boarder in those later years compared to earlier years?

My father kept a file on how much he spent on my being there from 1958-1963 it was around $8000 US. a little over $1000 US a year, apparently boarding schools in the UK are experiencing unusually high costs today the cost can now be higher than the average earning of the UK households. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10324338/Boarding-school-fees-now-higher-than-average-salary.html#disqus_thread "

An analysis by The Good Schools Guide shows that parents face paying £27,600 a year for each child enrolled in a fee-paying boarding school.

It is the first time that the annual cost of boarding has risen higher than the UK average salary, which currently stands at £26,500."

2.. the isolation: The St Benedict College was isolated no one questions that, and why they had day boys was always beyond me, perhaps it was to top up the classes when they did not have enough boarder students, but day boys was not their market, their market were the sons of wealthy people [and I don't care what colour] who for one reason or the other wanted their children to be cared for and educated by someone else, e.g. diplomats who were moving around or other types who also had jobs requiring a lot of moving around, I have no evidence of this it is just my perception of the place.  In my case it was also understood to be a place where discipline was paramount and having been expelled from every school here in Guyana, it was a sort of last resort.

In the case of St. Benedict it was not unusual for non-English speaking kids from wealthy families in the surrounding French and Spanish territories to send their children to learn English, in my own case I was given the task of teaching Piton, a French kid from one of the surrounding areas, English.  That kid must still speak English with a trace of Guyanese accent!

When Piton went to the Mount he could not speak a word of English, so they were sent there for all of the reasons I have outlined here, but in addition to be bi-lingual.

Did the Mount lose its way and stop attracting the boarders, which was what the main purpose the place was established to do, and try to compete with schools which were less isolated and more accessible?

If this is the case, we have to try to find out why they lost their way.

3. First of all, I have to ask are there any records of the final years of the schools' operation?  Especially how many boys took the GEC and how many failed/passed and how that compared with an earlier time?

No matter what other conditions were met, if the academic standards dropped, they would not attract their core student i.e. the boarders.

The boys from the Mount usually did well academically, especially if like me they were problem children.

……………………………

From: Anthony Cintra (celandaal@hotmail.com)

Sent: December-09-13 4:07:21 PM

Hola Amigo,

If the school was only for white boys it seems as though the majority of students in my time were never there ha!ha! Certainly not the Seminary ha!

Perhaps we were honorary "whites," similar to the. Cricketers who went to South Africa prior Nelson Mandela :)

Kind regards

Anthony 

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From:  nigelboos@eagles-wings.ca

Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2013 06:30:47 -0500

Your question is of great interest, Attila, and I would very much like to get some answers myself. 

By copy of this email to the youngest of the Old Boys, those who turned out to be the last students at the Abbey School, I am asking for any input on this matter, any recollections you may have had, any indications you may have noticed, any evidence that would help to answer the question. 

One of the suggestions which has come up over the past 13 years or so, is that the last Principal, who I understand was a Fr. Vincent Merrique OSB, seemed to have adopted a very racial stance in his remarks that the Abbey School was a "white school", with a majority of white students over the years.

If such an attitude was in fact, prevalent, I can understand why the Benedictines, perhaps stupidly, would have wished to distance themselves from the comments and accusations of those like Fr. Merrique, and finally decided to shut down the school.

I do not know if this is true, and I am therefore asking the Old Boys from the 1980-1986 period to offer their insights on the matter. 

It would be good, too, if we could ask Fr. Cuthbert to offer some help here too.

He would seem to be the last link in the chain of Principals, who might be able to offer an opinion.

But since he never responds to my emails, it would be better for someone resident in Trinidad to go up to the monastery and interview him directly on the matter, hopefully with a video camera and an operator available to preserve for us all the responses of good old Cutty.

And here's a final thought - maybe we can also ask Lionel Roberts (formerly Br. Vincent OSB), now a retired lawyer in Florida, to offer his comments on the issue. (I'm copying this email to him as well.)

Regards,

Nigel

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On 2013-12-07, at 7:37 AM, gyuris wrote:

I always wondered why we don't have more active participating members from the last 5 years of school's existence, i.e., from the years 1980 to 1985.

Are there that few of them? 

I am sure they could tell us stories about what and how happened as the School ceased to operate, besides the obvious, that it wasn't economically feasible anymore.

But even then, why did the priests let it go that far?

Other old schools have survived, so why not the Abbey School?

Was it a sudden decision, or were the students slowly peetering out, as less and less of them enrolled,  or what...

So many stories could be told about how it ended.

Seems the majority of our actively participating members are from the 60's and early 70's decades.

Attila Gyuris

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On Dec 6, 2013, at 5:34 PM,

Glen Mckoy <mckoy43glen@hotmail.com> wrote

My Dear, Sir Nigel, 

As we venture beyond our imagination, the Earth is where we make our stand. 

Many that live on the island of our Castle would keep small circles, just like the Knights all over the Earth.

They would have reunions of what was.  

Many decades would pass, the body of our alumni remained invisible.

The time was not right, many were still young razor grasshoppers, and still finding themselves, ha! ha!

I remember those days, the hippies from the sixties, now in their late 50's and early 60's, but those days are behind us now, our Club is 100%,  mature & responsible Gentlemen, of the highest degree of trust, honour & respect for each other.

To be a member of this Club, is a Mark of  Faith, this was not your choice, this decision was made before you were born, if you want to know more, ask the Dutch Monks, but when the time is right, it will all make sense mi amigo.

In the last days, of the greatest institution of education, this side of the British Empire, hidden just above the hedges of a Dutch Enclave, Our Castle, high up on the mountains of Tunapuna. 

On this island 10 degrees from middle earth, under the sun. 

The year was 1985 and the last students walk away from the Castle, they too will become a mystery, and their story is yet to be told.

The doors were closed and this fountain of knowledge, The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, was no longer, on this once upon a time sweet little island.

The story does not end there. 

As the Knights fly like Eagles in the Sky to every direction on this planet, many would lose contact with each other, in the wilderness of the flat lands.

A Circular is launched, over 1000 boys are found by the great year 2000. 

Welcome to the Club, where we make our stand, right here, right now.

The Dreamer wrote in the book, The King of Hearts, in 195X, that in the year 2014 all Knights will have a Universal Dream, with their eyes wide open. 

They will see something they need to see. 

The dreamer also wrote that he will also be there. 

I look forward to this encounter with the Dreamer, a mystery also to me. 

Thank You Nigel, Excellent One. 

Yours Faithfully,

Glen McKoy. 

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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.

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Photos:

15LK0022FBADV. Alex de Verteuil

60LK5048FBTFEGRP, UNKNOWNS

08KA0212KABGRP, Reunion group

12SW0012SWI, Salah Wilson