McMullens Memoir

My Memories of Mittagong
1965-1966

Tim McMullen - March 2004

Foreword

It’s almost forty years since I left home for the Novitiate having turned seventeen only a couple of months before and having just completed my final year of high school at Marist Brothers Kogarah. I had admired the work of most of the Brothers (there were almost no lay teachers then) and was particularly inspired by two or three of them. The idea of teaching appealed to me and so, like so many other boys at that time, I entered a religious order.

I had already visited the Novitiate at Mittagong earlier in 1964 as part of a group of about a dozen that Br Salvius, the Order’s recruiter, took down. While there I encountered a few Postulants who had been at Kogarah in the year ahead of me. I was impressed by their enthusiasm though at the same time a little daunted at the prospect of a very different life away from home. Yet there seemed to be something very natural, even inevitable, about what I was doing. A number of my school friends were going into the seminary or religious orders and no one seemed to see anything unusual in it. Our parents supported it and, to a degree, basked in the reflected glory of our decisions.

Br Tony Butler recently asked me to jot down some memories of my time at Mittagong to assist with a book that he is writing on the Novitiate. When I sat down to write, all the memories of what had been a very impressionable time for me came flooding back. The events of those first few months away from home have been seared into my memory. For my colleagues who went to the Juniorate before the Novitiate their strongest memories are of the first year of the Juniorate so perhaps the strongest memories of the Novitiate may come from those like myself who did not attend the Juniorate.

Thus the act of jotting down a few memories led to a more lengthy account. I wrote as though my memory was on autopilot and allowed myself to adopt a style that was more breezy and conversational than my more concise and detailed professional writing. I deliberately chose not to name any of my colleagues to avoid complications and to maintain the focus on the memories.

The intended audience for this memoir is, in the first instance, the Marist Brothers who have contributed so much to my personal development and given me so much support and friendship over the years. It should provide some useful material for Br Tony’s work but, just as old pictures often provide more useful historical material in their backgrounds than in their subjects, it may supply useful historical details. I hasten to add that my memory of many details is faulty after all these years.

The other intended audience is my children, all much older now than I was then, as well as my grandchildren who may be interested in seeing a different world through the eyes of a seventeen year old in the mid 1960s. Finally I intend to share these memories with my friends as we look back over the events that have brought us to where we are now.

1. Time at St Joseph’s College

We didn’t go to Mittagong straight away of course! Our first two weeks were spent at St Joseph’s College while we awaited the publication of our Learning Certificate results in mid January.

We assembled, most of us dropped off by parents, at about 4 pm on New Year’s Eve 1964. There were forty of us. Thirty had been to the Juniorate and they were wearing the Juniorate uniform. The rest of us came in fresh from doing the Leaving Certificate at various Marist schools. We were an odd mixture of shapes and sizes, and for some reason I was reminded of the collection of boys in Louisa Mary Alcott’s Little Men. That night we slept in the student dormitories listening to the sounds of New Year celebrations outside. I was impressed by the way the former Juniors were so organised in their dressing and bed-making, but I was surprised by the excessive modesty of some of them – nakedness was carefully avoided.

For the next two weeks we followed a regime of early rising for prayers and Mass, study in the morning and leisure activities in the afternoon. We had access to the College pool and squash courts and some organised cricket matches on the College oval. We also had access to the College music rooms and records. Peter, Paul and Mary were favourites particularly their songs written by the young Bob Dylan.

It was never really clear whether we should regard ourselves as students or brothers. On one occasion after we had been swimming in the pool, a friend and I decided to explore the College library. When we entered, still in our swimming costumes, we were sternly ordered out by the librarian, Br Michael Naughton, and roundly abused for our temerity. We realised we should definitely still regard ourselves as students.

The Master of Novices, Br Fergus, organised study for us each morning. This often involved working in groups studying the latest trends in biblical scholarship, and in particular realising that much was not to be taken literally. We were surprised to discover that we had to revise our views on Adam and Eve and much else.

Whenever he could find an opportunity, Br Fergus would bring in guest lecturers. These included Br Henry the famous football coach who gave us his tips on creating winning football teams, Br Leopold who outlined the history of St Joseph’s College, and another brother who gave us a tour of the venerable artworks in the main College hallway. We even had Fr Con Duffy, the college chaplain (and author of the traffic lights spelling book) who regaled us with stories of working with the Marists, especially in the large Brazilian province.

On one occasion we visited St Gregory’s College Campbelltown where we ran into the Novices who had come up from Mittagong. There was great excitement and fond greetings between the former Juniors in our group and the Novices as they had not seen each other since they were in Fourth and Fifth Year together in 1963. Those of us who were not former Juniors were somewhat taken aback by the emotionalism of this reunion, as we were by other behaviours of some of the Juniors especially their expressions of piety.

A couple of days later the Leaving Certificate results were published in the newspaper. There results were read out to us over breakfast. Some were delighted by their results, others disappointed as they realised that they may not have scored well enough to go to university in two years time. Only those who obtained Commonwealth Scholarships could be sure that they would go to university.

Later that day we set off for Mittagong.

2. First Impressions

When we arrived at Mittagong there were joyful reunions similar to those earlier at Campbelltown. Those of us who had not been at the Juniorate felt a little bit out of it all, but relations between everybody were pretty friendly, more so than had been my experience at school.

As the Novices wore habits and we Postulants wore ‘civies’, the differences between the groups were very obvious. Also the novices were to be addressed by the prefix ‘Brother’, though ‘frere’ was a colloquialism they used more often between themselves. For those of us not sure, we realised that we Postulants were still students, not Brothers.

Upon our arrival we were each taken individually to a cell (on the top storey of the old building) which contained a bed, small closet and a smaller hanging area. I was quite impressed by my cell as it looked out over the vegetable garden and up the hill to the farms behind the Novitiate. I discovered that I was one of the lucky ones in having a view and was also one of the few who had an inner spring mattress. I had been lucky in the ballot for cells. However, I also discovered that there would be another ballot in three months time and we would all have to move. This was one of the strategies to teach us to be detached from worldly goods.

I soon realised, as the first couple of days passed, that we spent most of our days ‘on silence’, that is, unable to speak unless it was essential. This was a severe shock to me! I had never been told anything about this by the Brother Recruiter. In the early months I did not cope well with this requirement at all, and was frequently in trouble for talking as were the others who had not been to the Juniorate. Within a few days we began a six day retreat which required total silence, so we entered a monastic style of existence rather abruptly.

It was on my first full day at the Novitiate, which must have been a Sunday, that I had my most startling experience. Just before lunch we all marched into the chapel again, said a brief prayer and then stood silent. For what seemed to me an eternity we just stood there. My legs were aching and I was wondering what this bizarre experience was all about. Finally, someone knocked against a pew and we all knelt down still in silence. I discovered later that this was the Particular Examen, the time for us to examine our consciences. Usually we did this exercise in the evenings, but for some reason we did it in the middle of the day on weekends. On these occasions many stomach rumbles could be heard especially on the Saturdays when we fasted. Given the level of supervision and the strict routines we followed, I often wondered why we needed to exercise our consciences for ten minutes everyday. I couldn’t imagine how even the most adventurous could find material for two minutes let alone ten.

My first impressions of being a Postulant, of silence and of round the clock religions observances made me realise that I was getting myself into something very different from what I had expected.

