Circular No 375

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

Caracas, 10 January 2009 No. 375

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Dear Friends,

The Circular is sorry to inform its members of the passing away of Fr. Benedict.

This issue has been prepared for those that had taken classes with him and those that knew the great man, in remembrance of his great job in science and photography.

I am including news taken from the internet while I was researching on Fr. Benedict, that never got to our Circular and occurred last year, as to why Fr. Benedict got himself in a wheel chair.

May I take the opportunity to invite the Abbot, Fr. John Pereira to participate in the Circular, and to provide news pertinent to the Circular? Must remember that more than half of the ALUMNI of The Abbey School, receiving the Newsletter live outside TT, and outside of the immediate circle in Mt. St. Benedict’s influence.

I am also forwarding this invitation to the New Old Boys Association, so that ALUMNI that cannot participate personally with the Association may get news on the status, activities and general news of its members. And why not, help the Association in recruiting active overseas members.

The reason for my making the request is because I read old news that I just found in internet and published last year. I am sure that you wanted and tried to send us the information but due to email difficulties, the Circular did not receive the news.

Sunday 17 February 2008

Fr Benedict Simons had a fall in the bathroom area on at approximately 6:00 pm.

He received medical attention at St Augustine Private Hospital including some X-Rays.

He was attended to by Dr Singh.

Results indicated that Fr Benedict has suffered a hip fracture.

The neck of the femur has been severed and can only be addressed by surgery.

Fr Benedict is warded at “DAFFODIL 4” at the St Augustine Private Hospital and will be seen on Monday 18 February by the Orthopedic Surgeon, Dr Richard Hofford.

The X-Rays also indicated that Fr Benedict has osteoporosis.

Fr Benedict will have hemiarthroplasty surgery early this week.

Do keep him in your prayer!

Visiting hours are 9 am to 12 noon and 3 pm to 8 pm.

He needs two pints of blood, to be done at the Port of Spain General Hospital Blood Bank.

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Monday 18 February 2008

Abbot John had a chat with Dr Richard Hofford at 4:00 pm today at the Hospital.

They agreed that Fr Benedict would have a Bipolar Hemiarthroplasty with an uncemented stem.

This is a more advanced procedure than the Austin Moore Hemiarthroplasty that was first suggested and a lengthier operation.

It is also more expensive.

However, this will guarantee more mobility, more independence and less post-surgery pain than the Austin Moore Hemiarthroplasty.

The surgery is carded for 6:00 pm on Tuesday 19 February 2008.

Two factors that may defer the surgery are as follows:

If we do not get the donor’s receipts on time. Fr Benedict requires 3 pints of blood.

If Dr Poon King does not prepare him in time. Dr Poon King has been assigned to ensure that he is in a good enough medical condition for surgery.

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Here is a letter that I sent Fr. Benedict after my long overdue visit to TT in 2002.

Caracas, 30 March 2002.

Dear Fr. Benedict

This is the first time I write to you since my visit to TT. The visit brought back good memories and as you see in my lines written for MSB old boys and the web page, there is a movement to inquire about old friends and classmates.

I am sending annexed, the photos you so kindly gave me to copy, these were of boys of the 1970´s as no one here recognizes them. As soon as I have information on them I shall write you.

I am glad to have been able to meet you and have the short conversation. Thank you again for the rosaries, blue and pink. I am sorry that the time was short and that I could not exchange all the ideas that were in my head, as I was being escorted by the friends with whom I stayed, and I did not want the take more of their time than would have been necessary.

By now you must have read several of my circulars. I hope that you like them. In my addressing system I still do not know how to separately address the circulars so that Fr. Augustine would get his personally and Fr. Cuthbert also get his, but some day. I write to all of you with the same kindness.

I would like to get the address of Fr. Paul and Fr. Francis, whom are said to be still living and in a retreat house. Of course if there is an e-mail it would be good and if you could send some lines for those dead, the year, where, and how, that would be interesting. I remember you answering to my questions but my human hard drive was full and I cannot reproduce your answer to include them in my circulars.

