Abbey School, Mount St Benedict, 2006 Circulars

3.6.06

Circular No 239

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

Caracas, 3 June 2006. No. 239

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Dear Friends,

Continuing with Don Mitchell, his news and about the BLOG:
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From: "Don Mitchell CBE, QC" idmitch@anguillanet.com

Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 16:06:13 -0400

Hello Ladislao,

I do not know how you manage to do everything!

The version of No 147 that I have is an attachment to an email someone sent me.

When I open it, I see your original message with all the photos.

I do not like sending an email inside an email as an attachment.

I like to send what I imagine is your original message.

When I send the original message of No 147, it does not travel well.

It goes in a deformed way.

The only solution I have found is to forward the email just as I got it from someone else, ie, with your original email as an attachment.

That seems to work OK.

I have decided that I cannot remain any longer not knowing who the boys in the photos are.

So, I have started a Google Group dealing with identifying the photos.

I am going to add all the email addresses that I know of the "old boys".

You will see it start to arrive quite soon.

Each photo will have its own message.

It asks for the faces to be identified.

Persons can reply to a particular photo.

Everyone can see what everyone else has written.

That way, when someone posts information on the individual photo, we will all be able to correctly label it where we have it stored in our computers.

I regret that I do not use your identification numbering.

I use the names of the persons on the photo to be able to find them more easily in the albums that I keep.

Hopefully, it will not cause confusion.

I have also posted No 227 on the Blog.

I was not able to add the 2003 Invitation as I cannot select it.

It appears to be a password protected Word document of some sort that I am not familiar with.

It will not allow me to select it and copy it to the Blog or to any other application!

I cannot imagine how you managed to copy it and add it to your email.

All the best,

Don

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From: ladislao kertesz

To: Don Mitchell CBE, QC

Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2006 12:30 PM

Dear Don

Finally got this straightened out???

This is how far I am behind.

God Bless

Ladislao

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"Don Mitchell CBE, QC" <idmitch@anguillanet.com> wrote:

I have no idea what is causing this.

When I open the message in my sent box, it is there complete.

There is Ladislao's message in .html and the photos.

You seem to be getting the Circulars that Ladislao sent as straight email messages; those that he sent as .html attachments do not seem to be getting through.

Do you have anyone you can ask a technical question of?

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From: Attila GYURIS

To: Don Mitchell CBE, QC

Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 4:16 PM

Subject: Re: Circular No. 147

No Circular text here either.

Just the photos.

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From: Baknal@aol.com

Date: Sun, 7 May 2006 22:42:56 EDT

Ladislao, thank you!..for ChristopherLs address.

This is a UK email address...I guess he is not living in Trinidad?

I'll try and contact him....all the best, Howard.

His address is: cheryl_ann_webster@yahoo.co.uk,

Hope he answers, he never done so.

Maybe you can get a word or two out of him.

God Bless

Ladislao

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Baknal@aol.com wrote:

Does anyone know Christopher Webster's (referenced below as living in Trinidad) contact info?.....all the best, Howard.

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From: "Don Mitchell CBE, QC"

Subject: Circular No. 234, The Abbey School MSB

Date: Tue, 9 May 2006 22:24:01 -0400

My Gosh, Ladislao!

I hardly recognised that innocent little boy from 1960.

Maggie had to tell me who he was, and then commented that he seemed to have been quite cute then!

What does she mean by "then"?

I have put No 234 and No 235 up on the Blog.

It took a couple of days as I have just returned from New York where I went to give a speech.

It was nothing important, just on Constitutional reform in Anguilla to an organisation of Anguillians in New Jersey/New York.

There are about 10,000 Anguillians in Anguilla and about 20,000 in New York/New Jersey, hence the need to travel!

Keep well,

Don

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From: "Don Mitchell CBE, QC" idmitch@anguillanet.com

Date: Sat, 20 May 2006 17:43:25 -0400

OK, folks.

This is an invitation to join in a discussion of Ladislao's old MSB Circulars.

There is no big deal in it.

You don't even need a grandchild at hand to be able to join in.

Just try these simple instructions.

1. Go to: http://abbeyschool2001circulars.blogspot.com/

2. Read the Notes. It is just for general guidance. You can immediately forget them. You won't need them further for this exercise.

3. Scroll down. You remember how to!

4.You come to "comments" at the end of the Notes. Click on it! A little window opens.

5. Type a note in the window, just a couple of words. Sign it with your name if you want us to realise who it was posted the words.