3. Supervising Staff

There were four staff looking after us: Br Fergus, Master of Novices; Br Colgan, Sub-Master of Novices; Br Ambrose, Director and Br Alan Elliot who supervised the dairy and the farm.

I have subsequently come to see Br Fergus as a saintly man and one of the greatest influences on my life. At the time though we regarded him with puzzlement and some amusement as he wrestled to adopt traditional methods of formation to contemporary understandings of life and church. Br Fergus was a man of great integrity who read the signs of the times and made great efforts to adapt religious life to these new realities. For this he was often mocked and seen as weak. Nevertheless he continued, courageously and honestly, to explore alternative approaches. We had some sense of this but I think we were too young to understood how challenging it was for him. Br Fergus was also a great Scripture scholar, a leader in this field in Australia. He gave us an understanding of Scripture to a depth and sophistication that we probably did not appreciate.

Br Colgan seems to have been appointed as some sort of balance to Br Fergus. He was an abrupt and socially awkward man who saw it as his role to ensure that we did not take advantage of Br Fergus. He was very strict with us Postulants and always seemed to be just around the corner when we were talking laughing, or eating between meals, all of which were serious offences. He gave me a particularly difficult time and was always telling me that I’d have to leave if I didn’t mature! Br Colgan was happiest when he was outdoors organising walks (on Thursday afternoon) or wood drives. In retrospect I think his role must have been an awkward one and that he was probably rather lonely.

Br Ambrose was a very tall and imposing figure who had previously been in boarding schools overseeing the everyday administration of schools, especially the provision of meals. His nickname had been ‘baked beans on toast’ and during our time he was notorious for being niggardly with food. His most legendary statement was “Don’t give the Novices fresh bread. If you do, they’ll only eat it”. Br Ambrose viewed Br Fergus’ innovative methods with incomprehension and was often inclined to express his views on how we should be treated more strictly. Most of us thought he was rather ridiculous, even a caricature, but we generally treated him with good humour as we saw that, by his own lights, he was trying to look after us even if he was rather odd.

Br Alan Colman ran the dairy and the farm. Some commented that he was the most normal of the staff. He was good-natured, hard-working and affable, and he had very loyal sheep-dogs! Many of the Postulants and Novices who were interested in things agricultural become good friends of his and were taught to drive tractors and take other initiatives on the farm. Br Alan lived in a separate house adjoining ours. In the evening we often heard the television blaring in his house (Homicide etc) while we were walking around the grounds. We had no access to television, radio or newspapers throughout this time. The sounds of television reminded us that there was a world out there that we had left behind.

4. Meals

For any seventeen year old, growing and metabolising rapidly, food is an important part of one’s life. When I arrived at Mittagong I faced a number of rude shocks as far as food was concerned.

Firstly, eating anything between meals was classed as a major transgression and anyone caught doing so was reprimanded. Secondly, there were no cereals or toast at breakfast, and there was certainly nothing more elaborate. Breakfast, which we ate after almost two hours spent in the chapel, consisted of porridge, bread and jam. On Saturdays, our fasting days, it consisted of bread only. The porridge was often replaced by semolina which, depending on the skills of the cooks, was either moderately pleasant or very lumpy and almost inedible.

The main meal of the day was dinner at noon. This was usually a very pleasant meal, again dependent on the skill of the cooks. The main course was most often a baked dinner utilising vegetables we had grown and meat from our own animals that we had slaughtered. (A select group of Novices were responsible for the slaughtering). Mostly we had lamb, sometimes beef. In my memory, other forms of meat were rare, though on Fridays we had fish of course. Sweets were of the traditional English kind utilising the fruit we grew as well as rice and pasta. I particularly remember creamed rice or macaroni, rhubarb, apple pulp, stewed fruits, and on special occasions, trifle. These dishes were usually accompanied by plentiful amounts of custard, which I loved. We had huge amounts of apple pulp. Often we sat around the tables after breakfast (on silence) and peeled, cored and chopped apples which were then collected and pulped.

For tea we had lighter meals, often based on mince. The mince was not always of the best quality. We used to joke about the South Sydney (football club!) mince we had, so called because it was red and green before it was cooked. On Sunday nights we regularly had cold salads so that the cooks could have some leisure time in the afternoon. Salads consisted of devon, grated carrot, grated cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes and onions in vinegar, etc. They bore little resemblance to the salads of today, and we used to regularly send them up in our satirical songs.

There was also afternoon tea, consisting of bread (one or two days old) and jam. We used to make our own jam using the fruit we grew. Some jam such as apricot was very tasty, but there were other types that I loathed. We often had apple pulp as an alternative to jam. And we usually had lots of flies at afternoon tea! I was somewhat put off initially by the flies crawling all over the jam but it was explained to me that these were country flies which did not carry germs.

In all we were adequately fed though I often remember being hungry. Food was served in tureens to tables of six and if one person took more than his share, the last person might miss out. However there were generally glares and other meaningful looks (remembering that most meals were conducted in silence) to ensure that nobody took more than his fair share. We certainly had plenty of meat and bread.

During the meals there was usually one person out the front reading from the lives of the saints. Increasingly too we heard accounts of the Second Vatican Council which was in its final stages at that time. I can’t say I remembered much of what was read at the time. Much of it was boring and I was more interested in how the food was being divided up. We communicated with simple sign language for such things as bowls, plates, milk and so on. The refectory (or dining room) was a pleasant room with windows on three sides looking out onto trees and shrubs and I have happy memories of looking out, especially on frosty winter mornings.

Considering that seventy people had to be fed three times a day, the whole operation was quite an achievement!

5. Cooking

We did all of the cooking ourselves. Each day a small team of one Novice and two Postulants were rostered on for the three meals.

The first task took place the night before when the team gathered to prepare the porridge or semolina. This was done in very large pots which were then put aside to be reheated in the morning when the kitchen stove was relit.

The old kitchen stove, of the type beloved by many earlier generations of Australians, was fuelled by wood. It had an oven whose temperatures varied from place to place, and a ‘hot place’ area on top. There was no provision for grilling food. Each night the fire in the stove was allowed to go out, and each morning it was relit by the cooks shortly after they got up. The large pots of porridge were then reheated for breakfast.

After breakfast the cooks met with Br Ambrose to receive instructions on what was to be prepared for the day. They then spent all morning getting dinner ready. They were assisted by another small team who peeled the potatoes and pumpkin, as well as another person responsible for pre-cooking and slicing the meat. The most frequently cooked meal was reheated meat and baked vegetables. Sometimes we had chops baked in the oven. Sweets were generally cooked earlier in the morning – creamed rice, stewed rhubarb, reheated apple pulp etc – and then left in tureens till lunchtime. Sometimes sweets were baked in the oven, such as apple crumble or cake, accompanied by custard. At other times we had preserved fruit accompanied by junket.

The cooks had their dinner after everyone else had finished and then set about preparing tea. Some cooks had little flair for cooking and we dreaded the meals they prepared. Most of us, however, developed our cooking skills significantly in these pressured situations and we were much the better for it.

6. Prayer and Chapel

We spent much of our time each day in prayer, most of which was in the chapel.

