traffic. They must have talked for an hour. After he had gone, she called me downstairs and handed me a letter. It contained an instruction for me to meet the bishop. Mum looked at me with a mournful smile. Then she said with tears in her eyes: ‘If only my mother were alive to see this day. Fancy, me having a son a priest. It’s surely an answer to her prayers.’
Mum did not see fit to mention the matter to Dad, nor did I think to raise it with him. So it was that I came to be ridingon the bus to the pleasant suburb of Woodford Green, destined for recruitment as a minor seminarian of the diocese of Brentwood.
18
T HE SEMINARY CLOTHES LIST with a letter from the Very Reverend Wilfred Doran of Cotton College, North Staffordshire, caused uproar in the house. Shaking the list above her head, Mum reckoned it equivalent to a month’s wages. She accosted Father Cooney after Mass on Sunday. He arrived the next day on his bike, looking gravely askance. Ensconsed in Dad’s armchair, still wearing his cycle clips, he slurped his tea to the bottom of the cup. The two little ones gawped as if a giant scorpion sat ready to strike.
Father Cooney snatched the clothes list and began crossing out items and altering numbers with a pencil stub. ‘Wisswiss…five pair of stockings [that’s how he referred to what we called socks] . Tree’s more than enough! Tree pair of trousers? Wisswiss… One pair. He’ll be growing out of them anyways.’
It was still a whopping prospective bill.
Mum challenged him: ‘Well, where did your parents get the money when you went to the seminary, Father?’
‘Oh, I was brought up in poor old Ireland, Missus. Not a penny in the house. My dear old Mam went out the back and killed the pig.’
After he had gone, Mum stood by the kitchen sink watching him cycling away up Woodford Avenue. ‘“Me dear owld Mam went out da back and keeld da peeg!”’ she mimicked. ‘Wish I had a peeg out da back.’
Assistance came from the Saint Vincent de Paul Society. Four crisp five-pound notes, the white ones of those dayslarge as jumbo-sized handkerchiefs. So began the process of purchasing my seminary wardrobe, mainly at the Cooperative Society store in Ilford. The new underwear and shirts were placed in a drawer in Mum’s bedroom; the black suit hung in her wardrobe. Alone in the house I would creep in and sniff the unworn items.
Time was at an agonising standstill. I attempted to bring forward the moment of departure by imagining myself sitting in the train as it pulled away from Saint Pancras station. I had chosen the passage I would read from The Imitation of Christ as I settled back in the seat of the carriage. What I read drew me into an interior world where I seemed ever more aware of my innermost secret thoughts, known only to me and my God:
Avoid the concourse of men as much as you can; for discussion of worldly affairs is very bad for the soul, even though they be discussed with a good intention. For we are quickly defiled and enslaved by vanity.
I could not wait to enter the religious life so that I could make a reality of the ordinances of Thomas à Kempis in pursuit of the example of Jesus. But time obstinately refused to pass.
19
T HAT SUMMER I took a full-time job as errand boy at a grocer’s store on Claybury Broadway, our local shopping centre. The hours were 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. (7.30 p.m. on Saturdays), with a half day off on Thursday. In all weathers – it rained a lot that summer – I delivered boxes of groceries carried in the iron basket attached to the handlebars of an ancient bike. The popular song on the radio that summer wasFrankie Laine’s ‘I Believe’. Recalling that doleful tune, I see the streets of Barkingside stretching before me as I struggle to keep upright on the heavily laden machine, my toes barely reaching the pedals. When I wasn’t weaving perilously on the recalcitrant bike and coping with its faulty brakes, I was blackening and chafing my hands realigning
Mum did not see fit to mention the matter to Dad, nor did I think to raise it with him. So it was that I came to be ridingon the bus to the pleasant suburb of Woodford Green, destined for recruitment as a minor seminarian of the diocese of Brentwood.
18
T HE SEMINARY CLOTHES LIST with a letter from the Very Reverend Wilfred Doran of Cotton College, North Staffordshire, caused uproar in the house. Shaking the list above her head, Mum reckoned it equivalent to a month’s wages. She accosted Father Cooney after Mass on Sunday. He arrived the next day on his bike, looking gravely askance. Ensconsed in Dad’s armchair, still wearing his cycle clips, he slurped his tea to the bottom of the cup. The two little ones gawped as if a giant scorpion sat ready to strike.
Father Cooney snatched the clothes list and began crossing out items and altering numbers with a pencil stub. ‘Wisswiss…five pair of stockings [that’s how he referred to what we called socks] . Tree’s more than enough! Tree pair of trousers? Wisswiss… One pair. He’ll be growing out of them anyways.’
It was still a whopping prospective bill.
Mum challenged him: ‘Well, where did your parents get the money when you went to the seminary, Father?’
‘Oh, I was brought up in poor old Ireland, Missus. Not a penny in the house. My dear old Mam went out the back and killed the pig.’
After he had gone, Mum stood by the kitchen sink watching him cycling away up Woodford Avenue. ‘“Me dear owld Mam went out da back and keeld da peeg!”’ she mimicked. ‘Wish I had a peeg out da back.’
Assistance came from the Saint Vincent de Paul Society. Four crisp five-pound notes, the white ones of those dayslarge as jumbo-sized handkerchiefs. So began the process of purchasing my seminary wardrobe, mainly at the Cooperative Society store in Ilford. The new underwear and shirts were placed in a drawer in Mum’s bedroom; the black suit hung in her wardrobe. Alone in the house I would creep in and sniff the unworn items.
Time was at an agonising standstill. I attempted to bring forward the moment of departure by imagining myself sitting in the train as it pulled away from Saint Pancras station. I had chosen the passage I would read from The Imitation of Christ as I settled back in the seat of the carriage. What I read drew me into an interior world where I seemed ever more aware of my innermost secret thoughts, known only to me and my God:
Avoid the concourse of men as much as you can; for discussion of worldly affairs is very bad for the soul, even though they be discussed with a good intention. For we are quickly defiled and enslaved by vanity.
I could not wait to enter the religious life so that I could make a reality of the ordinances of Thomas à Kempis in pursuit of the example of Jesus. But time obstinately refused to pass.
19
T HAT SUMMER I took a full-time job as errand boy at a grocer’s store on Claybury Broadway, our local shopping centre. The hours were 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. (7.30 p.m. on Saturdays), with a half day off on Thursday. In all weathers – it rained a lot that summer – I delivered boxes of groceries carried in the iron basket attached to the handlebars of an ancient bike. The popular song on the radio that summer wasFrankie Laine’s ‘I Believe’. Recalling that doleful tune, I see the streets of Barkingside stretching before me as I struggle to keep upright on the heavily laden machine, my toes barely reaching the pedals. When I wasn’t weaving perilously on the recalcitrant bike and coping with its faulty brakes, I was blackening and chafing my hands realigning
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