Remembrance Day - "Black Swan Song"

Yesterday I had a surprise e-mail from, David Pott, the father of Joel Pott (lead singer of Athlete). He had found my blog entry about his son's song "Black Swan Song" written as a tribute to Joel's grandfather who died 3 years ago (see a few posts back - Oct. 26th), a veteran of the ill-fated Battle of Arnhem, immortalised in the blockbuster film "A Bridge Too Far".

Joel's father thanked me for my article and offered suggestions as to how the song's video (see here) and a documentary produced to coincide with its release (see below) might be used in school R.E. lessons together with some other resources.

Black Swan Story - (11minute edit) from Richard Edkins on Vimeo.

Today, we had a full school Mass for the Dead (joint All Saints + Remembrance Day Mass). During the priest's homily I suddenly had an idea... instead of singing the song I had planned to sing during Communion (modern Christian worship as usual) why don't I sing "Black Swan Song"? Problem: I didn't have the words with me... Isn't wireless technology wonderful? I discretely slipped open my MacBook Pro and did a quick Google search. There were my words. I trusted myself to busk the chords... God is good. The song seemed so right for that moment. The lyrics can be interpreted in different ways if you don't know the background to the song... "I am ready to rest in your arms", for example. I wouldn't have done that without yesterday's e-mail from David Pott.

I then used the 11 mins. shorter version of the documentary, the song video and some other resources during R.E. lessons today and will be using them again tomorrow. The pupils seemed genuinely interested.

Athlete sang "Black Swan Song" at Trafalgar Square this morning as part of a Remembrance Day event.

Hopefully many hearts were touched today by this lovely song and it's message. The single, whose proceeds go to the British Legion Poppy Appeal, was released to days ago. Let's make it a hit.

Here are the lyrics:

Black Swan Song - Athlete

I waded through the darkest fields you'd imagine
Your pretty face sketched on the barrel of my gun
And I know you'l be the first to welcome me
When I climb into eternity
Oh, oh

The forest kept us warm
Bur it doesn’t feel like home anymore
And I know there's bigger mountains where you are
And a better climate for my heart
Oh, oh

I've been racing the clock
And I've run out of steam
I am ready for my final symphony
Oh my body is weak
But my soul is still strong
I am ready to rest in your arms

Though many battles I have won
I lost to many friends I could count on
And I know they'll be the first to welcome me
When I parachute into eternity
Oh, oh

Chorus

And the rain beat down on the rooftops
But there was no sound,
There was no sound
And all my friends and familly carried me
They carried me home
Carried me home

Chorus

"Playing For Change" - a remarkable music project uniting musicians from around the world

An amazing music project, with performers recorded individually around the world for a CD + DVD, that wonderfully highlights the rich tapestry of human culture(s) and shows the power of music to unite, to create fraternity and through that unity to communicate a joy that is contagious.

"Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. The idea for this project arose from a common belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people. No matter whether people come from different geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds, music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race. And with this truth firmly fixed in our minds, we set out to share it with the world."

http://www.playingforchange.com/

Watch + listen to this amazing version of Stand By Me (takes a minute or so to really get going).

Commission for Information + Communication - Rome, Nov. 09

Two days ago I arrived at our General House (Headquarters) in Rome to meet with 5 other members of an international De La Mennais Brothers commission for Communication + Information (4 Bros. + 2 lay people from France, Uganda, Canada, Uruguay, Spain + me from England).

The other five members of our team and a Brother (2nd left)

from the General house community that has welcomed us for these 5 days of meetings.

On the agenda:

- looking at what initiatives are already being undertaken by Provinces and/or individual Bros. as regards web sites, blogs, social networking, publications of all types...

- learning from initiatives outside of the congregation (other congregations, secular or church-based organisations...)

- imagining the future of the congregation and what needs to be put in place to respond to future needs in relation to our charism of working with young people

- all sorts of other related topics, including training for those who may wish to set up a blog or a web site, or who would like to learn more about the advantages and dangers of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, etc... (these are areas I may well end up helping with).