At 4.55 am each morning we would be woken by the bell. We would scurry out of bed, have a quick shower, get dressed, tidy up our beds and be in chapel for Morning Prayers and Matins (one of the hours of the Office) followed by a half hour silent meditation. This would be followed by Mass and Lauds (again the Office). After this we would go to breakfast at about 7.15am. This would be followed by a bit over an hour’s work on various essential tasks (such as peeling vegetables, chopping wood, cleaning, etc). After a brief period of prayer again we would go to Study at 9:00am. This would take us through to dinner at midday after which we’d have further study, work, recreation or a bushwalk. On some days during this time we’d also have singing practice to prepare us for Sunday evening sung Vespers as well as for other major liturgical occasions. For almost all of this time we were ‘on silence’ except when we were on recreation or bushwalks.

The next prayer time was Vespers and Particular Examen (examination of conscience) at about 5:00pm. On Sunday we sang Vespers in Latin, each side taking turns in singing lines from the psalms in Gregorian Chant as though we were medieval monks. This was followed by Benediction, also in Latin.

At this time in the mid 1960s, as a result of the Second Vatican Council liturgical reforms, different parts of the liturgy were progressively being changed from Latin to English. In 1965 the Mass and the Office were both said in English. Only sung Vespers, Benediction and some of the traditional hymns were still in Latin.

Our final time in the Chapel was at about 8:30pm when we said Evening Prayers and Compline. After this we entered the period of the Great Silence when there was supposed to be absolutely no talking. By 9:30pm, from memory, all lights were out. We often had nights when evening prayers were earlier and lights were out as early as 8:45pm.

Spending two hours or more each day in the Chapel, I have many memories of happenings there. It was quite a small building and the seventy of us were bunched pretty closely together. Nevertheless it was often very cold. We Postulants used to look at the Novices in their habits, with their cloaks over the top, and look forward to the day when we could wear outfits like these. The cloaks looked particularly appealing. They went from the neck to the waist and you could tuck your arms and hands in under them. We were mortified later to discover that, in a process of modernisation, cloaks would no longer be issued to new Novices from our group onwards.

Another surprising feature of our time in the chapel was the time we spent in uncontrollable giggling. This would usually occur during examination of conscience or some other quiet period. It would start with one person getting the giggles, often from something that had just happened outside. Then the person next to him would start quietly giggling and soon it would spread up and down the rows. From the back you’d see heads and shoulders bobbing up and down and the laughter spreading in waves. Most had no idea what they were laughing at, but the giggling was infectious. After a while it would all quieten down, but it would only take one titter from somebody for the laughter to start up again. The supervising staff rarely commented on this phenomenon, perhaps judging that this was the best way to handle it.

A lot of entertainment was also provided by our chaplain, an old Irish priest Fr Gallivan, who lived in a cottage next to the chapel. He had a broad Irish brogue, a hot temper and some very eccentric ways. Each morning he would go into the sacristy during our meditation time to hear confessions. Sometimes there would be fiery exchanges during these confessions when he confronted a Novice or Postulant who also had a hot temper. Occasionally such a person would storm out of the sacristy with Fr Gullivan still yelling at him. This would immediately send to the rest of us into fits of giggling. On one occasion he was heard to yell “For your penance, Stations of the Cross! Three times! Immediately!”

Fr Gallivan also did a range of other surprising things while on the altar. On one occasion he noticed a rat and went charging across the altar in full gear to stomp on it. On another, he lashed out with his foot during the Consecration at the Novice serving who had drifted off to sleep and forgotten to ring the bell. Halfway through Mass one day he stopped, turned around and roundly abused the sacristan for using the wrong type of candles on the altar and refused to go on till they were all changed. From time to time, he would lose track of where he was up to and repeat sections of the Mass or jump ahead. During Forty Hours exposition of the Blessed Sacrament he would have to climb up a ladder to put the monstrance in an elevated position. We would watch apprehensively as he went out of sight behind the altar and the curtains there were disturbed as he began to climb the ladder. Then, accompanied by a few grants, we would see the monstrance and his head emerge from behind the altar as the monstrance was shakily placed in an elevated position.

During all of these incidents we gaped and gasped with amazement and frequently exploded in fits of the giggles. I suppose the sacred and rarefied atmosphere of the chapel made these incidents seem particularly bizarre to the adolescents that we still were.

7. Work

We spent many hours doing manual work which ranged from the very basic cleaning to the more exotic such as bee-keeping, slaughtering animals and digging out sileage pits. Not only did we have to clean and maintain our own surroundings, but we also produced most of our own food and ran a dairy whose profits were used to allow brothers a little older than us to attend university full time.

The two longest stretches of work were the two hour periods 1:30pm – 3:30pm on Tuesday and Saturday afternoons. During these times we were on silence and there were times when they seemed to stretch on for ever. One such occasion was when I was weeding a carrot patch in our very large vegetable garden. These days I would probably find such an activity peacefully relaxing, but in those adolescent times I remember finding it bitterly frustrating.

Other work time included the daily tasks carried out after breakfast as well as a period of one and a half hours after afternoon tea on Monday, Wednesday and Friday when we were allowed to talk provided it didn’t slow our work rate. In addition we were rostered into three teams for washing and wiping up, all of which was done manually. Finally there was a roster of teams of three to scrub the kitchen floor after night prayers.

Some of the more critical jobs revolved around the main source of power, wood. The kitchen store and the boiler system for the hot water system consumed large amounts of wood. The wood came from an adjoining property about 5 kilometres away known as Webbs. From time to time we would all spend a full day out at Webbs on a wood drive. In the weeks prior to this Br Colgan and a small team would have been felling suitable trees in a localised area. On the day of the wood drive we would be rostered into pairs and given a crosscut saw. It was our job to saw the trees into lengths of about one and a half metres. These were then taken to where Br Colgan was operating a circular saw driven by a tractor motor. The logs would be chopped into pieces about a foot long. These were then loaded onto what was always called the red truck (as one wit put it: ‘To distinguish it from the green truck we didn’t’ have’) and then taken back to the wood heap at the Novitiate.

These were long hard days, most of which were on silence. If you had a crosscut saw whose blades were not sharp the work could be very slow and frustrating. The saws were all supposed to be thoroughly sharpened before wood drives but this was not always the case. The work was relieved by a hot meal at lunchtime, ‘bangers and mash’ and cordial. I have memories of these being delicious and I devoured them after a hard morning’s work. We returned very weary after these days and were usually given an early night.

Two or three people were assigned to the woodheap as a daily job. Using axes and similar implements, it was their job to chop up the wood into pieces that could be fed into the boiler and kitchen stove. This was the first job to which I was allocated when I arrived. I developed blisters on my fingers early on and found the work very hard. I was always rushing to ensure enough wood was chopped up. In later months I watched somewhat resentfully as others were able to chop up wood much more efficiently, so much that they had to pile it up everywhere around the woodheap and inside to the adjoining red shed (again to distinguish it from the green or any other colour shed that we did not have!).

We had a large orchard, made up mainly of apple trees but also of stonefruit trees. Some of the apples were really good but most were undernourished and were made into apple pulp. Most of the stonefruit were preserved and became a staple for our sweets. A team of two or three looked after the orchard, picking and storing the fruit and pruning the trees in winter. Pruning was a cold and tedious job. We also had a chookhouse next to the orchard and depending somewhat on the skill of the person looking after the hens, we had a regular supply of eggs. Br Ambrose was, however, very cautious in allowing us to use eggs for cooking. Almost everyone of us had been told while being given our cooking instructions “Now brother, when you’re preparing this dish, don’t use too many eggs!”