I am including the general list of MSB students, I am sure you can add some more and eliminate those that were not. I shall keep you informed if new ones appear. The biggest problem is to find out the Form V graduation year is because of the Hi C and other additional courses that were given after the Oxford and Cambridge exams.

Maybe Miss. Markus can help with the list that she worked on. Do you show her the circulars???. How can I get an access to her year listing???. Don Mitchell who visited you last May told me that Fr. John offered the listing and photos regarding Fr. Bernard??. Maybe you can follow up.

I am in constant contact with Dr. Isaias Farcheg whom you know and he sends his best greetings.

I need two lines of information on those that have been in contact with you during these last years. Many of us have lost contact with others ALUMNI and are curious.

Has there been a book or magazine written about the mount, outside the Jubileum issues?? It is interesting that when I was in TT, I have heard promotional advertising to visit the Monastery in a local radio station but no information appears in the internet??

God Bless and keep you in good health,

Ladislao

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THE INCOMPARABLE FR. BENEDICT – “VOOSH” TO US BOYS

He must have had an enviable childhood, back there in Holland. He must have amused himself continually, with his continuously inquisitive mind, his indomitable spirit, and his sense of fun. I can just imagine him at the head of a crowd of his boyhood friends, leading them on to some new adventure, some new experiment which he had concocted in his busy mind.

Fr. Benedict, “Voosh” to us Old Boys of the Abbey School at Mt. St. Benedict, arrived at the Mount as a young cleric sometime between 1948-49, according to Trevor Evelyn’s recollections. He did not take long to make his mark, and every boy whose fortune it was to have met the man, can fondly recall the exuberance, the joy of life, the fun, the excitement which he exuded as he described in detail the latest adventure or experiment upon which he had embarked. Seemingly, everything he did seemed to end with an explosion, a high point somewhere along the line, which he punctuated with an expression of delight – “Vooooosh” – and that’s how he got his nickname.

I first met this happy wannabe scientist when he presented us, sometime in 1956, with a beautiful model of a speedboat, about 2 foot long, which he had rigged with remote controls, to be operated from the upper windows of the Monastery on the hill above our swimming pool, which might have been a half-mile downhill from his bedroom. He asked us to simply take the boat down to the pool and deposit it in the water, whereupon he, with the aid of a telescope and his remote controls, would attempt to operate the motor from the safety of his mountaintop home. So said, so done. The boat worked magnificently, and was duly returned to him for storage among his memories.

Voosh also appointed himself as the School Photographer, and probably every Old Boy of the Abbey School still retains, among his souvenirs, the Class Photograph of his buddies and classmates, most of which were taken by the Great Man himself.

We loved Fr. Benedict and his hair-brained schemes, and the world will be a little sadder today, at the news of his passing last night, January 1, 2009 at 6.30 p.m.

The stories abound, where he was the star actor, extending the bounds of human effort, inspiring us boys to “try something new”, giving of himself, and I guess, enjoying our company and loving us into the bargain.

I recall the fact that he would never take a swim in the clean, chlorinated pool. “There’s no life in it. There’s no oxygen,” he’d say. But on one occasion at least, I recall, when the chlorination system had shut down for an extended time and we sat glumly on the bleachers looking at the dark green, clearly stagnant water with long green filamentous algae protruding from the walls, he came down, put on his bathing trunks and dived in. “Come on in, boys. This is healthy for you. Lots of oxygen.” Crazy man.

On another well-known occasion, Voosh brought an old seine, which he had either begged or borrowed from a local fisherman, and to which he had tied a large number of empty Vat 19 and other bottles. He asked us to help him spread the net-like contraption across the entire surface of the pool, so that, hopefully, the combined buoyancy of the bottles would keep the seine afloat. Then, proceeding to the diving board, he jumped right in, to check, I suppose, whether the net would support his weight.

