‘Snapshot of a world now vanished forever’

Modesty has perhaps prevented me from publishing all the very positive things St Mary’s old boys (and others) have said about We Did Our Homework On The Bus. However, mainly to keep this website active, I have decided to publish some feedback I’ve had from people.

Recently I was delighted to receive an email from Fr Allan White. Arriving from St John’s Primary School, Gravesend, Allan was at St Mary’s between 1963 and 1970 before heading off to Trinity College, Oxford. Allan provided some fascinating insights into St Mary’s life in the 1960s, many of which found their way into the book.

After Oxford, Allan joined the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) and has been with them ever since.

Now based in El Centro, California, close to the Mexican border, Allan wrote me a delightful email after finishing the book saying how much he enjoyed it and also supplying a great little anecdote of historical interest about Fr Philip Graystone, who became headmaster in 1967 when Allan entered the sixth form. He wrote:

“I greatly enjoyed reading the book. You have done a great work.  It is not only a chronicle of a school with many fascinating reminiscences, but also a a snapshot of a world that had its own internal coherence which has now vanished for ever. It is a great achievement to have memorialized it in this way. It truly is a social history of part of our Catholic experience in the 1960s and later. It was really good to see some of those characters with whom we were so familiar come to life again.  I was astonished at the longevity of Mr. Jarvis for example.

“When I was Dominican provincial we used to go on a provincial pilgrimage to Walsingham.  On the last one, Fr. Graystone cycled all the way from Wells just to come and visit and to chat to me. He was well over eighty years old at the time. He was a wonderful priest and a great headmaster. I introduced him to some of my brethren and said, ‘Fr. Graystone transformed our school.  He opened many windows and blew the dust off a lot of oppression and pettiness.’  He said to me, very humbly, ‘Do you think I did that?  I was always wondering whether I was getting right.  I did think that things had to change.’  If it had not been for him supporting me I would never have gone to Oxford. I might not have met the Dominicans and I might not now be marking 50 years since I entered the Order.”

Thank you for this Allan and we all wish you well.