Free Seminary Boy by John Cornwell Page A

a sweep of lawn and a grand cedar of Lebanon. At the back of the old hall was an ugly extension where the nuns lived. James explained that they did our laundry, cooking and cleaning. ‘We call them the witches,’ he said with a contrite smile. ‘They have taken a vow of silence. But the sister matron speaks to us.’
    Attached to the old hall were two stone Victorian elevations at right angles to each other, which housed the boys’ refectory, libraries, dormitories, classrooms and wash places. A cloister with Gothic vaulting ran through one of the wings. The most recently built section of the college was a square rose brick structure known as Saint Thomas’s where the most junior boys, aged eleven to thirteen, had their dormitories under the supervision of a wraith-like balding priest called Father Manion.
    James showed me the library, which smelt of beeswax floor polish. There were deep windows with views of the valley andan expanse of tall shelves. A few boys were sitting at the tables reading. Through a far door was another library with oak panelling and stained-glass windows which, James whispered to me, was the sixth form library. He pointed out a periodicals table with several magazines from other schools and seminaries on display. A single copy of the Illustrated London News lay on the table. ‘There are no newspapers,’ he said, ‘and we’re not allowed to listen to the radio.’
    He explained that from among the boys in the final two years at Cotton were recruited the college monitors, house captains and their deputies: they were known as the Big Sixth and had the power to have boys punished by sending them to the Prefect of Discipline or the Prefect of Studies. The teaching staff priests, he said, were known as ‘the profs’.
    We finally emerged into the chill morning air, descending by stone steps known as the Bounds Steps into an area James called Little Bounds, a yard large enough for two tennis courts. Little Bounds formed a kind of level platform or stage looking out over the panorama of the surrounding countryside, bathed that morning in early autumn sunshine. Several boys were staring like prisoners in a cage through the wire fence that bordered the yard. James and I joined them. The high fence marked the boundary, James told me, between the boys’ domain and the lawns and gravel pathways strictly for the use of ‘the profs’.
    Immediately below these gardens a drystone wall bordered the lush meadows, ending abruptly at a wood that descended into the valley. Beyond the closest canopy of the woods, a mile or so away, rose a corresponding series of meadows on the opposing flank of the valley. An ancient stone cottage stood in one of the meadows, a wisp of smoke rising from its chimney. This was the only human habitation visible in the landscape. To the left of the pine wood was a sheer drop and the distant countryside opened out in a succession of gentle shoulders and folds, each softer and more hazy than the last, until the finalridge melted into the skyline. As I stood there my heart leapt with the immensity of the scene and the bracing air.
    James now led the way to a second level by way of a wide sloping path up to the cinder yard he called Top Bounds, where I had been deposited the previous evening. Boys were walking up and down in threes and fours, hands in pockets. James said: ‘Shall we take a few turns?’
    As we walked we were joined by another boy with severe acne and untidy hair who introduced himself as Derek Hanson from Southend, Essex. He too was a seminarian from the diocese of Brentwood. He skipped about a little as he walked, turning towards me, then suddenly turning away. He was describing the eccentricities of his parish priest at home, while occasionally giving vent to nervous ripples of laughter. After one more fit of the giggles he said: ‘Watch out for Father Armishaw.’ Then he blushed and excused himself, hurrying down towards Little Bounds.
    ‘Derek is very nice,’