Paul Malpas

I retired at the relatively early age of 59 on the eve of my 60th birthday.  I retired because I did not like what work had become but I had assiduously applied myself to the task and had a modicum of success and vowed my next few years were for Helen and myself.  I was reasonably young and had most of my faculties intact but I was obviously needing something to do and I naturally knew what it was.  I wanted to write, not rubbish, but something with a little quality attached either in phrasing or ideas or both.

So after a period of thought and preparation I set about writing the memoir of my life, not a great life but one with some interest even to the casual reader, let alone my children for whom the tome was originally prescribed.  I started it in the winter of 2006 and quickly found out that I could write more easily at night time when it was quiet and there was no distraction.  So with a little planning and preparation I set to.  I was amazed; the words tumbled out of my mind onto the page almost quicker than I could write.  In those days and even today with some scripts, I had to put pen to paper first before transferring them onto the typed page.

So as England was trounced by Australia in five Ashes test matches over that deep dark winter, I crafted 130,000 words of my own to describe myself and my forebears.  I wrote it in about four weeks and then asked Helen, my devoted wife of 39 years, to type it out, because her earlier training, before she started on me, was in that direction.  She knocked out about 60 pages in quick time before she tired of the task, or possibly of me, who stood at her shoulder and glowed as she committed my words to the screen and she told me that I would have to finish the job myself.

For me the size of the imposition was gargantuan, never having used a keyboard previously but in true surveyor’s style, I split the work into sections and vowed to complete 20 pages per day, in double line spacing, about 6000 words per session.  I had it done in a little over three weeks and I was a proud man until I started reading and editing which then took me the best part of the next three years before I was happy enough to let others read it.  It was received well by some and not by others.  I could not help being critical of some stages and some characters in my life.  I was brutal but probably factual in parts but I knew I was not quite there yet.

Sometime between 2009 and 2011 my painfully typed memoir disappeared off my computer screen, why or how, I do not know but into the ether it went.  I had made a typed copy but for tinkering purposes I missed it.  I was always adding words or subtracting sentences and it was lovely to play with it.  I am no expert in computers and it probably is in there somewhere that the intrepid expert will  easily extricate.  One day I might give the task to some familial great in the field to find but I have kind of resigned myself to retyping and not without a little pleasure at the thought, because in retrospect some sections need revisiting and rewriting from a different angle.  However that is a promised duty for when I run out of steam and not now when I am so busy with other ideas.

So come the winter of 2009 I was in a writing desert, wanting to write but trying to find a medium, finding a way for others to read my thoughts.  The urge to write is an amazing need in one so struck.  You are impelled by some intangible force to get words on paper, not particularly to earn money, though that would be nice, but that others could benefit from or be critical of your fine turn of phrase and laugh or at least smirk at the humour of your thoughts.

It was then I was struck by an idea mooted by my son-in-law, although he was referring to it in a business sense.  Blogging and how it could help people in business.  I signed myself up as a non-paying customer of a symposium he was about to give on the subject and after 10 hours of education, I realised this idea was for me.  It also taught me a few insider tricks in how to make the blog more available to others.

Within a couple of days my daughter and husband had set me up with a vehicle to put my words on and after a very shy and tentative start I was into my stride very quickly, helped by the antics of the Catholic Church and the publication of the Ryan Report into clerical abuse in Dublin, which gave me an ocean to trawl through for ideas from the very start.

I realised  quickly the subjects to steer clear of.  My scrapbook was full of poison pen letters and anonymous phone calls and threats of all descriptions, including three from the local rag here in Boyle, who were considering suing me for defamation.  Funnily enough I also received a threat from a bumbling priest in Manchester who was going to sue me for “deformation”.  My mind has boggled ever since.  Certainly the parish pump is a no go area if you want a quiet life, especially in small town Ireland.  There are still people seething from stuff I wrote regarding the local scene two years ago, it does not matter that it was the truth but for them to be confronted with it, was not quite on.

So my mind and blogging moved to the international arena and away from the small minds stadium.  I wrote about anything and everything, little ideas wormed their way into my head as I lay, a supine insomniac, in my bed at night and the next day these thoughts displayed themselves onto my screen as I nodded off for want of sleep.

What cheered me and what drove me on was the choice of subjects, especially the Catholic church and its works and pomps for which I had a particular dislike, but the real driver was the feedback.  Over the last 27 months I have met thousands of people through this medium with readers from all over the world e-mailing me and posting comments on the site.  So far people from over 150 countries have contacted me to give me their point of view on a particular subject.  That is the real power of the blog, the fact that there are no boundaries, the whole world is your stage.  Once you have written your piece it is there forever, like an over-abundant fruit tree with a never ending crop waiting to be picked off 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by anybody who chances along.  In that time of 27 months, I have written 177 blog postings containing about 300,000 words with hundreds of thousands of people reading what I have to say.  A tool called Google Analytics tells you exactly how many people read my printed words and how much of it they actually read.  Really useful when you are looking for popular topics to write about, not that that bothers me because I write about things that jar my mind and if others agree or even disagree that is where my pleasure lies.

