Circular No 20

Caracas, 30 of March 2002. Circular No.20
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Dear Friends,

Before all let me apologize to Michael D´Ornellas for not mention his catalytic part in my circular, No. 18. He has kindly given us access to the nice photos used.

Here is another account of the “A Man of all Seasons”, by Rafael Echeverria:

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Yes Ladislao !!! Thank you for the photograph which I'll treasure ... I had seen this photo .. but time and distance does it job ... I had lost it !!!

I was thrilled to see the photo again and remember some Mount faces ... I particularly remember Richard Clerk, a great individual ... Michael Azar .. a great guy !!! .. tough and generous ! .. Don Mitchell .. he was always "cool" ... Michael de Verteuil, always a true gentleman !!! ... and yes I remember King Henry VIII .. played by the Paul Zeven .. the Dutch blond haired guy .... I remember Baby Joe in his character of "The Common Man" .. he was just great ...among the girls the oriental girl Myling Achong .. . she performed great acting as "Margaret" .. Thomas Moore's daughter ... I still remember her lines regarding the confrontation with her Father ...Sir Thomas would not surrender to the approval of King Henry's divorce and follow "his Church" and renounce to his Catholic Faith ... Margaret was making a great effort to save his Father from his own "stubbornness". One of the most dramatic scenes from the play.

The Second Photograph is also a very important scene .. I remember .. I think it was the moment Sir Thomas is submitted to trial ... and condemned ... The Common Man (Baby Joe) reads the Death Sentence ....

I played the Spanish Ambassador (Signor Chapüìs) and my "assistant" (he always walked two steps behind me on stage) ... his name was Norman Smith .. he was from Cali, Colombia, but his father was an American...

I remember well "my heated discussion" with Chancellor Cromwell (Michael Azar) in the presence of Richard Clerk (I don't remember his part .. but he was an excellent person .. a great sportsman .. a good soccer player and a good friend). Signor Chapüìs was desperately trying to save Sir Thomas´s life through diplomatic efforts from the Spanish Queen ... My last line in the play .. after I left King Henry's Palace and holding an audience with Cromwell was "... This man is utterly unreliable !!!" ... and everybody laughed in the audience .. I was supposed (by instructions from Brother Oswald) ... to "stress" my Spanish accent even more ... as I left the stage in my last appearance.

I remember Don Mitchell (although we were not that close in Mount.) He was a good guy. He played a great role as The Duke of Norfolk. I believe he was chosen because he was always so naturally "distinguished".. Please Ladislao .. send my BEST REGARDS to all my fellow actors in "A Man For All Seasons" !!! ... and YES .. it was THE FIRST TIME girls were allowed to act in Mount's Season Play. I don't recall that there was a third woman apart from the two girls (who portrayed Margaret and Elizabeth,-Sir Thomas Moore's Daughter & Wife ... respectively). Not only were they both beautiful girls but their acting was SUPERB !!!! ...

Thank You Ladislao .. please give my regards to ALL ....give them my phone numbers and e-mail ... I would really love to meet them all again ... that is just a great way to enrich life !!!!

Please make these comments part of your next Report !!!!

Blessings to ALL

Rafael Echeverría

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Here I am continuing the who is who, thanks to Roger Henderson:

10 Michael Farah works in Trinidad

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God Bless

Ladislao

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Listado: C20.xls

Photo : bebopalula, msb painting

Shall be sent to those that have ratified their addresses this year, please send a line if you have not done so, and I shall include photos in your emails.

Column: WVB cuba jotting

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www.theabbeyschool.com, an all class msb web site.

Jongolding_2000@yahoo.com, for inclusion in the listing.

Ladislaokertesz@hotmail.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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ATTACHMENTS

Listado C20.xls

Names	Form V	Contact	nicknames	business address	business phone	e-mail
Date, Paul		Huggins				macdate@shaw.ca
Date, Robert	1962	Huggins		pilot		rdate@trinidad.net
De Boembler, David	1957	roger	Cow Spray		painter
De Cambra, Raymond J.		boos
De Castro, David		boos		Florida
De Castro, Delano		boos
De Gale, Steven		roger	Goofy
De Leuze, Carl	1957			Guadalopue
De Lima, Vernon						progress@trinidad.net
De Meillac, Jean		roger	Jeanzie	TT	real estate

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Circular No 19

Caracas, 23 of March 2002. Circular No. 19

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Dear Friends,

This last week was rather harried and I did not finish my regular circular so here is one to keep the numbering in order.