We will also be visiting the Vatican Radio station, which I am really looking forward to. Apart from that, very little time for tourism. To give you an idea, today we started our meetings at 8.45am and tonight we finished at 10.40pm!!! Ouf!! But, it was a wonderful time of fraternal sharing of ideas and experiences, of learning from each other, of laughter, of hope-filled dynamism, of prayer...

The General House community is made up of the General Council (4 Bros., only one is here right now, the Superior General Bro. Yannick Houssay (France)), 6 other permanent Brothers (French, Spanish and Ugandan) and 2 other Ugandan Brothers preparing Doctorates.

Bro. Gérard (France), Superior of the General House community.

Bro. Vincent (Uganda), studying for a Doctorate and doing his best to hide from my camera!

3 Go Mad At Fordingbridge - the report!

We (Bros. Francis, Gus + myself) ended up having a most pleasurable afternoon, beginning with a drive into the New Forest, dodging the wild (but sedate) Forest ponies as we crossed the heathland. This was, after all, their territory, and they let us know it, wandering ever so slowly out into the middle of the road as you approached. It made sense of why there is a 40 mph speed limit on the Forest roads, and also why there are so many signs warning of the dangers of colliding with the animals (there are also cattle, deer and pigs to be seen a-wandering).

Bro. Gus with some new friends.

We stopped on the edge of the heathland to have a pub lunch in the Fighting Cocks pub, just outside Fordingbridge. On the menu was a wide selection of local and international cuisine, most of which used locally grown produce. Between the 3 of us we consumed partridge, duck and pheasant, all rather gorgeous. It's certainly somewhere I would go back to and it was good to share some time together as Brothers after what has been a very intense start to the school year.

3 Go Mad At Fordingbridge

Time for a Brothers' bonding outing... it's the final weekend of half-term and I suggested that the 3 of us go to a pub in the New Forest near Fordingbridge for a pub lunch and forest walk. But why is it that I can't help thinking of "Father Ted"??? :-)

More to follow...

"Up" (Disney/Pixar - 2009)

Pixar/Disney's latest animation "Up" is an unashamedly moving, incredibly funny, stunningly beautiful (in a subtle, unshowy way), all-round entertaining piece of film-making. If it doesn't AT LEAST get an Oscar nomination for Best Film, then there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with the world.

Don't just take my word for it, go see it yourself (with optional 3D which I liked), and I challenge any grown adult not to get more than just a lump in the throat during the early montage sequence showing the lives of central character Carl Friedricksen and his wife Ellie, from the moment they first meet as young children. It is a sequence as good as any that I have seen for a very long time. It shows the genius of the Pixar animation house and director John Lasseter in just a few minutes: beautiful animation that doesn't glory in its own eye-catching beauty, but that is 100% at the service of the characters and their stories.

Athlete - "Black Swan Song" (British Legion Poppy Appeal)

This song, from the latest album of one of my favourite bands, has been released as a single with all proceeds going to the British Legion Poppy Appeal for war veterans.

This lovely song was inspired lead singer Joel Potts Grandfather Major John Pott who died in 2006 but was seriously injured at the Battle of Arnhem in 1944. The video is simple (obviously made on a low budget), but movingly effective. It was filmed at the spot where Major Pott lay injured for 20 hours, during which time he wrote a letter to his wife. See below for more info.

Arnhem.

In 1943 he joined the Parachute Regiment, where his brother-in-law Lieutenant Colonel John Frost DSO MC was commanding the 2nd battalion. He was soon to become famous for holding the bridge at Arnhem and was played by Anthony Hopkins in the film A Bridge Too Far.

John Pott, also at Arnhem, was commander of A company in 156 Battalion which was in the 4th Para brigade. When they were dropped on Ginkel Heide on Monday 18th September, there were many immediate casualties as SS men shot at them as they descended, but there no casualties in A Company.