8. Study

We spent many hours in study classes of one kind or another and for some reason this is the part of my Mittagong experience that I remember the least.

My clearest memories are of the study time we had as postulants with Br Colgan at 7:30pm on weekday evenings when we studied the Rule and the Constitution of the Marist Brothers. The Constitution was a small book containing very practical everyday requirements for being a Marist Brother. Not only were we required to read and study it, but we were required to learn it off by heart. Each night, the first part of the study period would be spent on us having to recite by heart the sections Br Colgan nominated. He would grunt, glare and eventually lecture severely those who faltered in their recitation. I imagine he was actually testing us in more than just our memory of the Constitution. He was concerned that Br Fergus was too gentle with us and that ‘our vocations should be thoroughly tested’.

Br Colgan also had us for morning study which we did for a few hours every morning. This involved assignment work on either Mariology or Theology. He would provide assignment sheets, and it was up to us to decide which questions we wanted to work on. We then went to the library to find relevant books and worked on our own. At the end of a few weeks we would hand in our work and start on a new assignment. I’m not sure whether the assignments were ever corrected. It was a curious system. Br Colgan would come in, say a prayer to start the period and then walk out again. In some ways it was very permissive – as long as everyone was doing something Br Colgan was happy.

When we became Novices we spent more time with Br Fergus working on Scripture as well as new understandings of Theology emerging from the Second Vatican Council. Br Fergus had a much more ‘hands on’ approach, talking more rather than leaving us to our own devices. In the final few months of our time we were required to do a thesis of perhaps five thousand words. We weren’t really given much assistance with this and I think the quality of most of these was probably not very high. Probably out of curiosity rather than intellectual rigour, I chose the Apocryphal Gospels as my topic. This allowed me to explore a whole range of gospels written in the second and third centuries AD. These gospels, which were never officially accepted by the Church, contained a range of bizarre and racy stories about Jesus and Mary. In many ways, they were similar to the stories of Hollywood stars in today’s magazines for women, and they probably served a similar function though the stories were more concerned with magical events than becoming slim. I imagine that, were I to find my thesis again I’d probably find the writing to be of a very poor standard. I also remember doing quite a lot of work on the book of Wisdom at this time, and I wonder if it might have been this that was the topic for my thesis, and the apocryphal gospels just another area of interest.

The most valuable results of the study I did while at Mittagong were a good contemporary understanding of Scripture and a keen interest in the liturgical and theological changes as a result of Vatican 2. In my final months there, I remember reading quite a bit of Hans Kung, Yves Congar and Karl Rahner. This provided a basis for my thinking about Jesus, the Church and theological issues which has not changed but which has certainly deepened. My whole religious orientation was established during this time.

9. Sport

We played lots of sport and we were very fit during this time. The most popular sport was hockey. Those who had been to the Juniorate had played a lot of hockey while they were there, and they came to the Novitiate very skilled in it and with a thorough understanding of the local adaptations to the rules. These adaptations had been designed to minimise injuries. In particular, they required that the ball would never be hit, only pushed, and that the backswing be kept to an absolute minimum. These rules were ruthlessly enforced by the referee and, probably because of this, we had remarkably few accidents considering the vigour with which the game was played. (In recent years my youngest daughter played school hockey, and I would wince at the wild swinging I saw when she played. I had been brought up on very different rules!). The role of referee was taken by one of us, usually one of the best players. I was always surprised by the seriousness with which the refereeing was taken and the severity of the person acting as referee towards other players with whom he might have been horsing around only an hour earlier. There were times when the referee had to leave the game to go off to something else such as the dairy or cooking. Then, if the numbers playing were small, one of the other players would act as referee while continuing to play. I was even more surprised by how the person in this role would remain impartial in his decisions while still playing vigorously, even, penalising himself when necessary.

This raises something of a paradox in our behaviour that extended into almost all of our activities. While on the one had we collapse into laughter on a whole range of occasions, especially in the chapel, we would also be very serious in our endeavours. In the main we tried to be good at everything and do everything well, whether it was sport, singing, work activities, sport or prayer. This spirit of endeavour became even stronger a couple of years later when we were at the Scholasticate.

Another very popular sport was touch football – tackle football was not allowed due to fear of serious injuries. We probably played more touch football than any other sport, as it could be played by as few as ten players in a pick-up game. There were times when I must have played touch nearly every day of the week. We played pretty fast and I think that of all the sports this was the one that contributed most to our fitness. We played in all kinds of weather including rain, wind and snow. Usually we played in the late afternoon after which we would have a quick shower and then go to the chapel for examination of conscience (!) and Vespers.

We also played volleyball, a game I had never seen before, softball and, if I remember correctly, a little soccer. Occasionally there was a game of cricket played on the main oval where we usually played hockey. This was a special event and although it attracted spectators, I think it was probably regarded as too slow a sport for us to play regularly. The faster sports like hockey and touch football where we could be more fully involved were the most popular sports.

Table tennis was also very popular. We played on a table on the verandah outside the kitchen. I had thought, before I came to Mittagong, that I was pretty good at table tennis, but I soon discovered that it was played with the same ferocity as most other sports there. I had to lift my game considerably.

We only went swimming rarely. The swimming area was one of the smaller dams equipped with platform and ladder. It was preferable not to touch the bottom of the dam due to what was growing there. There were also leeches in the dam. One of the curious things about going swimming was that we were required to wear trousers and shirts over our costumes till we go to the dam. This was despite the fact that we wore shorts and t-shirts while playing touch football. I could never understand the fears around the need to be covered up before and after swimming. I’m not sure we ever challenged it as swimming was such a minor issue, despite the heat during the summer months.

10. The Dairy

The dairy was the showpiece of the Novitiate, and it was the highlight of any guests’ tour. While the vegetable gardens were vast and well-ordered and the slaughtering yard a little startling, the dairy was a beacon of modern technology. We proudly showed guests how it all operated automatically with electricity so that no hand milking was required. We also showed them the platforms on which the cows were milked, five at a time, so that we did not have to reach down to milk them. We showed them how the whole process was thoroughly organised so that we could milk sixty to seventy cows twice a day, every day of the year. We regaled them with stories of what could happen when you were under a cow milking and the cow decided that now was a good time to relieve itself.

My earliest memory of the dairy was the site of the Novices who were working on it leaving breakfast early, getting into their work clothes and gumboots and jogging past the refectory up to where Br Alan had already brought the cows in.

Later, as a Postulant, I was involved in various jobs in keeping the cows well fed. The first of these was hammer-milling. It was the process of putting baled hay through a machine to chop it up after which it was put into sacks. The hammer-milling machine was powered by a tractor which was backed up and fitted to the machine. Three of us then worked together feeding the hay into the machine and bagging it at the other end. All of this was done in cramped, dusty and extremely uncomfortable conditions! To make things worse, when I was doing it, it was during some of the hottest months of the year. We worked in two hour sessions and we were, of course, on silence-not that we could have heard each other in the extremely noisy conditions.