6. At the foot of the notes you must "choose an identity."Choose oneh. I have picked my user name "idmitch".

7. Click on "Publish my comment".

8. That's it. You have now published a comment on one of the Blogs. After I have got around to it, it will appear on the site. When the next person clicks on "comments" he/she will read what your comment on the Blog was!

9. You are now ready to visit all the other Circulars, and to type in whatever comment you want to make in any of them. Up in the top right hand corner you will see the links to the old Circulars by year. I have posted all of 2001 and of 2006. I have not yet posted all of 2002-2005. They are going up at a regular pace.

Happy viewing.

Don

PS: If Ladislao should publish these instructions in a Circular, remember that you cannot click on the link above to get to the Blog. You will have to "copy and paste" the link to your browser in the usual way.

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From: "Don Mitchell CBE, QC" idmitch@anguillanet.com

Subject: 2004 Circulars

Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 16:08:00 -0400

Fellow ex-convicts,

All the old circulars for the year 2004 are now up on their own Blog: http://abbeyschool2004circulars.blogspot.com/.

You are welcome to visit them and to leave your comments as you see fit.

I am missing No 152, and would love to receive a copy of it.

Don

No 115. [Which, by the way, I have retained as my car licence number all these years.]

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From: "Don Mitchell CBE, QC" idmitch@anguillanet.com

Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 13:11:50 -0400

Hello Folks,

I am sending you this copy of the message sent to me by Blogger so that you can see how it works.

David has left the comment below on Circular No 1. I have published it.

I have also published my response.

Why don't you go to Circular No 1 and open the comments and read them.

You may even want to try making a comment of your own!

Try it, just as a practice, even if it is only to say "testing, testing."

Don

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From: dbrat

To: idmitch@anguillanet.com

Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2006 12:14 PM

Subject: New comment on Circular No 1

dbrat has left a new comment on your post "Circular No 1":

Nice work, Don. Why don't you put up the latest Circulars first (2006 & 2005 etc)? Might stimulate more comments?

Publish this comment.

Reject this comment.

Moderate comments for this blog.

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From: "Don Mitchell CBE, QC"

Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 18:47:26 -0400

OK, Ladislao, that is very understandable.

I have not figured out how to get the codification of the photos up on the Blog.

They are all up without any identification except the one in the body of the Circular, where you list the photos towards the end of the Circular.

Keep well,

Don

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To: Don Mitchell CBE, QC

Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 5:13 PM

Dear Don

The Circulars are ready in my compu but I am missing the codification of their photos, since I am coding the photographs,

Maybe the coding is not the best, but at least we can talk about a photo in particular.

I am travelling a lot, looking for work outside the regular stuff that my company manufactures.

So when I get home, I donft feel like working in the compu.

Maybe tomorrow I am sending out No. 236

God Bless

Ladislao

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From: "Don Mitchell CBE, QC"

Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 08:31:12 -0400

Hello Ladislao,

Hope you are well.

My last Circular was No 235 of 6 May.

Was that the last?

I am having some luck in getting the missing Circulars.

I have not had to trouble you recently to see if you can find a copy of any of them.

Don

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REMEMBER TO PAY YOUR DUE, 50 WORDS PER YEAR, OR SEND A CHECK preferably from any U.S. Bank, ~~to my address,~~: sorry but under the new laws of Venezuela, I cannot receive or send foreign currency, if caught I can be placed in jail for 3 years on the first offence, so please sent it direct to the Bank of America account of Ladislao Kertesz 02181 09151, Santa Barbara, California, USA.

For those that prefer this way to cooperate with the Circular and the expense that this generates. It is 52 issues per year.

God Bless

Ladislao

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Photos in this issue:

05LK0001WDIPLC, Wbladimiro Diaz in Puerto La Cruz

04LK0002LKGRP, Gabriel Hoefle, Isaias Farcheg, Ladislao Kertesz, Andres Freytes

05UN0001DPIFIL, Dominique Piton in the Philipines

72UN0001AQUALADS, Where and who?????

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27.5.06

Circular No 238

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

Caracas, 27 of May 2006. No. 238

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Dear Friends,

This time we are going to read about the BLOG and a few interesting stories.

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From: "Don Mitchell CBE, QC" idmitch@anguillanet.com

Date Fri, 10 Mar 2006 08:43:18 -0400

Hello David,

If you let me know which Circulars you are missing, I could send those I have.