Dawn of Tuesday 19th September and 156 battalion had a clear objective - to capture the Koepel an area of high wooded ground which was heavily defended by the enemy. Once this was achieved 156 battalion could join with 1st Para Brigade to help John Frost on the bridge - John Pott of course had a high personal incentive to get to his brother in law. Lt Col des Voeux selected Johns A company to lead the attack. The Koepel was separated from the fields below by a main road out of Arnhem. On that day it was also the main German defensive line. It proved to be an attack against all the odds and only John and a few men managed to get through the German defences and well into the trees.

Continue the story at:
http://www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/john_pott.htm

***********

On the same web page there is a personal testimony of his own faith given by Major Pott to fellow Arnhem veterans in 2002. It is moving, powerfully heartfelt and wonderful in its clear-minded devotion and love of God. See below.

'Such valuable Bridges over past obstacles! Racial barriers, religious intolerance, Rank and Class, hatred of enemies. Praise God for these bridges, which lead to such rich blessings.'

'But what of the future? I, my comrades and the Dutch who suffered with us, will soon be dead. Will those bridges decay with us? I doubt it.'

'However there is one more great chasm which we have not yet mentioned, and the only Bridge which spans it is not only the Bridge to the future prosperity of Britain, the Netherlands and everywhere else. It is the one way for each of us to travel from a state of helplessness amid all the sin, suffering and death of this world to a Life in tune with the true God, Who is Love. The Bridge is the Cross of Christ. What hope can there be amidst all the personal and communal suffering of the present, and of all the hurts of history, unless our Creator loves us enough to suffer with us? There is no way to defeat sin in our world and our lives apart from the power of His blood shed on that Bridge. Jesus proclaimed Himself the Way, the Truth and the Life. He rose from the dead, and countless people have found Him very much alive today. They have passed over the Bridge of His Cross, not waiting until they die or until they make themselves better, quite impossible, but while they are still in the midst of all the stress and pain of life on this trouble planet. They have admitted defeat and begun to know the true God; and that is eternal Life starting here.'

'Have you noticed that most of these bridges are founded on personal relationships? This is an essential factor in regard to the Lord Jesus. I do not ask if you belong to a Christian denomination or attend Church; but do you have a personal relationship to the Lord Jesus?'

'You may be one of my generation with not much time to make peace with God. You may be doing lots of good for the Arnhem Veterans' Club and other charities, but have you loved God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength - His first command? So, if you have still failed to make you peace with Him, I beg you, in Christ's Name to delay no longer. What more can He do to prove His love for you?'

'Or you may be a young person with all your life before you. Do not waste it! Start enjoying real Life with Jesus now. I received Christ into my life just before my 17th birthday, 58 years ago, and I have never regretted it. Though I have failed the Lord Jesus countless times, He has never failed me. He saved me on my seventh parachute jump, when I never saw my 'chute open.'

'If He spared my life on 19th September 1944, when so many better men than I went to glory, it is surely my duty to share the news of this great Captain of our Salvation. I pray that you may make certain that you have crossed His BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE AND ETERNAL LIFE.'

After returning to the UK from Oflag 79, John Pott continued to be involved with the Parachute Regiment until he retired to Inverness-Shire, Scotland, in 1972. In later years he was awarded the MBE. John Pott died in 2006.

Oh boy... do I NOT like stress!!...

... but I DO like trusting in God that he will give me all I need to be able to cope

with that stress. At times it's a close run thing, but being where he wants me to be, I know he will give me all I need.

Stress... hmmm... a couple of my friends laugh when I mention this topic. The word "stress" is neither in their vocabulary, nor in their experience of life. Whereas I happen to be one of life's natural worriers. Put it down to my "artistic temperament"! My Novice Master, Frère Michel, said as much to me at the end of my Noviciate (first year of training to be a Brother) in 1991. He said that my personality/psychological make up would be a double-edged sword for me as the years go by: on the one hand a creative sensibility, sensitivity and vulnerability that would allow me to express my deepest feelings through music and would lead me into many strong and lasting friendships... and on the other hand an emotional fragility and a tendency to get very easily hurt psychologically, stemming from the aforementioned vulnerability. I would also add to that a naturally low self-confidence and need for affirmation.