Later in the year I was responsible for the feeders. This was a series of stalls where the cows were fed each day after they had been milked. My job was to put some of the hammer-milled hay and some other things that I’ve forgotten into each stall. The cows would trot down from the dairy, put their heads into the stalls after a certain amount of jostling and then I’d pull a frame over that kept their heads in each stall. When they’d finish eating I’d release them. This was also a job that had to be done twice a day every day of the year.

On one occasion I remember a cow had come down ahead of all the others. It poked its head into the stalls and began eating the feed that I had laid out. In a fit of ill temper I kicked it in the udder a few times and pushed it off to where the other cows would soon be arriving. It was only later that I saw the cow, whose udder had felt a bit strange when I kicked it. I realised that the cow was a bull. Thank goodness it was a rather subdued one!

I’d been at the Novitiate for a year before I was allocated to the dairy. To my chagrin the three months period I was on included the four weeks of our summer holidays. So every afternoon at about half-past two when others were playing sport I had to break off and go up to the dairy. We worked as a team of four with Br Alan, whom we all liked. We thought we were very grownup working on the dairy. It was a real job that brought in income. Each morning a dairy truck would come and collect the milk ‘in bulk’. In earlier times it had been kept in large cans and the whole process of moving it for transporting was much more cumbersome.

One of the privileges of being on the dairy was that each afternoon, after milking and cleaning down the dairy, we would have a special afternoon tea of our own. One of us would arrange to pinch some freshly delivered bread on the way up to the dairy. Then we would have jam on warm crusty bread with very fresh milk. I think we were able somehow to get cream to put on the jam. We enjoyed these times very much. We felt we were living a special elite life away from the rest.

11. Silage Pits

In the time I was at the Novitiate we were going through a drought. As we were running short of quality hay for the cows we opened a number of the silage pits that we had been put down eight to ten years earlier when times were better.

Silage pits were pits about six to ten feet deep, filled with hay and then sealed off from the air. The hay was preserved but fermented. The first time I saw cows coming down to eat the silage, they were romping and snorting, almost dancing intoxicated by the smell.

We were rather less enthusiastic about silage. Digging it out was very hard work and it stunk. Even when we wore gloves it turned our hands green and smelly. The way we worked was with one person chopping along a line with an axe and about five of us pulling it out then throwing it up on the back of a trailer. Then we’d drive to an open field and throw it out to the cows. It was very exhausting and unpleasant work. I remember doing this work one afternoon at a silage pit out at Webbs. It was snowing lightly and we were all freezing. This work certainly toughened us up.

12. Bushfires

Another activity that toughened us up was fighting bushfires. As a cohort of forty to eighty (depending on the time of year) fit young males, we were an important part of the Mittagong Volunteer Fire Brigade. Br Colgan had some sort of official position in this organisation.

I had only been at the Novitiate for a couple of months when we were called on to fight bushfires. The large bell outside the kitchen, which was rung several times a day to wake us and summon us to various activities, was rung during our sport activities one afternoon. It summoned us to the area outside Br Ambrose’s office where we were told that we would be divided into three teams and sent out on rotation to assist in fighting the fires.

The team I was in set off next morning. We were piled into the back of the red truck. It was very cold and I remember developing painful cracked lips from the cold wind on the back of the truck. We spent a lot of time waiting around until we were sent out to a fire that was still raging west of Mittagong. Our task was to light another fire to burn back on the bushfire and hence to stop it spreading further. We arrived at a creek with small hills on each side. We lit a fire on the side nearest the bushfire and then retreated to the other side ready to put out spot fires as the bushfire approached. The two fires collided with a mighty explosion. It was one of my scariest moments. However we had been successful in stopping the bushfire. We spent an hour or so putting out spot-fires on our side of the creek and then we were moved out to another area.

Our task here was to work in country where the fire had passed through the previous night and to ensure that none of the smoking undergrowth burst into flame again. We were divided into pairs. Each pair was allocated an area about two hundred metres from each other. We were then required to move around putting out small fires wherever one was beginning. On our backs we carried containers of water that each had a small hose coming out of them, allowing us to squirt water on the fires. This work was much less spectacular than what we had been doing earlier. I remember finding it tedious and boring. From time to time members of the Salvation Army would come around and give us tea and home made sandwiches. All around were logs and trees still smoking, and the smell was unpleasant. Every since that time when I smell trees burning I shudder with revulsion at the destructive power of bushfires.

In the evening they pulled us out and I remember going home dirty and exhausted. We were called out to fight bushfires a few other times during my time at Mittagong. I never found it exciting or glamorous. Rather, I was always aware of the power and terror of bushfires.

13. Singing

We did a lot of singing, both in the chapel and also around the piano at recreation time. This had been the practice at the Juniorate and we built on this at the Novitiate.

A couple of times a week we would have formal singing practice, led by one of the Novices and accompanied by another on the organ. Here we would practice the antiphons and psalms for Sunday night Vespers as they were different for each week of the year. This required us to understand Gregorian Chant and to be able to sight-read its musical tablature. We also practised the parts of the Mass for major feasts and various Latin hymns and motets.

In my time as a Postulant almost all of our singing was in Latin. In the latter period, as a result perhaps of Vatican 2, we increasingly learned hymns in English. One of our number, who became singing master, had previously been Anglican and he introduced us to a range of hymns in English that I later found had Anglican or Lutheran origins.

We took the singing very seriously. Some of the Novices who were the best singers were called Cantors and they sang parts on their own to which the rest of us responded. They could sight-read the Gregorian Chant very skilfully. We each had a large book, the Liber, which contained all the psalms and antiphons for the whole year as well as the Gregorian musical tablature. It was this book that contemplative monks used to sing the Office everyday.

One of the Novices was a very good pianist and organist, but in our group, apart from one older man who did not want the job, there was no similar prospect. So I was groomed to be an organist and to take over as chief organist when the Novices moved on. This was an extremely daunting task for me and one that made me very nervous. I had learned classical piano up to Grade 5 (Intermediate Certificate/Year 9 level) according to the NSW Conservatorium of Music syllabus, but this involved learning to sight-read about eight pieces of music over a twelve months period. Now I would be required to learn several new pieces each week. And to play them in public! Previously, playing in public had made me extremely nervous.
The Novice organist taught me about chord harmonies and to recognise the three notes for each simple chord. Since each simple piece of music only has three to four chords in it, I worked out how to play these chords in the left hand while playing the tune in the right hand. This was easier to do on the organ than the piano, provided I kept pumping with my feet on the pump organ, and so I was able to play most pieces of music with only minimal practice. It sounded rather boring, but it got me through.

I had been a Postulant for about four months when, on one Sunday afternoon, I was told that the Novice organist was out fighting bushfires and I would have to fill in for him at sung Vespers. I worked out the chords for the antiphons and psalms and, with a fair number of mishaps, I did the job. After that, I was required to play at Vespers and Benediction more often. I worked out how to devise the chords for Benediction hymns and for other pieces of music. It was a simple mathematical process for me after a while. I also worked out how to do this for pop music, especially Beatles’ songs. After a while I would play mood music during Benediction and other liturgies where I would include snatches of Beatle’s songs played in very traditional style. Some of the Postulants and Novices would recognise these and turn around to smile at me in recognition but the staff appeared to be quite unaware.