In all that time two people stand out as really influencing my thought process and making me think seriously about my topics but at the same time distracting me in the nicest possible way from my task of delivering words, having to construct and answer a daily crop of e-mails to them.  However their thoughts, ideas, cajolements and humour have turned me into a far better person.

One of this duo contacted me first out of a need to share his experiences with me after a piece I had written.  This single contact turned into an avalanche of daily e-mails, full of wit, innuendo and downright truth about the revelations coming out of the Catholic Church which certainly attracted the main butt of our humour at that time.  His constant hammering on my computer screen made our main construct into a viable cause and hopefully we will be friends for ever, even after this rash of clerical crap is over.

The main problem with my writing is my lack of subtlety.  My scripts are a blunt force, which makes the point to easily.  I needed  assuagement, like a car engine needs lubricating oil.  My problem was that I did not understand the power of the blog.  I did not realise that you could not just tell it as it was but as the blog became popular I knew that this bluntness could not last because I might be over-stepping that thin, hazy, grey line they call legality.

I was eager to learn because my wealth, however small it might be, was destined for Arthur Guinness’ pockets and not some sidewinding litigant hoping to line his breeches with my hard earned.  A person made herself available, a person with more than a little knowledge of the legal code, a person, who at first, had me cowed with the fineness of her mind, she volunteered to turn my rough Longsight ideas and words into things of beauty and awe.  Her deftness of phrasing was a pleasure to read, her subject easily wrought but it was her humour I craved.  In the midst of all this horror and talk of what legal bods could do to you if you only slightly overstepped this indeterminable line, there was a humour so unlike anything from her ilk, that I had to listen to and take in everything she said.

Eventually her tuition turned me into a far better man and a far more circumspect writer and hopefully I taught her a little of the northern spirit she claimed she had in her genes ( her family having moved from a semi-detached mud hut in Jarrow to a twee bijou residence close to Buck House in the 14th century).  So,  having been edited and tutored to distraction, I write now with ease, splaying silken sentences onto a sensuous screen.  I am no longer the man I was but I thank both my amanuenses for turning me from the guttersnipe I obviously was to a person you could take anywhere.

Life in Ireland is no different to life in England except really in two different ways.  The casual immigrant, as I class myself as being, one who never did his homework before coming here, one who classed Ireland as his or her’s spiritual home and had to get here come what may, all of a sudden runs up against matters that do not seem to make sense.  Take for example the Health Service here.  If you step outside your door intent on a visit to the doctors, the euros start to clock up.  If the doctor is at his surgery and you nod in his direction he charges you €40 if you are lucky, then there is another €20 for a blood test and when you go to the chemists with a prescription you can be charged anything.  I remember being asked for €193 for some pills for my wife.  There is also 50 cent government  levy on each type of medication you walk away with.  I did not of course pay the €193 but handed same back to the pharmacist explaining how my wife has decided to take the old fashioned remedy and chosen to ignore her complaint because in most cases complaints fade away unless they are very serious and then the doctor or pharmacist cannot really help.  All pharmaceutical products and doctors work on the fear factor to cower you in to partaking.  Why cannot they set up a National Health Service here.  A think tank of doctors and health professional spent a year recently looking into this ideal and came to the conclusion that the transition could be done smoothly and at no real cost if the motivation was there but it isn’t and the consultants and medical practitoners continue to make hay without any real discipline as they have always done so.

So with these kind of costs clicking up like a till register in a superstore, the potential patient has to be quick on his feet to avoid bankruptcy and like most problems Irish there is of course a way round the problem but you need to take a combined 3rd level course in computers and psychology to prevail.  Either that or take a lesson off the simple man in the street who at all times and in every country has found out a way round every barrier known to man.  So within weeks after taking some very intense lessons on life and how to live it, stood at the various bars around town, I passed my examination with flying colours and now the mazuma stays in my pocket and does not grace the doctors.  This medium is not the place to relate the secrets in which I matriculated but if you, like me, will stand at the bar or better still sit on a high stool at your favourite watering hole and invest in copious quantities of Arthur’s finest cordials, your investment will be well rewarded.

Another happening yesterday made me stop and ponder on the conundrums of Irish life as opposed to the puritan English.  Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Fein TD and Deputy Leader of her party, and champion of all that is foolish about her party, stood up in the Dail and roundly criticized the Coalition’s minister for Social Services, Joan Burton, for once again attacking the very poor in this country.  The reason for this broadside was the fact that under the present rigourous belt tightening that the Fine Gael/Labour Coalition Government is imposing on the inhabitants of this fair isle, Joan was looking seriously at the social service payments paid to thousands of parents throughout the country for Communion and Confirmation dresses hopefully intended for their little cherubic daughters to go lightly tripping up the aisle of their parish church on those two annual sacramental days ordained by Holy Mother the Church.

