He sat perched on a massive stool, in front of a class of seven year old boys. Sitting there he would pull a sock from his pocket and proceed to darn it, using a huge wooden mushroom, he’d had Wimpey’s make as a foreigner. It must have taken half the trees in the New Forest!
Darning and firing questions, in his deep irish Brogue. He always picked on me first, “Peter, why did God make you?”
“Spite father”. This not being the correct Catechismal
response, his hand flashed like spiritual lightening from his sock, the mushroom
travelling faster than the speed of light, exploded on my right ear. Putting
me at the age of seven into such a state of “nirvana” that it takes
Tibetan Monks years of solitary meditation to reach.
Peter Berry
Reaching this state of concussion at such an early stage meant I was soon out of it. He questioned alphabetically from the register, imagine the state of abject terror the poor wretch initialled Z. We had one, Zabrowski, I always wondered why he had grey hair at seven. It must have seemed like a thousand lifetimes before he joined the pile of supine infants behind the blackboard, all neatly stacked up. Father Magee was a stickler for neatness.
Lessons over, Father Magee would collect his darning, stop on exit, turn, make the sign of the cross “In Nomine Patris, Et Filli, Et Spiritus Sancti, Amen”. Then with an enigmatic smile deliver a very appropriate blessing, “May the Peace of the Lord be Always with You”.
You could always tell the Protestant male, seven years old-No cauliflower ears or Mastoidal Cartilage damage, what-so-ever.
In fact with the clarity of senility, I have reached an astounding
conclusion- Father Magee was a Protestant! Just one look at our damaged ear
lobes made the Protestant child as good as gold. Ipso Facto, The End Justifies
the Means! So we were indirectly instrumental in the behavioural ambience of
the neighbourhood. Altogether Now...”If I can help somebody as I pass along,
then my living shall not be in vain”.