And to certify my being alive.

Since all of you like photos here I am enclosing two.

Again thanks to Roger Henderson, the man of the week.

Alex de Verteuil is the head of Pearl and Dean, an advertising company

God Bless

Ladislao

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Listado: C19.xls

Photo 1: pax guesthouse

Photo 2: Roger Henderson 01, guy standing, the "who is where" contributor.

Shall be sent to those that have ratified their addresses this year, please send a line if you have not done so, and shall include photos in your emails.

Column: wvb To catch a thief.

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www.theabbeyschool.com, an all class msb web site.

Jongolding_2000@yahoo.com, for inclusion in the listing.

Ladislaokertesz@hotmail.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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ATTACHMENTS

Listado C19.xls

Names	Form V	Contact	nickname	business address	Phone	e-mail
Cuthbert, Fr.	OSB, teacher	lk		TT		the-mount@carib-link.net
Da Costa, David			Big Beam
Da Costa, Simon		roger	Small Beam
Da Silva, R
Dabadie, Bernard
Dan Staubels
Darwent, John		boos		Inca Talara Peru
Darwent, Walter
Date, Alan		jon				alandate@lycos.com
Date, Christopher	1959

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Circular No 18

Caracas, 16 of March 2002. Circular No. 18
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Dear Friends,

Last 10^th of March was the birthday of my daughter Victoria “Viki”, the reason for the slowing down of the last circular.

Also we were lucky to have Bertrand Piccard with us here in Caracas. I shall send you a photograph taken at Plaza Altamira where he did an interview for local TV with interviews and propaganda for the Swiss Embassy.

I am sending out a call to those who have not shown signs of having received any of these circulars. The practical reason is simple, I have difficulties in sending the circular to some addresses as these are reported to have errors or are undeliverable by the servers. Once they are returned they clutter my e.mail box, instead of cluttering the e.mail box of the recipient!!!. When my e.mail box gets full, the system gets blocked and I loose track of further information. Help!!!

I have copies of my past circulars for those that do not have e.mail these I can send it by FAX or snail mail. Check your files and tell me if you have some that have not arrived.

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Another event that happened at the Mount, by Don Mitchell

Hi Ladislao,

I do remember the play. It was "A Man for All Seasons" written by the British playwright Robert Bolt. I do not remember all the roles or details. The year must have been 1962 or 1963. I believe that I played the part of the Duke of Norfolk, some sort of a judge at the trial of Moore, but it has been a long time and, though years later I saw the movie, I cannot remember for certain. M. J. de Verteuil played Moore with gusto and conviction, and Robert Azar, I believe, played the cowardly Richard Rich. Michael, I believe, played his competitor as Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey. I cannot recall who played Henry VIII or Roper, the son in law, or the other parts.

For me, the most memorable thing about the play was that two lovely young women, a Fanfan and a Myling, played Moore's wife and daughter. I do not recall the school ever before having allowed girls to act in a school play. The two ladies were so lovely, I recall, that each evening when practice finished, all the windows of the school were stuffed with young male faces peering out for a glimpse of them as they got into the cars that came to collect them. They came from a convent in St Augustine to practice for several evenings after school. It must have been a terrifying experience for the two of them, but they carried it off with style and panache. I knew then and for all time that women were superior beings to men.

Don

Names left right for the first photo:

Richard Clerk, Rafael Echeverria, J.Fernanadez, Miss Myling Achong, Michael J. de Verteuil, Miss A. Rostant, Peter Tang, Don Mitchell, Allan Apo, Micheal Azar. Squatting Robert Azar.

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The following was taken from Mount Inside April 1964:

DRAMATICS

Sometime in May the curtain will once again go up as the College presents “A Man For All Seasons”; under the direction of Brother Oswald. The play is a study of the feud which rose between Sir Thomas More and King the Eight of England.

The part of King Henry, a rather crude young man; is fittingly taken by Paul Zeven, who we remember has acted in the last few plays. The part of More is taken by M.J. de Verteuil and that of the “Common Man” by R. Azar who seems at home in this type character. The Duke of Norfolk is played by D. Mitchell; Cromwell by M. Azar; William Roper, More´s son in law, by P.Tang; Richard Rich by R. Clerk; Cardinal Wolsey by J. Fernandez; and Archbishop Crammer becomes an American in A. Apo. The part of the Spanish Ambassador is portrayed by R. Echeverria and his attendant by N. Smith.