I think he was spot on.

It has certainly been borne out by subsequent events in my life.

I do feel, however, that my experiences have toughened me up to a degree and that I have become a little more "battle-hardened". I have also, with God's grace, developed strategies to cope with the low moments/periods, the times when I have felt a word or a look or an action cut through me like a burning sword through butter: cycling (a grace of my Noviciate), singing + playing guitar along to Christian rock songs and other favourite songs, sport in general...

I've needed those defence mechanisms these past 2 months with my move back to my home town of Southampton and my old school of St. Mary's College. This is nothing to do with the school, it's pupils, the staff, my Brothers' community, etc... More to do with the ghosts of family pain that still echo around the part of the city that I grew up in. I feel in so many ways that I was meant to come back here at this time, that it is God's will - for me to serve this school community and the Brothers community in a time of need, for me to help my family in its process of healing and dealing with the past.

In some ways it's as if the past 22 years since I left school and left Southampton to start my journey towards becoming a De La Mennais Brother and then living out that apostolate have been a preparation for me to be able to come back here: a time during which I would, again through God's boundless grace, develop the spiritual and psychological strength that I would need to be able to deal with what I face when coming back here, both in my inner world and in the local environment.

But the challenges these past 2 months have been great. On top of the ghosts of childhood past, there's been the fact that the teacher I was due to take over from towards the end of October when she was due to have her baby actually gave birth 2 days before the start of term, nearly 2 months early... so, 2 days to prepare for being Head of R.E.... Nice. 10 days later an Ofsted school inspection ("Where's my bike?")...

It's been great to now find myself working with 4 teaching colleagues who once taught me over 22 years ago. It's been great getting to know the pupils at St. Mary's, and it's been great to find myself in community once again with Bro. Francis and Bro. Gus after gaps of 5 and 19 years respectively.

Bro. Francis, the Head and Deputy Head Boy and visiting speaker (an Old Simmarian)

at our annual prize-giving evening that took place last week: Speech Day.

But to say I'm looking forward to half-term would be an understatement.

This weekend came at just the right time. I've been helping our Assistant Provincial show a young Irish man around some of our French communities. He actually found out about our congregation through this blog and has been in correspondence with me for well over a year. He's considering a vocation as a teaching Brother and wants to get to know us better (and vice versa). I first met him in person in Cork Airport on the way to see my parents (he lives in Youghal near Cork) and he then came to visit us in Liverpool last term before I left there.

This is one of the main reasons I actually continue with this blog: to give my congregation a presence on the web and get ourselves better known in case anyone out there is considering a vocation to a teaching order. Yes I'm talking to YOU!!

LOL.

I needed to chill and coming to France has helped me do so. Batteries recharged, ready for the challenges ahead! :-)

Dvd translations - Père Gustave

I've started to translate into English some of what my friend Fr. Gustave says on the dvd that I mention in my previous post so that I can use it in my R.E. classes. It's wonderful stuff, but I fear that my translation does not even come anyway close to doing him justice. You have to hear him deliver it with the enthusiasm and passion that inhabits him (see the video link also in the previous post). Anyway, here goes a few extracts:

Death + Resurrection

• God is all-powerful. He created a natural world (the universe) which is not all-powerful but that does have the power to inflict death as a natural event. Through the resurrection, God offers us victory over the natural world in Jesus’ body, the body of a man that is at the same time God in human form. So, if nature/death defeated Jesus Christ (God-made-flesh) in his body through the crucifixion, in that same body death has been defeated by the resurrection.
• In the death + resurrection of Jesus, God himself passes through death, experiences death and makes of death a passage to new life in him. Henceforth, Christ’s resurrected body is no longer in the world. The world is in him. That’s the essence of the mystery of the resurrection. It operates an inversion: death to life, ‘minus’ to ‘plus’. The ‘minus’ that is the death of Christ is shot through by a power that transforms it from a ‘minus’ (death) to a ‘plus’ (resurrection) [accompanied by appropriate horizontal + vertical hand gestures]. Death is defeated in Christ.
• No human could have ever witnessed the event of the resurrection as it transcended the limits of our physical universe. We are conditioned, our boundaries are set by the limits of our universe, the natural world. This act of God which transcends, which goes totally beyond the limit imposed by death, i.e. the limit of our own mortality, is an act that escapes human understanding. We can proclaim “Christ is risen!”, but no-one would have been able to witness the act itself.
• He who lived in the world and died in the world a mortal human being reappears in the world after the resurrection having gone beyond death. He is no longer in the world. The world is in him. But it is necessary for him to appear to his followers, so he appears in such a way that whilst fully remaining the man Jesus of Nazareth he is at the same time he whose being transcends the limits of time and space.

Purgatory

• Not a place, but rather a state of existence that transcends the natural world. When nature finishes with us, we enter the realm where it is possible to finally see and understand fully the resurrected Jesus in all his glory, a glory that dazzles us.
• Death plunges us into the dazzling, blinding light of Jesus Christ who, in his resurrection, exists in a form that God wants us to also assume.
• In discovering Jesus in all his glory, we discover the limits of our earthly perception, we discover our weakness and the extent to which we fall short of his glory. “I don’t believe it! So that’s who he is. I didn’t love him the way I should have, he who through the power of his love saves me from the pain of death.” Hence our need for purification.
• My own paraphrase of Fr. Gustave: Purgatory is therefore a purification of our fragile humanity through the discovery of him who is the light of creation, stripping away all our dead wood to reveal the glory of our deepest identity as children of God, allowing us to enter into that full union with God, through his Son, to which we were invited before all the worlds began. God is waiting there for us, a loving father with open arms, and all we have to do is let go of all that holds us back and run into his merciful embrace.

One of my heroes... Père Gustave Martelet s.j.

Now four weeks into the new school year at my new school, the last few days I've felt as if I was running on empty. But I think the worst is over, especially now that we have actually had our impending Ofsted (school inspection). It took place 2 weeks ago and is always a very stressful experience, but nowadays as much, if not more so for the school administration as it is for the teachers themselves, what with all the hoops a school has to jump through in terms of documentation.

I'd like to take a moment to look back briefly at my summer travels in France. When I was there for our Provincial celebration towards the end of August I had the chance to come back via Paris and visit my old friend Fr. Gustave Martelet s.j., a 92 year-old Jesuit theologian and "expert" at Vatican II with whom I had the privilege to work during my 4 years of study in Paris. As well as having become a spiritual mentor/director, I am immensely honoured to say he has also become a close friend. He is (rather incredibly) still writing, lecturing at my old faculty (the Jesuit University faculty and scholasticate Centre Sèvres) and giving interviews for tv (more about that in a moment), the latter all without notes. His mind is so incredibly alive, alert and inquisitive, more so than most people half his age. He is wonderfully warm and affectionate with a lovely playful sense of humour.

Fr. Gustave

Whenever I see Gustave in Paris he takes me for a meal, occasionally he celebrates Mass just for the 2 of us and through him I receive the sacrament of Reconciliation. He always asks me when I am going to come and see him again. I am lucky to be able to sometimes make a detour through Paris when going to meetings in France or coming back back from summer breaks and probably see him 2-4 times a year.

