Nuns and Priests

The local nuns were very strict and always had to come out in twos.   When it came to afternoon tea time,   Mum would take the food in,  but you were never allowed to eat with them,  it was a bit ridiculous cos’  it was nice to have a talk over a cup of tea.   But we had to go out and shut the door.

Sometimes Dad would go down and pick them up in their long habits, terrible darn cumbersome things,  and then have to drive them back again,  sitting perched up,  how they all fitted I’ll never know.

 They looked forward to it,   they came up quite often,  Mum would ask them,  she liked to have them.   Sunday was always a real invitation day.

We had various priests with variations in mannerisms.   Back in ’32,  the toughest of them all was Father Conlan,  he was about 17 or 18 stone,  good fighter,  a man that had been around.    He had been sent here for a purpose,   because there was a big debt on the Parish at that time.  (He stayed as Parish Priest of Coleraine from 1933 until 1956)

Prior to him,  we had some nice ones,   poor old Father Barrett,  an old Irish priest,  too generous.    He gave more money away than he put against the Parish debt.   In those days he had to go out and say mass in Tahara.   We were all on the altar as altar boys.    He got that Presbytery built,  and got the school and convent moved up from down alongside Dolly's.   He was one of the best organisers,  he got all his own way.

The Priests for years were banned from going onto a racecourse.    Wherever you went,  you’d see them standing out in the Members Reserve,  looking over the fence.   That was bought about when a bookmaker refused to pay Conlan,   so he dropped him off his board,  took it out of his hide.

It then became a ruling that they were banned because they couldn’t behave themselves.

Back in those days,   Conlan was a great money making thing,  he’d put on  a fortnight’s mission.    Each night for a fortnight,  there would be two mission priests here to keep the pressure on us,  half past seven every night and six or nine o’clock next morning,  it would be the Masses.

That went on and we’d have to go down and serve on the altar after being at school.   You can just imagine the effort people had to make to go down each night,  you could not get a seat.  And of course  in those days,   not like now when none of the kids go to Church,  all the kids - about a hundred or more -that went to school,  always went to the Mission that night.

To make room in the Church,  all the kids had to go up onto the altar.    They were absolutely crowded,  they would put up extra forms down the side,   and there were many standing down the back,  they filled that Church to capacity night after night for a fortnight,  and the same in the morning.

Now it is not even quarter full for an ordinary Sunday mass,  I don’t know how they would get on if they put on a Mission now,   it would be a washout.   They would finish up going broke !

Conlan stayed here a little bit too long,  because his memory was going,  sometimes he would say Mass,   and end up with the final prayers,  then he would go up and start again,  the nuns would have to go up and stop him.

That’s one of the tragedies of becoming  old  and hanging on too long.

We had Father Phelan,  he died here reasonably young,  he was a terrific man.    Father Brody,  an Australian priest,  poor little fellow was very weak.    After he said Mass and before he gave a sermon,   he had to go away and have a little cup of tea and bit of a pea.  

Another time,  an old priest I cannot remember his name,   they had to change behind the altar behind one of the statues,  there was also a blind you had to pull down for the sun.   When this priest was putting on his uniform,  he was putting on the girdle around his waist,   when he put it behind him around this blasted blind.    Then he said to us,  righto boys,  and away we march out,  and we wonder why he’s coming,  he’d hooked himself to this blind,  the tassel was caught in his girdle,  and there the poor fellow was.   We had to retrace our steps,  and go back.

There was all types of altar boys,    the Warren boys,   one now has a pub down in Port Melbourne,   they went to school with us and on the altar,   and coming from the pub it was our duty to fill up the wine and water cruets.   Well this darn Warren,  he was hopping into the wine,  they were always out of our altar wine until they woke up he was knocking it off.

I was on the altar until I was about 16 or 17,   I went to school until about that time,   Clem Mahoney was one of the older altar boys,   Dan and Jack,   there was always half a dozen altar boys at the Mass,   now they are down the nothing.   The Church played a big part in all our lives,  not a shadow of doubt about that.

No matter what come,  we always seemed to get down there of a Sunday.

Father McDermott was a terrific man,  he always had an enormous amount of Johnny Walker whiskey,   and I used to do a lot of work for him.   He had a beautiful housekeeper,  Mrs Obrien.   And the day they landed on the moon,  I was sitting in the lounge of the Presbertry with Father McDermott,  drinking Johnny Walker with stubby chasers.    I think I was lucky to see the landing on the moon,   I was nearly bouncing around like they were,  I was losing my buoyancy.

He loved mushrooms,  Jack used to go around and find them all first,  then ring him up.  Then when he came up,  Jack used to say “You go down around that way,  and I’ll look over here”.    Of course,  Jack sent him down where there was a certain pick.   He loved football,  and the people of the town highly respected him. 

 He died pretty sudden,   I don’t know whether it was cancer of something,   so now we are going to lose the lot,   we are not going to have any soon.