St. Joseph Convent has again provided for the female character. Alice, More´s wife, is played by A. Rostant; the woman, by P. Warfe; and Meg, More´s daughter by M. Achong.

Names left right for the second photo:

Robert Azar, Richard Clerk, Michael Azar, Don Mitchell, Allan Apo

As you can see there is a discrepancy on the names that I have and the recount in Mount Inside. King Henry or Paul Zeven , N. Smith the embassador´s attendant and Miss P. Warfe the other woman. I would like to correct the name list, who remembers.

Also it would be interesting to hear from the actors on this matter. Anyone knows the where abouts of any of the actors?? Their email address or FAX???.

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Here I am continuing the who is who, thanks to Roger Henderson:

8. Jean de Meillac has just gone into real estate after heading up a radio station

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God Bless

Ladislao

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Listado: C18.xls

Photo: seasons 1b, 2b

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www.theabbeyschool.com, an all class msb web site.

Jongolding_2000@yahoo.com, for inclusion in the listing.

Ladislaokertesz@hotmail.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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ATTACHMENTS:

Listado C18.xls.

Names	Form V	Contact	nicknames	business address	business phone	e-mail
Compton, Vincent Fr.		boos
Cope, Ian		roger		day boy
Costello, Brian
Costello, Sean		boos
Coursement, Cedric		boos
Cribbes, Dennis		boos
Croke, Michael				mississipi
Crooks, Johnathon	1957	roger		Tobago
Crooper, G
Cunha, R

Circular No 17

Newsletter for past alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.
Caracas, 9 March 2002. Circular No.17-----------------------------------------------------
Dear Friends,

In this circular I am going to enumerate the names in the photo of class 1960., so it can be included in our web page. The whereabouts of Egan Baichoo are not known.

1. Louis Lacour
2. Manuel Prada
3. Richard Galt
4. Michael Herrera
5. David Pampellone
6. Ladislao Kertesz
7. Michael Howard
8. Randal Galt
9. James Seheult
10. Michael King
11. Wayne Vincent Brown
12. Egan Baichoo
13. Matias von Fedak
14. David de Verteuil
15. Christopher Webster
16. Roger Henderson
17. Giuseppe Braggio
18. Nigel Boos
19. Geoffrey Golding
20. Anthony Johnson
21. Daniel de Verteuil
22. Christopher Knowles
23. Maurice de Verteuil
24. Fr. Paul

We are in contact with the rest and some of those that were with us for at least a year. These include:

Graham Gonsalves Form I to From II.
Richard Gransaull until From IV.
Basanta dayboy from Tunapuna
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The photo: A rocket that was built during my last year at the Mount.

The story: The igniter consisted of a small canister flame holder, old JETEX motor, which was pulled with a thread from a safe distance so that it moved underneath of the rocket motor, the fuel was prepared behind the sports house using Potassium Chlorate and sugar mixed in a cup over an open flame fire. During the mixing on two occasions the mixture caught fire and the hot vapours did slight damage to our hands!!!. No one wanted to go to the infirmary as it was Saturday night. Did it fly??, we set the rocket on the hill on the North side of the football field on the edge of the cliff, well it is difficult to say as it started up with a lot of smoke and suddenly Fr. Bernard appeared from no where at the road on the first bent out of the sports field very close to where we were and asked if we were lighting fire. I took the rocket and threw it from the mountain side to the football field where it sputtered. Next I ran up to Fr. Bernard to tell him something which finally satisfied him and continued up the monastery road. We ran down to rescue the rocket, the smoke subsided and all that was left was a melted aluminium cylinder. The conclusion was that there was no enough pressure in the propulsion chamber. If there would have been one!!! Who knows the results.
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Here I am continuing the who’s who, thanks to Roger Henderson:
7. David Bratt is a leading paediatrician in Trinidad.
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God Bless
Ladislao
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Listado: C17.xls
Photo: msb rocket
Article: Msb p2 6404 mount inside
Column: wvb 020303 cuba

Cuba jottings – By Wayne Brown Sunday, March 24, 2002

LIKE most Caribbean capitals, Havana was built on the coast; only, unlike them, for at least half the year it's a windward coast. The deep fjord-like bay at the eastern edge of the city, like a river mouth, where the sea is calm, is a fine, natural ships' harbour, and doubtless explains why Havana sprung up where it did in the first place. But for most of its length the city fronts the open sea; and in the winter months, when the wind is in the north, the waves break over the low seawall and set the promenade and the foreshore road abutting it awash. In fact, on windy days you can be soaked by sea spray while walking on the landward pavement of the road.

