From Chris Crilly

Just received a copy of Terry Smith's book, "St. Peter's, Independent Days" from Tommy Browning.
The significance of the term "Independent" was lost on me until I got to the part describing the transformation of SPS into some sort of "comprehensive" school. Then, of course, the term "comprehensive" became the mystery word. It takes about 38 years in the colonies to find out that your vocabulary from the old country has atrophied from disuse. I do remember, though, hearing the late lamented Audrey King, my childhood piano teacher (and part-time surrogate mum) that the day St. Peter's "went comprehensive" was the day she quit as piano teacher to the school. My first thought was that the school had gone communist, or, worse, republican! Or prod even. The fact that comprehensive schools are egalitarian and inclusive seems to me a definite step in the right direction, if for no other reason than it's a step away from the old patriarchal notion of training the "sons of gentlemen" for the furtherance of Empire. You will forgive this Irishman for a poke at the "days when the atlas was mostly pink."

I was astounded to read the pre-de-la-Salle history of the place. Astounded mostly because almost nothing of this history was told to us in the 50s and 60s. I can only presume that our teachers didn't know the history and didn't think they should have known it. I can't be the only one to find this omission odd.

I must say the book is superbly researched and elegantly written for the most part. Mostly I am grateful to Terry for having produced a document of the history and geography of the place where I spent eleven very formative years of my childhood; a childhood from which my involuntary move to North America effectively cut me off. I envy those who have remained in touch with childhood friends and places. There's something unnatural about being radically uprooted (can't believe I wrote that!). My life in Québec with my wonderful family I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. But sorting out the baggage of suddenly, at the age of nineteen, leaving friends and familiar places, even if those friends and places are not really 'home' in the family sense of the word, takes hard work and quite a lot of time. But such is the legacy of being from a family whose idea of raising children entailed shipping them off to be raised by celibate monks by the sea; monks who. officially anyway, would never be parents themselves.

Terry's book has opened my eyes to many unanswered questions from that time. His thoroughgoing history of the old place, and its central rôle in the history of Southbourne, not to mention the affirming feeling I get from hearing others' views of life there, have given me a real boost in this process of re-integrating my abandoned childhood and my life here in Canada. For that I am grateful.

Cheers to all,

Chris Crilly