I already have a dvd of talks that he gave for the community at Taizé monastery and was delighted to hear that a 50-min. interview he gave for a French Sunday morning religious tv programme had received such positive feedback that the channel decided to release it commercially on dvd. It is an incredibly moving personal testimony that combines autobiography with a summary of his own personal theology in relation to some pretty BIG questions: suffering, death, resurrection, Purgatory, Hell. He is a wonderfully engaging speaker whose passion for God and his passion for helping others to come closer to Him, as well a deep and genuine humility, shine through the whole interview. I say interview, but in actual fact Gustave is the only person you here speaking other than the occasional voice-over link during shots of him walking around Parisian churches, a park, etc... and the programme is, I think, all the better for this.

Unfortunately, there are no English subtitles as it was only intended for a French audience. But I would thoroughly encourage any French speakers to check it out. If you click here you will go to a streamed version of the programme from the French catholic KTO tv channel's website. It was originally shown on one of the main French channels. Even non-French speakers might be interested to see the passion and energy for God that this man has at the age of 92, especially the last 15 minutes.

The dvd cover. Click here to go to a French website to order it.

An ambition fulfilled

Having grown up here on the south coast of England and then having spent the rest of my life elsewhere on the coast (Liverpool, St. Jean-de-Luz) bar 4 years (in Paris), I have always felt a natural affinity for water, the sea, etc. and love the freshness of a cool coastal breeze.

However, until last Saturday I had never had the opportunity to go out on a sail-powered vessel of any kind. My most memorable sea-going experiences had been in the small fishing boat that covers the 20 min. crossing from Tenby (S. Wales) to Caldey Island and its Cistercian monastery (see photo in previous article), being tossed every which way, covered in sea spray and loving every minute of it. And the fact that I adore rollercoasters (the more extreme the better - Oblivion at Alton Towers? Piece of cake!) has always made me think that I would be able to cope with the wave and wind-induced movements in a yacht. I'd simply been waiting for a kind benefactor to come along and offer me the chance to go out on the water in his or her vessel.

Well, that kind benefactor has materialised in the form of the elder brother of a good friend of mine in Liverpool. This friend, Adrian, is a parent of pupils in our Liverpool school, fitness fanatic and ex-rugby union player in his mid 60s who for the past 3 years regularly took me to the gym he shares with fellow Liverpudlian business men to help me get fit for 2 multi-day long-distance sponsored cycles and most recently my first triathlon last June. His elder brother, Joe, lives 90 min. drive from Southampton in the small town of Fleet and has a yacht in Gosport harbour (opposite Portsmouth). Adrian said Joe would be delighted to have me help crew his 32-foot yacht when he goes out in it.

So 10 days ago I phoned Joe up. He said that he could do with a 3rd pair of hands for an outing last Saturday - in actual fact a competitive race run by his sailing club. 12 yachts to race around a 2h30 min. course in the Solent. I was very excited by the idea and accepted immediately.

Gosport Marina where Joe's yacht, Slam, is moored.

That Saturday morning I drove to Gosport and met Joe and the other crew member Clive (himself an experienced sailor who had recently had a hip op). They gave me a brief initiation into the basics of setting up the sails before we left, then it was out onto the water. I was to be the winch operator (or "the muscle" if you like - don't laugh) for the gib sail (a "genoa"). I felt nervous and a rather out of my depth (excuse the pun), but Joe and Clive made me feel very welcome and did their best to pass on as much knowledge and understanding as possible in the course of our time on the water. Once we got under way in the race proper, having circled around with the other 11 yachts jostling for position behind the start line for about 15 min., I began to understand the exhilaration felt by competitive sailors (I was at that point hanging out over the starboard side of the boat stretching the gib sail out with my right arm to keep us edging towards the start line). It helped that the weather was glorious with clear blue skies and that there was decent wind. Perfect conditions.

The Spinnaker observation tower in Portsmouth harbour as we sailed out into the Solent.

"Captain" Joe

Racing along with other yachts in our wake.

Joe + Clive eyeing up the opposition as we approach one of the buoys that acted as navigation waypoints during the race.

The final leg back towards Portsmouth harbour.