I well remember Bro Vincent.

He is responsible to a large extent for my present character.

Well, perhaps heredity had a part to play as well.

At aged 10 I was sent to board at the Mount.

I had never played football or cricket before, far less seen a cricket or football field.

I was informed by Bro Vincent that I was attached to the Giants team in St Lawrence House and told to put on white pants and shirt and report to the sports field on one of my first Saturdays.

I duly attended.

I thought someone was going to explain to me what it was all about.

I was sent out onto a field with a group of boys who scattered to the far ends.

Someone told me where to stand.

I stood.

It was early afternoon and the September sun was overhead.

I stood there for hours.

People shouted at me whenever a ball went past.

I was not sure exactly what I was doing wrong.

No one explained.

At some point, for some unknown reason, I was told to leave the field.

Someone helped me to put pads on my feet, and a disgusting plastic shield down my crutch.

I was sent out on the field and told to try to hit the ball.

After one or two futile attempts I was told I had to leave the field.

No one explained why.

I never went on the field again.

No one ever explained to me what I was supposed to be doing there.

Bro Vincent told me that if I refused to go back on the field I would get licks from Bobo the following Monday.

I shrugged.

There was no way I would submit myself to that boring, meaningless, incomprehensible ritual again.

On Monday at 9:00am I reported to Bobofs office and joined the line of nervous boys.

I got 6 of his best on my backside.

It made me weep.

I had no idea what it was about.

I told Br Vincent that I had decided not to play football again.

Going out on the field reminded me of the pain.

He told me that I would be banned from the movies for a term.

I told him that I had decided not to play tennis again.

He told me that I was banned from the pool.

I was banned from the pool and from the movies.

I got licks every Monday morning for five years.

On reflection, the licks might have been for joining with a gang of boys of the same mind who built bows and arrows and hid behind the bushes and shot the arrows down onto the cricketers on the field every Saturday and Sunday.

As I got older, I learned that something called sex would be coming to my attention.

I only knew one word, penis.

There was an excellent Encyclopaedia Britannica in the school library.

By the age of 12 I was the assistant school librarian under Fr Augustine.

I had access.

I looked up penis.

There were transparencies showing the body in cut-out.

I wrote down all the cross references and looked them up one by one.

Each cross reference had its own cross references.

After about 2 years I had read nearly the entire encyclopaedia and realised that nearly all life had to do with sex.

If only Bro Vincent had introduced me to cricket in the same way I might have entered into the spirit of the game with the same enthusiasm that I ventured into sex in due course.

Anyway, I am living proof that corporal punishment does not work.

Every Monday for five years and no change in behaviour or attitude regarding cricket?

I still feel queasy whenever I see men in white on the field.

Keep well,

Don

PS: I am looking for Circulars 4, 17, 36-43, 80-81, 91, 95, 163, 186, 202-203, and 210. Can anyone help?

PPS: Give Bro Vincent my regards when you see him next.

I credit his early lessons on the unfairness of life for whatever little later success I eventually enjoyed.

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From: David E. Bratt

To: Don Mitchell CBE, QC

Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 7:57 AM

No Don, I don't.

A former friend of ours, Lionel Roberts, aged 80 (!) was in my office yesterday, he's moved back to TT and I think will become more involved with the Old Boys.

Dave

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From: Don Mitchell CBE, QC

To: Bratt, David

Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2006 10:25 PM

Hello David,

I am looking for Circulars 4, 17, and 36-43.

Do you have any of them?

Can I trouble you to forward any?

All the best,

Don

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From: "Don Mitchell CBE, QC"

Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 13:24:54 -0400

Hello Paul and Nigel,

Good to hear from you.

Ladislao still diligently sends out the weekly Circulars that we all enjoy receiving.

What I am doing is trying to create a substitute for our old and now defunct school website.

I am also trying to collect in the few Circulars and their attachments that are missing from my collection.

Since I do not know how to create or to maintain a website, I have not been able to put a decent one in place.

No one else has volunteered.

What I have learned to do is to use GoogleGroups and Blogs.

So, as a rather pathetic substitute, in my opinion, for the missing website, what I am in the process of doing is uploading all the old Circulars sent by Ladislao over the past 6 years to six Blogs that I have created.

I have done 2001, 2005, and 2006.

I am slowly working on 2002, 2003, and 2004.

If you would like to see them, they can all be accessed at: http://abbeyschool2001circulars.blogspot.com/

This is actually the site for the eight 2001 Circulars.