It didn’t.

It took the combined effort of a lot of us boys to fish him out of the water, net an all, as he spluttered and gasped for breath. Another great idea which failed.

Voosh owned a large Australian war boomerang. Heaven alone knows where he’d got it. But we would often ask him to show us how it worked, longing to see the magnificent spinning weapon circling the Mount as we would stand admiringly, watching to see who the lucky boy would be to catch it on it’s return swing over our heads.

He resisted our appeals for a long, long time. But eventually, I suppose, his curiosity got the better of him, and with great pride in his possession, he approached a group of us one Sunday morning, after Mass. “Now, listen, boys,” he intoned, “I’m going to let you throw the boomerang. But I want to make sure it comes back to us. So, I’m going to ask the strongest boy to throw it for me.” (And here my memory fails me – I’m not certain, but I believe it was Richard Galt who was the chosen thrower. Please forgive me if I’m wrong. Time dulls the memory somewhat. I shall assume it was Richard, anyway.)

“Come, Richard. Take the boomerang. Hold it like this (and he demonstrated the correct hold), and throw it hard overhead. If you do it correctly, it will whirl around the school and come right back to us at this very spot. Voooooosh.”

So said, so done. Richard (I assume it was he) held the weapon in his mighty hands and swung back as he had been shown. Letting go of the boomerang at the last second, we watched, entranced, as it flew out, far over the mountainside and dropped, like a stone, into the trees and bushes far below us, lost forevermore.

“Ah well”, said Voosh, “I suppose we won’t see that again, eh boys?”

The day of the hot air paper bag dawned bright and promisingly. Sunday morning again, the Scouts having marched around the School a few times to the rhythm of the trumpets, side drums and big bass drum, Fr. Benedict emerged with his latest contraption – a tin can filled with kerosene or “pitch oil”, and attached via wires to bits of marline, themselves attached to the four corners of a large square piece of brown paper on which he had drawn some cartoon figures and the words “IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO FR. BENEDICT O.S.B. AT MT. ST. BENEDICT, TUNAPUNA, TRINIDAD”. He came over to us and announced his plan, to fly the paper bag “balloon” over the hills of Trinidad, to see how far it would go, and where it would land.

We watched with growing excitement as he had two boys hold the edges of the paper outstretched, and, drawing a match from underneath the folds of his white soutane, he lit the flammable material in the tin can. Surprisingly, the thing actually worked. The paper swelled with the rising hot air and slowly, ever so slowly, it began to rise from terra firma, then over our heads and, amazingly, it took off over our mango trees, the basketball court, the Mount itself, eventually disappearing from sight. A few days later, we discovered, the flying paper bag was returned to Fr. Benedict by a U.S. soldier stationed at the Chaguaramas Base on the NW peninsula of Trinidad. Voosh had every reason to be proud of his achievement.

We graduated from the Abbey School and left Voosh to his tricks, to amuse and entertain yet another batch of wide-eyed youngsters. But the years eventually took their toll, and the old man slowly succumbed to the weight of his own mortality. A 2001 photograph shows him, still at the School, apparently demonstrating a microphone and speaker.

And finally, the end came. Or rather, as his faith would have it, his new life began yesterday. Freed from the infirmity of old age and the need to use his wheel-chair, the dear old man left us for the last time, VOOOOOOSH and went to live with his God.

May his soul rest in peace. May he enjoy his eternity in the presence of all the Old Boys who have gone before us, and in the presence of Almighty God.

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That is for now, till the next one

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Photos:

54UN000DPAM, Fr. Benedict showing a buzzer to an ALUMNI.

64UN0001FBEANT, Fr. Benedict showing his new antenna for satellite communications.

01DM0503FBELDS, Fr. Benedict with his homemade amplifier and microphone.

08UN1183BFEREUNION2008, Fr. Benedict in a wheelchair in November.

09AK2011FBEFUNERAL, Fr. Benedict being taken to his final resting place.