14. Profession – July 2

The highlight of the year for us July 2. This was the day when the Postulants received their habits to become Novices, while the Novices took their vows to become fully-pledged Brothers.

There were various forms of preparation for this. The most exciting was the afternoon when the tailors came to take our measurements for our new clothes. For the Postulants this meant the black habits. We could stop wearing our uniform of shirt, tie, grey trousers and Bermuda jacket. Instead we’d wear t-shirts or shirts with the collar folded under and the habit over the top. For the Novices it meant wearing the black chord and tassels, with three knots in the chord symbolising the three vows they took. Of more interest to the tailors, it meant being fitted out for a full black clerical suit including hat.

It was a very cool grey afternoon when the tailors arrived. They spent the full afternoon fitting out about three dozen Postulants and two dozen Novices. I remember there being lots of excitement, especially among those who were a little on the gay side. However the clothes were representative of our goals and very tangible ones at that!

Another form of preparation was for the singing at the July 2 ceremonies to be held at the cathedral-like chapel at St Joseph’s College. Because a bishop was to preside at this ceremony we had special music to prepare. The main pieces I remember were Ecce Sacerdos (literally ‘Here comes the bishop’) and the Te Deum. We were to sing these long hymns in three part harmonies. We practised separately and when we came together to sing it for the first time, the sound was glorious! Some of my happiest moments at Mittagong were the times when we sang together in three part harmonies.
The final form of preparation was a week long retreat before July 2. The excitement was tangible, tinged with some sadness. The Postulants who had been at the Juniorate had known the Novices as Fifth Year students, while they themselves had been Fourth Year students fresh from leaving home. Many strong bonds of friendship had been formed, bonds which had been broken and then renewed when we came to the Novitiate. They were about to be broken. The Novices were about to leave to go teaching for six months, and then on to the Scholasticate to go to university for four years or to follow the one year Registration course in teaching.

I remember little of that Retreat, except that it officially ended when we reached Bargo on the bus journey from Mittagong to Sydney and we were told that we could now talk again. When we reached St Joseph’s College we moved into the front section where we sung lustily in a ceremony that took us on to the next part of our lives as religious.

Our families were behind us in the chapel, and at the end of ceremony we joined them for a picnic lunch in the grounds of St Joseph’s College. We had only seen our families once, at Easter, in the preceding six months. Mixing with them again was a little awkward and unusual. I remember climbing to the top of the four storey store building of St Joseph’s College to show my family the view. As I looked over, a gust of wind blew my plastic rabat from my neck onto the tiles of the roof building. I had to go to Br Ambrose to explain and plead for a new one. I received a brief lecture and a new rabat. It was a humiliating end to an exhilarating day!

15. Our Second Six Months

It was a strange trip back to Mittagong on the evening of July 2, 1965. Though there were still thirty-three of us, looking strange to each other in our brand new habits, the refectory seemed very empty as we sat and ate tea in silence. The previous Novices had taken the responsibility in every single area of activity. Now we were responsible for making the place run. Where there had been work teams of one Novice and two Postulants in most areas, there were now just pairs of us. Where the Novices had always been leaders of the sports teams, now we were leaders. I was now the full time organist! It all took a lot of getting used to.

We now had Br Fergus looking after us rather than Br Colgan who spent more time out at Webbs getting ready for the wood drives. There were no more night time sessions where we had to learn sections of the Constitution and the Rule off by heart. Instead we could just listen to Br Fergus talking. Even Br Ambrose treated us as more mature individuals. And we all called each other Brother or frere!

We had been warned by the previous Novices that this period would go very slowly for us, and that we would almost go crazy waiting for January when the next intake of Postulants would occur. I did not find this to be the case. I had found the first six months to be a rather severe time. The second six months was more satisfying, while during the third six months I think we became increasingly restless to move on. During the time from July to January we became closer. There seemed to be more food available. It was easier to get a shower.

During mealtime, except on the few occasions when we were able to talk, one of us would read from a book while the rest of us listened. In the first six months, these books were usually lives of obscure saints and I did not find them interesting at all. During our second six months, Br Fergus increasingly selected books on the Second Vatican Council. These events often involved cardinals clashing with each other over new liturgical and theological ideas. These readings captured my interest. Pretty soon I started reading Hans Kung’s ideas on Church reform and this led me to the other great theologians of the time. We had lots of time for reading and so I was able to read about all the new theological insights of this time.

16. Walks and Picnics

Every Thursday afternoon we would go for a walk of eight to ten kilometres. We left at about 1pm and got back a little before 5pm. Some got back earlier as they ran all the way back. Amongst the more fit this was seen as a challenge more interesting than walking back chatting to each other. There was great prestige in being the first back.

Usually we headed off east, beyond Webb’s, to the Nepean River Catchment Area. It wasn’t quite legal to go where we went, but I imagine that if the relevant authorities were aware of what we did they did not see it as a problem. As he did with wood drives, Br Colgan would carefully check out the territory beforehand. He would then put a map of the walk on our noticeboard a day or two before the walk. I’m an avid bushwalker and map-reader these days but at that time I showed no interest in the map or our destination at all. I was only interested in chatting to the others. Some of us would carry sacks containing plastic cups and tins of tea and when we arrived at our destination we light a fire (again probably illegal!) and make pots of tea.

Sometimes we would head up the hill to our south where there were glorious views of the surrounding countryside. I would often climb this hill myself when I was feeling low as the effect of looking at the view lifted my spirits. From this hill you could travel further to Mt Gibraltor (the Gib) overlooking Mittagong on one side and Bowral on the other. On one occasion we went down into Bowral to the place that in earlier years, had been a Juniorate for younger boys in First to Third Year, that is, aged twelve to fifteen. It had been closed a few years earlier because one of the Brothers had been sexually abusing some of the Juniors. It’s sad to note that at least one of them has gone to abuse younger boys himself. I did not know all this at the time but I was aware of how strange it felt to be in these deserted buildings. It was as though they held the sad memories.

Apart from walks, we went on a number of picnics which in most respects were like full day walks. Lunch however would be brought out for us in the red truck which would be at the picnic destination when we arrived. In the first few weeks after I arrived we had a picnic at the Gib. Even after only a few weeks I found it exhilarating to be walking back to the Novitiate through streets with houses. We led such cloistered lives that I almost felt like an alien as I walked past suburban houses.

We had some varied picnics. One of the most unusual was the time we went ‘rabbiting’ out at Webb’s. The theory was that we would dig rabbits out of their tunnels with the mattocks we were carrying, skin them and cook them over an open fire. I don’t know whose idea this was and the more I think back to it the more bizarre it seems. We went off in teams with our mattocks and the other things we needed for cooking. My team caught no rabbits all morning! We spent hours digging in the rabbit tunnels and got very hot and tired. We saw the odd rabbit darting here and there but they were always too fast for us. Fortunately we brought some other rather ordinary food with us so we didn’t go hungry. I can’t remember whether any of the other teams caught any rabbits.

A more successful picnic was the trip to Kiama. We all piled into the back of the red truck sitting on bales of hay covered with old blankets. For safety, we had over the top of us the cage that could be put on when we were transporting pigs. We headed off through Robertson, down the Macquarie Pass and on to Kiama. Lots of passing traffic honked at us in a friendly way as we must have looked very unusual. We stopped at Surf Beach just south of Kiama, with a football field next to the beach. We played touch football till we had played ourselves to a sandstill, then we went swimming in the surf. After this we lay around eating lunch. As a newly-turned eighteen year old, I thought this was one of the most wonderful days of my life. It was a day full of the things I enjoyed most!