But, once you get there, by clicking on the appropriate year in the top right-hand corner, you can navigate to all the others.

Keep well,

Don

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From: Nigel Boos

To: de la Bastide Paul

Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 10:09 AM

Paul,

You asked about the new MSB contact info.

I guess that Don Mitchell would be the best contact for you, as he appears to be running things at the moment.

Good luck, and have fun,

Nigel

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From: "Don Mitchell CBE, QC"

Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 09:55:10 -0400

Hello Michael,

Good to hear from you.

I am well into retirement, and very much enjoying the freedom it gives me to pursue my hobbies.

This is one of them!

The biography belongs in Ladislao's Circular.

He will welcome it, so I shall not do anything with it myself.

As regards the photos, if you mailed them to me, I could scan them for you and return them to you.

Or, better still, safer for your photos, if you have a grandchild handy, he/she could do it for you. (One of my nephews taught me how several years ago.)

I am trying to get all the old Circulars up on a website together with all the attached photos so that those of us who never received them can see them. (Some of them had spreadsheet attachments, but I am not able to figure out yet how to put an Excel document onto a Blog!)

Keep well,

Don

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From: "Don Mitchell CBE, QC"

Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 13:31:13 -0400

Hello Ladislao,

I have begun to put up on the site the Circulars from 2001 through to 2005.

I have not yet got them all up; I estimate it will take a couple more days to complete.

Also, I find that I am missing one or two of the Circulars, so I shall be bothering various persons to send copies to me.

There is no reason why you should not visit the sites and see the old Circulars.

I am putting each year on a different Blogger page for convenience.

Other than 2006, the only year that is complete is 2001, there were only 7 Circulars in that year!

You can see it, and all the other years, by clicking on the links in the top right-hand corner: http://abbeyschool2001circulars.blogspot.com/

In the event that Ladislao publishes this message in a Circular, please remember that the link I have given above does not work on a newsletter if you click on it; you have to copy and paste it to your browser.

All the best,

Don

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From: "Don Mitchell CBE, QC"

Subject: Identifying the faces on old photos

Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 16:51:49 -0400

Hello Ladislao,

I am trying to get the faces in the old photos identified.

Persons who will want to help should go to http://groups.google.com/group/Abbey-School-Mount-St-Benedict.

If you join the group, you will be able to post replies directly.

My thanks to Ian De Verteuil and Christian Goddard who have already had a go at several of them.

If you prefer, you can email the information to me.

I will use the information to correct the captions to the photos in the albums at http://members27.clubphoto.com/don870261/guest-1.phtml

Thanks,

All the best,

Don

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From:"Don Mitchell CBE, QC"

To: "Attila GYURIS"

Subject: Pacemaker

Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 21:25:06 -0400

Hi Attila,

That is a wonderful photo of your family.

I have proudly added it to the Recent Photo album.

It is up already.

I am in return attaching one taken a couple of years ago of me in my garden in Anguilla wearing my favourite French kepi.

How brave of you and Susy to have a little boy.

Maggie and I took the cowards way out, and decided to let our brothers and sisters have all of ours for us.

Whenever we were surrounded by children, we were always consoled by the thought that at the end of the day they went back to Mom and Dad!

Yes, gI died in 1997h.

Then, they made me bionic, and I have been living happily ever since.

My doctor tells me that I must be careful when I am around buses.

That is the only way I am going to die, when one runs me over!

Keep well.

Don

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From: Attila GYURIS

To: Don Mitchell CBE, QC

Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 6:02 PM

Subject: Pacemaker

Hi Don:

Wow, I didn't know you had a pacemaker.

I hope you are doing well and your battery lasts a long time!

I like your sense of humor.

Best of health to you,

Attila Gyuris

PS: attached is a recent picture for the online MSB photo album at:

http://members27.clubphoto.com/don870261/guest-1.phtml

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For those that prefer this way to cooperate with the Circular and the expense that this generates. It is 52 issues per year.

God Bless

Ladislao

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Photo in this issue:

05UN0001DMIQC, Don Mitchell,

01UN0001CCAGRP, Cecil Camacho ???? Can anyonehelp with this ALUMNI??

05DM0001DMICBE, Don Mitchell receiving CBE

05DM0002DMICBE, Don Mitchell receiving CBE

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Abbey School, Mount St Benedict, 2006 Circulars

3.6.06

Circular No 239

27.5.06

Circular No 238

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