My intuition relating to rollercoasters seems to be a good one... I do apparently have good sea legs, although I think I will need to test myself in rougher seas to really be sure.

Once we'd crossed the finish line (finishing 4th out of 12 on race time, 5th on handicap - Joe had done very well in his previous race) Joe very kindly let me tiller (steer) the yacht back out into the Solent for a while before then guiding it part of the way in towards Gosport.

Once we were back moored to the pontoon in the harbour the sails needed tying up and there was a checklist of routines to follow, after which we headed for the clubhouse where we and the other participants held a BBQ during which the results were read out.

All in all, a wonderfully enjoyable day. From my point of view, at least I seemed to be more of a help than a hindrance to Joe and Clive. If I get the call from them to crew for another outing (which they suggested I may well do) I would jump at the chance!

Turning back the clock

Well, I've now been teaching for just over a week at my old school in Southampton (St. Mary's College), 22 years after having finished my time there as a pupil... and the whole thing seems very surreal, as if I am in a waking dream. I'd been back to the school's attached Brothers community many times over the years as a Brother, but (perhaps subconsciously) avoided going around my old school in detail. Now, going round as a teacher, I am seeing the place through 2 sets of eyes. 5 of my former teachers still work here. They have given me a lovely welcome and made me feel right at home. All sorts of memories, smells, sights, sounds, have come flooding back. This is not an unpleasant experience. Though it does have a very melancholy edge to it concerning the Music block and the Music class where I learnt Music and also had my piano lessons.

For my Music/piano teacher, mentor, musical and vocational inspiration and good friend, Stephen Parry-Williams died 2 years ago of prostate cancer. As well as inspiring me to start learning an instrument (the clarinet) at the age of 14 and then to do a Music degree, he also took me (and 3 other pupils) on my first trip to a Cistercian monastery, that of Caldey Abbey (Caldey Island, off Tenby on the south Welsh coast) at a time when the first ideas of a vocation were burgeoning inside of me. When I was in 6th form he also encouraged the Brothers to invite me round to the community for a meal as he was sure (a strong, intuitive feeling he told me in later years) that I was meant to become a De La Mennais Brother. By then, the idea had started to grab hold of me too and the meeting of minds that took place served only to confirm what I felt inside of me.

I find his presence still haunts the building where I now teach (just 4 lessons a week - the rest of my teaching is R.E.) and rehearse the pupil Worship Band (first Mass tomorrow) and soon the Orchestra. I go into the room and expect to see him sitting at his piano accompanying himself as he sings an Italian Romantic opera aria or a Schubert lied.

I suppose I will always associate that room with him (much of the furniture is the same, as is the particular smell). I feel honoured to have stepped into his shoes. If I can have even just a small amount of the positive influence on our pupils today that he had on so many of the pupils that came through our school over the years then I will be doing very well indeed. I know that he will be watching over me.

"Parry" (right) with 3 fellow pupils of mine on our way to Caldey Island for 5 days retreat.

Things have gone pretty well so far, despite a surprise 3 days before term started. The Head of R.E. that I was due to replace in a month or 2 due to maternity had her baby 2 months premature just before the start of term. So instead of working with her the first 6 weeks or so, at a couple of days notice I've had to become responsible for the R.E. schemes from Yr. 8 to 11 (12-16 yrs. - they do GCSE in Yr. 10 so Yr. 11 = a non-exam AS-style R.E. course). So my head has been stuck somewhere up my nether regions much of this past week.

A major landmark tomorrow: my first involvement in liturgical/extra-curricular music-making. I've had 2 rehearsals with 7 budding rock musicians aged between 11 and 16 who will form our Worship Band for tomorrow's Welcome Mass to celebrate the start of the school year. They are a great bunch of young musicians, all very keen. If this is the sign of things to come then I am going to have great fun with them and also the School Orchestra which needs to be restarting.

Despite the busy start to the term, I have managed to fit in some recreational activities... more about them later.