It feels like a metaphor for the socioeconomic dousings -- both exhilarating and alarming at once -- of Havana by US dollars from a superpower just out of sight below the horizon. From that same north whence the sea spray comes has come a 'new' Cuban economy, and it stands in as destabilising a relation to the old economy as that which would obtain in Jamaica if, say, the trade in cocaine were legalised here without any loss of profit. Tourism, or in general the hospitality industry, is the golden calf of post-Soviet Union Cuba, and any Cuban who can access even the edge of it suddenly finds him or herself on the financial fast track.

Some numbers:

In the old Cuba, a professional like a doctor earned (and earns) the pesos equivalent of US$20 a month. This is supported by (a) free housing; (b) books, food ration, which in the good old days used to be sufficient for food for the month, but which today only feed a man or woman, modestly, for about 14 days; (c) electricity which costs almost nothing, maybe US$1 a month; and (d) free public transport - when you can get it.

As is apparent from this, the old Cuba really isn't a money economy; and the Western visitor often notices with amusement or irritation the bewilderment of ordinary Cubans trying to operate in the novelty of one. For example: a number of little restaurants, mainly takeaways, have sprung up recently in private homes, with state tolerance; and my daughter Mariel, having arrived from Trinidad to take over vigil at her father's post-surgery bed from her younger sister, announced she had found one where the cooking was 'not bad'. (Cuba is memorable for many things, but its cooking is horr-a-ble!, Spartan in the extreme: a peculiarly jarring absence of Caribbean creolisation in an area where you'd least expect it.)

Part of the problem is availability: eggs, eg, were almost impossible to find while I was in Havana (which is presumably why an egg sandwich at a tourist restaurant cost US$6 -- meaning that a top-ranked Cuban professional could, if he were so disposed, spend his month's salary availing himself of three egg sandwiches and two soft drinks.) The premise is that the state was directing a disproportionate number of eggs to hatcheries. Yet, the average Cuban -- reports a recent issue of National Geographic -- can aspire to chicken no more than two to four times a year. (When in the weeks after my surgery I routinely left untouched my plate of baked-without-seasoning chicken and steamed-without-salt vegetables, I often noticed how circumspectly the female orderly surveyed the terrain outside my room before choosing the right moment to spirit it away.)

Likewise, a large and quite impressive 'upmarket' restaurant has no problem serving you a smoked pork sandwich when you order a hamburger (no ground beef today), or black coffee whether you like it or not (no milk today).

When, on our last night in Cuba, therefore, my daughter proposed we order takeaway for six (to include a couple Cuban and Jamaican friends) from the place she'd 'discovered', it meant that the little home operation, from its menu prices, would gross something like US$80 -- a real windfall in the context of Cuba. The operators, however, had no experience of advance orders (we were calling in the morning and wished to collect it in the evening); they were suspicious and unhelpful; and in the end we gave up and ordered Chinese instead.

The great Havana tourist bazaar is the (craft) market, where a painting can sell for as much as US$50. Cuban 'street paintings' are of an astonishingly high standard, and rather show up what passes -- often with much ballyhoo from those who should know better -- for folk art in the English-speaking islands (and I don't just mean those preapusian Fern Gully sculptures of masturbating dreads). Even so, it's easy to understand the doctor who moonlights helping his wife make earrings and necklaces for sale there.

The restraint of the artist-entrepeneurs was impressive. Evidently (like hair-braiding women on the beach in The Bahamas) they were not permitted to speak to a prospective customer unless (s)he talked to him/her first. And so they sat, looking expectantly at you, but biting their lip -- a welcome change from the urgent hustle you'd experience here.

At the market, too, were scores of prostitutes (too many for comfort, really); and while I regret to report that I omitted to play the social anthropologist and grill them on their fees and practices, they were manifestly younger, more attractive, more seductively (as opposed to vulgarly) dressed, and clearly of a much higher 'class' than their Jamaican street-counterparts -- though that last comment is anachronistic in more ways than one. People are poor in Cuba today, and the desperation sometimes shows.