17. Recreation

Playing cards became a craze during the period of our second six months. I don’t think Novices had previously been allowed to lay cards but Br Fergus was of the view that it was not harmful. We started with Euchre, but soon moved on to Five Hundred. Most of the card playing took place during Evening Recreation but it was also a popular activity on Sundays. There was nothing Protestant about us! As with all things, we took the card playing very seriously and some developed well-deserved reputations as skilful card players.

We also spent lots of time around the piano playing and singing. In my own rough way, I had learned to play songs of the Beatles, the Shadows, the Seekers, Peter Paul and Mary, and Bob Dylan. Once I started playing a group of Novices would gather around and sing along lustily. I played from sheet music sent to me by family and, because we had often not heard the originals, our versions were often a little strange.

From the spontaneous singing developed the idea of having a concert. From memory we had two or three concerts during this period. One of them was based on a quiz show, like Bob Dyer’s Pick a Box, with songs in between. Usually the songs were well known favourites that we sang around the piano or that had been sung at the Juniorate. Occasionally though we wrote our own. One of our group was skilled at writing satirical songs based on the everyday foibles of life at Mittagong. Perhaps the most famous of these was the Silage Song, sung to the melody of ‘A Knapsack On My Back’. It really was very funny and a group of us performed it to the actions of digging silage out of a pit and putting it on the back of the red truck. The foibles of the supervising staff featured prominently in the lengthy verses and to their credit they came along and laughed uproariously with the rest of us.

18. Evening Walks to the Front Gate

The most popular activity during Evening Recreation after ten was to stroll down to the front gate and back again. All up this was a distance of a little under a kilometre. In the summer it would still be light. There would be lots of flies buzzing around so we’d break small branches off surrounding shrubs and gently swish as we walked. The rest of the year the walk would be done in the dark.

We’d stroll down the hill from the main Novitiate building about a hundred metres to where you looked down on a small valley which contained a small dam surrounded by willow trees and a statue of Our Lady. Up behind the valley was a small hill where our destination, the main entrance, was. To the right, a few hundred metres along and surrounded by very tall pine trees was the Juniorate. There was supposed to be no communication between Novices and Juniors and generally, apart from on occasional wave, this was the case. To the left, looking up the hill to the south, was the large dam, two sports fields and the small swimming dam, and near the front entrance a small silage pit. Today much of this area is covered in grapevines. The large dam was extended during our time in late 1965 in the hope that this would allow the Novitiate to cope better with droughts like the one we had just had. When I first arrived at Mittagong the large dam wall was not much higher than the road we walked on to the front gate, but in late 1965 bulldozers were brought in to construct a much higher wall. I think we Novices were also involved in this work, perhaps stabilising the wall and planting grass runners along it.

So when we reached this point just down from the Novitiate we were presented with a panoramic view. We swung around to the left, past a windbreak of high pine trees, on down to the wall of the large dam, swung around to the right again past the small front dam and up to the front gate. In my time at Mittagong I did this walk, almost a pilgrimage, many many times.

When I first arrived, we went in groups of three to six talking animatedly and laughing. The ex-Juniors told me, that you weren’t supposed to walk in pairs and they introduced me to the term ‘particular friendships’! Just exactly what this meant was not spelled out but it was made to sound pretty sinister. Yet I noticed that the Novices often walked in pairs talking very seriously while we horsed around. It turned out that this was another area where Br Fergus had reviewed previous practice and actually encouraged ‘deep and meaningful’ conversations in pairs. It wasn’t long before most of us were having similar conversations in pairs. I found these conversations increasingly fascinating. I can’t remember any of them now but I think they gave us an opportunity to talk seriously about our thoughts and feelings. Perhaps they were a form of co-counselling. By the period of our second six months most of us would go out in pairs most nights, the others using this time to play cards or sing around the piano. You’d often ‘hook up’ another person during the day for a walk that night. It was not unlike dating.
Sometimes pairs would want to go on talking after the end of Evening Recreation and would seek permission from Br Fergus who would frequently give it. His view was that serious talk was an important part of our maturation. In allowing this he was taking a risk. Previous supervisors would have feared that such behaviour would lead to homosexual practices. I never saw or heard of examples of homosexual practice in my time at Mittagong though in retrospect I believe a fair number of my colleagues exhibited gay behaviour. I think many had strong feelings for others but, at least in my experience, these feelings remained at a platonic level and were not expressed physically. The relationships I developed through the shared conversation on our evening walks contributed very significantly to my understanding of others and to my self-confidence.

19. Departures

In the time I was at Mittagong, the number of those who decided to leave was relatively small. The larger number of departures was to come in later years.

I had only been at Mittagong about a month before the first Novice left. I remember being very saddened by this as he was very personable and had been friendly to me. He also had not been to the Juniorate and could understand my surprise at the situation in which I found myself upon my arrival at Mittagong. There were no opportunities to say goodbye. A brief announcement was made by Br Fergus and we never saw that person again.

In the first six months only about four (out of forty) left from our group. None of these departures surprised me as they had never really seemed to fit in. Nevertheless, as each departure was announced, I experienced feelings of sadness and guilt as if there was more I could have done to help them fit in. During the remaining time though, the departures became much more disturbing as they were people I had come to know and felt strongly about.

One Novice, who had always been conspicuously saintly, had some sort of breakdown. I had known him reasonably well and believed him to be a little simple but I respected his innocence. One night, during the Great Silence, he summoned me from my sleep down to the refectory to tell me he wanted leave. This was a real surprise! He’d decided he was breaking free from the saintly person he’d been and was becoming a rebel. To make the point, he took a bite from the largest apple in the fruit bowl in front of Br Ambrose’s seat and then returned the apple to its position where it would be glaringly obvious at breakfast the next morning. I don’t remember much more about the conversation other than counselling him to discuss his feelings more with Br Fergus. The next day though we woke up to find that he was missing. He had started walking to Sydney. He was discovered later that day about ten kilometres north of Mittagong. He was brought back but he was never the same and shortly afterwards he left us.

From an original size of forty we dropped to twenty-four by the end of our time at Mittagong. About five or six left in the final third of our time there. A number of these departures were painful as they came as a surprise and we had no opportunity to say goodbye.

20. Teaching At The Homes

Just down the main road from the Novitiate were a number of homes for male juvenile delinquents. These boys ranged from nine or ten in some homes to fourteen or fifteen in others. One of our jobs was to visit these homes for an hour or two on Sunday mornings to teach the boys something about religion and correct behaviour.

Each of us on rotation would have a class for four or five weeks. We’d set off each Sunday morning in our habits with minimal teaching resources. I have no memory of what we taught them but somehow we kept them entertained. It was a sudden, sharp introduction for us into teaching profession. There were only about seven to eight boys in each group and we often incorporated competitions and games into the lessons. There were minor scraps but the boys were generally well behaved. They probably saw us as a weekly source of light entertainment.

