Saturday, April 27, 2002

Circular No 24


Caracas, 27 of April 2002. Circular No. 24
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Dear Friends,
Still I am sending the wrong article on the Abbey, I hope that this time a have it right!!!
The following lines were sent to me by Don Mitchell, although I am sending it somewhat belated but it is interesting enough.
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Don wrote:

I read with much amusement and enjoyment your memories of Fr Benedict in Ladislao's circular No 13. I visited Mount last April when I was in Trinidad for a conference and took the photographs of Fr Augustine, Fr Cuthbert, and Fr Benedict that now appear on Tony's web site.
It was then that I met and photographed Fr Augustine, who has unfortunately lost his sight. That is the colour photo that is on the web site. He was quite active and showed me around despite his handicap. We had a drink and something to eat in the old familiar cafeteria at the Abbey. I was interested to learn from him that he still has all the Abbey School records of all the years that the school was open. We can get to copy, if we can ever organise the expedition of arranging to take a photocopier to the Abbey, all the records of all the forms for our web pages.
Fr. Cuthbert was still working in the co-op he founded over 40 years ago, and he willingly allowed himself to be prised out from behind his desk to have the photos that you have seen taken. He was obviously hale and hearty if a bit thin.
Fr. Benedict was in his room when Fr Augustine showed me there. He would not allow me in, but came out to chat. You can imagine what a state his room must be in with all the bits of equipment lying around. He proudly brought out an amplifier that he had just built from scratch. It is visible in the photo, as he wanted to demonstrate that it was nearly loud enough to be heard down at the now abandoned playing field. He appeared in quite good health, if a bit frail. He assured me that he still has all of the hundreds of class photos that he took all those years ago as the official school photographer. My hope is that, if we can ever take a scanner up to the Abbey, before he passes away and someone cleans out his room for the last time, we will one day soon copy all the photos and put them up on the web. I hope that Fr. John reads this to him or prints and gives him your memoirs of him, to read
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Here I am continuing the who is where, thanks to Roger Henderson:
12. Chris Krogh is deceased
Until next time,
God Bless
Ladislao
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Listado: C24.xls
Photo: msb pool competition
Shall be sent to ratified addresses this year, please send a line if you have not done so, and shall include photos in your emails.
Article: The last days abbey
Column: wvb 020421 Hannibal and all that

ATTACHMENTS
Listado C24.xls
Names Form V Contact Nickname business address Phone, e-mail
Farah, David


TT

Farah, Gordon 1958
Smokey TT

Farah, Michael
roger
TT

Farah, Richard 1957 gioannetti Mousey

rfarah@MDC-UM.com
Farah, Roger
don


rogfarah@carib-link.net
Farcheg, Elias


El Tigre, Venezuela
Farcheg, Isaias Dr. 1958 maurice
Caracas
farcheg@telcel.net.ve
Farcheg, Roberto


El Tigre, Venezuela
Farcheg, Simon


El Tigre, Venezuela
Farfan, Geoffrey





Farfan, Gregory
gioannetti
TT

Farfan, Wayne





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Last days for old
house on the Mount

[photo not copied]


By OLIVIA MEJIAS
Features Desk

THIS old house at the Mount St Benedict monastery is about 81 years old. Made of Tapia and decorated with solid, rectangular red bricks, it is about to be torn down.

It was built by Dutch, Belgian and German monks who came to Trinidad from Brazil around the early part of the 20th century and who needed somewhere to rest their heads at night.

The residence is now used as a storeroom and one worker lives there. But it is in a severely dilapidated condition and the priests at the mount are going to have it torn down.

"It's inevitable because it is already falling down right now. There are expenses attached to tearing it down and that is holding it back. If I had the equipment I would start tomorrow," said Abbot Francis Alleyne, 'man-in-charge' at the mount.

The abbot said while he appreciated the aesthetic value of the building-"It's a nice old building, very attractive in its architecture"-he would not describe it as a national monument.

Still the priests at the monastery have gone to lengths to preserve that part of the mount's history.
"What we've done in the past is that to preserve it we had people come and take photographs, someone has painted it, we had a builder come and make a drawing of it," Alleyne said.

In the future, should the priests want to rebuild (in concrete this time), they would have a perfect model from which to work.



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