But all this is tourist talk, and it misses the essential niceness of the Cuban people. It was one of the first things that struck me, coming from Jamaica; the absence of latent belligerence, of attitude. People in Havana said what they meant, dealt with you without inflection, and were generally animated and helpful. The charm of Cubans is a certain old-fashioned simplicity, a 'small-island' quality which I remember dimly from my childhood in Trinidad in the 50s. In Old Havana, in the upstairs hotel room with the little balcony where Hemingway stayed when he first visited Cuba in the 20s -- and where he allegedly wrote The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber -- the tour guide (who came on duty just for us) spoke of him (in good English) without hype, yet with knowledge, friendliness and respect.

Still -- the Cuba I saw (much too briefly and preoccupiedly to do it justice here) cannot last: the relationship between the peso and the US dollar is just too skewed. Cuba is a real nation, one that has fought to defend itself against a malignant giant neighbour, unlike the feckless and quarrelsome mini-nations of the English-speaking Caribbean, dumped into a mendicant 'independence' by a war-impoverished Britain. But Cuba is also an anachronism -- a place from the past, weirdly illuminated by such things as TV dishes and the 'Net (both available only to tourists and the diplomatic missions); and its charm, I fear, may well be by comparison with our own decayed and dangerous societies, and feel much more like frustration to the Cubans themselves. So few have been out of Cuba; so few have seen the inside of a dollar store -- or indeed, of one of the growing number of tourist hotels, from which Cuban women, apart from the staff themselves, have been banned.

When I told the head of the cardiology hospital where I'd been a patient that after I was discharged I might go for a brief convalescence to the Sandals-managed Beaches Resort at Varadero, his response sounded odd to my ears.

"Congratulations," he said; and I looked and saw -- and this was the odd thing -- that he meant it.

Circular No 16

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Caracas, 2 March 2002. Circular No. 16

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Dear Friends,

I am glad to have received form Robert Huggins the following note.

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Las,

I don't know if you know, but PG as he was fondly know as went on to complete his PhD in Sports training many years later. He then worked with the Government of Trinidad and Tobago as a Coach. PG passed away some years ago at a ripe old age. Can't remember how old, but some of the other past students might remember.

Robert.

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In this circular I am going to narrate my part in PG Wilson´s life.

If you look at the bottom of the photo that I have included in Circular No. 15, the dedication was signed in 1965, while my graduation year from, Form V, was in December 1960. This photo was given to me by PG in Washington D.C during my last year at the Catholic University of America. He stayed a couple of days there before going to a scholarship somewhere in the US, I do not remember those details but I do remember the bottle of good Fernandez rum he gave me and the photo that I still keep. At that time I was in the swimming team of the university where I noticed that scholarships were given to foreign coaches with good records, so after a while I made a comment to my swimming coach on PG´s situation.

Again by fortune I had stayed in letter contact with PG after I left the Mount, so I asked PG for his curriculum, which by the way he sent in hand writing, next I had to rewrite it in my portable typing machine. I am sorry that I did not keep the memorabilia of his hand writing and letters.

He was accepted and I met him in a Hotel next to the University, he was very excited and I presume all went well. From your writing he got the opportunity the he deserved and placed him in the position to continue to help others as he had done with us, thank God. I have still have fond remembrances of his person and coaching, since I was in track and field team, mainly Discus and Javelin.

I lost contact with him after that, as I left the US in July 1965 for Venezuela and started to work in an area where communications were not the best, and all I remember is that someone told me later that he had a TV programme in Trinidad.

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Here I am continuing the who is who, thanks to Roger Henderson:

6. Malcolm Boyack has his own construction company in Trinidad

God Bless

Ladislao

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Listado: C16.xls

Photo: urbano fedak 1

Article: Msb p1 6404 mount inside

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www.theabbeyschool.com, an all class msb web site.

Jongolding_2000@yahoo.com, for inclusion in the listing.

Ladislaokertesz@hotmail.com, if you would like to be in the circular’s mailing list.

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ATTACHMENTS

Listado C16.xls

Names	Form V	Contact	nicknames	business address	Phone	e-mail
Castellani,
Castells, Enrique				Aluminium	959 3568	megaaluminium@cantv.net
Castillo, Ernest				Tunapuna
Castro, Pablo	1959			yv
Castro, Pedro				Caracas	(212) 258 0467
Castro, Reinaldo	1958			yv
Castro, Timienio	1959			yv
Chacon
Chadee, Edward		roger	Big Lip
Chandler, Peter				TT