21. New Postulants

In late January 1966 forty-six new Postulants arrived at the Novitiate and the whole cycle began. About a dozen of the new Postulants had not been to the Juniorate and so they were in the same state of shock as I had been at the beginning. They talked in the dormitory cells, stole food between meals, missed religious exercises, laughed during times of silence, and walked around with the same mystified looks that I had in the first few weeks.

With seventy of us living where previously there had only been twenty-four everything became very crowded again! There were not enough cells (bedrooms) so a lot of beds were packed into the upstairs verandahs. In the refectory all tables were used and a seventh person added to each table. It became a bit tricky with food as the tureens in which food was served were a good size for six, but inadequate for seven. To make things worse, a few of the Postulants who had never been away from home before got stuck into the food not realising there were others to be served from the same tureens. For a while there were many glaring looks and meaningful gestures during these silent meals. Even the chapel became more crowded. Extra pews were put into a side section to accommodate all the newcomers.

The new Postulants were an impressive and talented group. The thirty or so who had been at the Juniorate quickly re-established their relationships with the Novices who had been there with them. There were many fine sportsmen among them as well as many who were interested in farming. There were also many interested in music and they brought us sheet music and details of the latest music by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Normie Rowe. I remember them, by and large, as a very manly group who fitted in well with us. In later years many of them were to be very successful at university.

I missed, though, the quieter more intimate times we had had during the second half of 1965. The Novitiate was now such a busy place. And with only a few months to go we Novices were increasingly thinking of a post-Mittagong world.

22. Guest Speakers and Visitors

According to Canonical Law the Novitiate was supposed to be a place where Novices, would be cut off from the world for a period of 12 months. This was largely our experience, except for the occasional foray into the outside world fighting bushfires or going for picnics. We saw our families only a few times during the whole period: at Easter, Christmas and on July 2. We had no access to newspapers, radio and television. Yet there were certain links with the outside world.

Br Fergus believed we should be aware of major events in the outside world, so he arranged for articles from the newspaper about them to be read out regularly in the refectory. We heard about the Indonesian confrontation and the fall of President Sukarno. We heard about Australia’s deepening involvement in the Vietnam War. And we heard about the introduction of decimal currency.

Whenever he could Br Fergus would invite visitors to come and speak to us. One of the Postulants’ fathers was involved in the implementation of the new decimal currency and so he was asked to come to explain it to us. It wasn’t exactly rocket science but we had an enjoyable day listening to someone who took himself very seriously talking excitedly about the changes. Br Fergus also thought we all needed to be on top of sex education, so he invited someone to come down and, with the aid of coloured charts, take us through the whole business. On another occasion he invited all of the Provincial Councillors to come down and meet us. I remember them shuffling rather awkwardly into the refectory and sitting around the top table. They looked like serious decision makers and managers coming down from the heights to mix with us youngsters. I realise now that they were all about the same age or younger than I am now. Later we all had an opportunity to meet one of them for a brief chat. I remember striding up and down the cricket pitch of the main oval talking to Br Charles Howard whom I admired greatly.

The final significant guest we had in June 1966 was Br Quentin, former Provincial and in 1966 Master of Scholastics. He came for a couple of weeks to give us a brief course in teaching as half of us would be out in schools teaching by early July. Those of us who would be going to university in 1997 would spend the second half of 1966 teaching while the others would begin their studies at the Scholasticate straightaway. Those of us who were to teach were now told where we would be teaching. Most of us were sent to secondary schools but I was one of the few sent to a primary school. It’s ironic that I now hold the position of Head of Secondary Curriculum for Archdiocesan Catholic schools but at that stage I was directed to a primary school Yet it was a fortunate decision for me as I was sent to a dynamic little school staffed by excellent teachers.

23. Melons in the Dam

In early 1966 our gardens produced a bumper crop of melons – not rockmelons or watermelons but the type used to make melon and lemon jam. Accordingly Br Ambrose decided we would use them to make lots melon and lemon jam. Unfortunately he allowed us to use only minimal amounts of sugar for the process. The result was a gooey unappealing liquid very different from the type of jam sold in shops. Whenever we looked at the gardens we saw more melons growing, after which they were stored in rows next to the wood inside the red shed.

So, in our last couple of months there, we decided urgent action was required, or we would never see the end of the repulsive melon and lemon jam. We hid the melons wherever we could – in the hayshed, at the bottom of the orchard in the pigs’ area, in the garbage. There was even a melon skin cut out like a Halloween mask in the toilets next to the dormitory. It then got to the stage that whenever anyone was looking for anything such as jam, tins of apple pulp or pumpkins they would find melons hidden away amongst them. We also threw them into the dams but eventually they floated to the top. The climax to this episode came one night when Br Ambrose was returning late and the lights of the car he was driving flashed onto melons floating in the front dam. His sense of outrage was expressed over breakfast the next morning but the only response he received was suppressed laughter.

I think these high jinks were a little like the ‘muckups’ that senior students carry out these days as they reach the end of their schooling. Another such incident was a final picnic we had for Novices only, just before our last Retreat. One of us pinched a couple of dozen eggs from the storeroom, a capital offence in Br Ambrose’s eyes. Most of them were eaten at the barbecue we had for our picnic, but there was an egg fight with the remainder and Br Ambrose somehow heard of it. We were severely chastised!

24. July 2 – Farewell to Mittagong

In late June we began our final weeklong retreat. Just prior to this Br Colgan had had a final session with us where he spoke in very different tones from when we had been Postulants. Now it was man to man stuff, especially for those going out into schools. He explained that we would find things very different in the communities to which we were going. Many Brothers, he told us, were slack and we would be shocked by their behaviour. His concern for us was quite touching.

In no time the Retreat was over and we were making the same bus trip up to Sydney. After Picton we were allowed to talk to each other until we reached St Joseph’s College. This time I was the organist for the whole ceremony. Somehow I had adapted the music to my limited keyboard abilities and it was an inspiring experience to play the glorious music in the grand St Joseph’s Chapel accompanying the lusty singing of my colleagues.

After we had taken our vows and the ceremony was over, there was a strange letdown. I met my family and was taken home for the rest of the day. It was the first time I had been at home since New Year’s Eve 1964 and the house felt incredibly small, like a doll’s house. That evening my father drove me to a primary school in an area that was new to me. At Marist Brothers’ Daceyville, after a couple of weeks teaching third class, I was given a very multicultural fourth class made up of forty-five lively students and a new chapter of my life began.

25. Later Memories of Mittagong

I have been back to the Novitiate or the Form House as it is now called, a number of times since then. A friend of mine was on staff about twenty-five years ago and I took my wife and newly born son down to see him. In those days the dairy was still functioning but there were much fewer people around and the Novitiate had lost the ‘buzz of activity’ that I remembered.

In more recent times I have been back for various group reunions. Thirteen years ago, twenty five years on from our first profession, over thirty of our group went down in a bus from St Joseph’s and toured the property. We had all slowed down a lot and told each other stories of our families, our successes and our tragedies. Again we were conscious of how quiet the property felt.

Most recently I returned with my wife for a small group reunion and at the same time met a group of young adults and team leaders who use the Farm House as a place to get away. On that occasion my wife and I slept over in Br Fergus’ bedroom. This brought back some strange memories. It was a pleasure for me to sit around with a group of friends and a bottle of wine or two in the refectory, looking out the windows at the trees and shrubs and reflecting on the young man I had been almost forty years earlier.