Now I do not know how the lads fare out in this fashion parade and I hope they are not left with their arse hanging out of a scraggy pair of trousers they have worn every day for the last two years, but yesterday in the Dail only Communion dresses were mentioned.  It might be a case of the Government giving early lessons in cross-dressing which would ease their financial problems no end with the thought of the word gender being thrown out of the window and the lack of need for distinguishing the sexes.

However the thought that these little Catholic children of Christ are getting free party dresses while the poor Church of Ireland, Methodist, Presbyterian and all the other myriad of religious and non-religious parents do not get even a sock fills me with distaste.  Is it a fact and so I was told since being knee high to a grasshopper, that the Catholic religion is God’s chosen course and that all the rest of them and now me included, are damned or is the Catholic Church in Ireland after years and years of abusing these little children getting more than its fair share of the financial cake?

Now it is obvious to the casual observer that because of this clerical abuse of the little children of Christ and their abuse of so many things, in so many walks of life, that the attendances at mass are dwindling and that the congregations at Catholic churches now seem to be limited to people over 70 years old who stopped thinking about their redemption 40 years ago.  So why should it be that the thrusting and vital young parents of today, who only see the inside of a church at Baptisms, Communions, weddings and funerals find the need to equip their loved ones in the finest couture the government can buy.  The answer is obvious, because it is there.  Once you see an apple on a tree it is nature’s course to want to pluck it.  The communion dress serves a variety of purposes and if the mother is wise she will design the dress that it fits the child for every social occasion for the next seven years and after puberty is passed, can be cut down by the able and made into very decent curtains for the back bedroom.

Last year the average payout per child was €242 and Joan said yesterday, whilst under constant attack from that party who value family life above everthing else, she might have to limit the payment to €120.  Tell me why in this day of total financial insecurity, where handicapped children are being denied their basic rights, where every government penny is counted, is it even thinking of giving parents, who never dream of going to church, unless there is a party afterwards, €120 towards a new frock.  I am not annoyed, I am slightly shocked but I am also completely dumfounded.

What are the qualities of a good priest?  Humility, generosity, intelligence, commitment, goodness, patience, responsibility, stability, openness, motivation, simplicity; in other words the qualities needed in an all round decent person.  What you do not want is pride, meanness, instability, irresponsibility, deviousness, irritability, ignorance, neglectfulness and all the other faults a lot of people have.

One’s gender should not come into it, all the good things mentioned above are shared between the sexes, just as much as all the bad things are.  On reflection and this is more than just a personal view, women tend to have slightly more of the good qualities than men, only because their mental and emotional needs and gifts have been nurtured since the beginning of time.  Women tend away from violence, confrontation, anger and competitiveness, while men tend towards them.  So on the whole women are better placed than men to play the priestly role in life.  Obviously there are good and bad in both sexes but when it comes to priestly qualities women tend to shade it better than men.

I have come across a lot of men in my life and few women.  Unfortunately women are not drawn to the rugged, dirty, competitive world that construction is whilst men are and I can count on a couple of hands the good men I have actually met.  Whilst in my limited experience of women, this percentage of good priestly qualities seem to be amply scattered about.

In my dotage I now deal with more women than men which I suppose in one way is a little unfortunate but the majority of women that now surround me, I would honestly say, are humble, generous, intelligent, committed, good, patient, responsible, stable, open, motivated, simplistic human beings.

Celibacy is not one of the qualities I look for in a priest and neither do most folk but if you have to throw this ridiculous burden into the mix then women again are better able to withstand its pressures.

So why if women have a vocation, why can they not become priests?  They would surely make a better fist of it than some of the men priests I have come across.  Well the why is important, the why is because the misogynistic, old boys club that is the Catholic Church will not let them.  They are scared that the rare priestly qualities they expect from their priests will soon be exposed when the people realise that women have them in spades.  They are scared that they will be exposed for the strutting peacocks they are.  They realise where their scrap heap is.

I have been told that in Jesus’ legacy women were of equal standing but just because in that Iron Age era men could chuck a spear farther than women it was decided that men should fulfill the role of priest.  Now things are different you get rid of your enemies by pressing a button and women can do that with the same if not better dexterity than men.  Women can reach out and capture the hearts and minds of people and are far better placed in this modern environment.  So let us have it, three cheers for HABEMUS PAPESS.

At least with a woman as Pope and with women as bishops we would not have the horrible monstrosities of priests I have met in my time like Monsignor Thomas Duggan, Father Joseph Coulthard, Father Richard Hynes and the ignominious, misplaced horror that was Fr Barry O’Sullivan,  Coordinator of the Salford Diocese Safeguarding Commission, until his recent sacking and his daft dogs.

It is now a month since I wrote to 40 odd priests of the Salford Diocese who I knew were educated or taught at St. Bede’s College in Manchester during the reign of Monsignor Thomas  Duggan, I might not have them all but certainly the majority.  I asked them to speak up on the mental, physical and sexual abuse suffered by some of them and certainly by a lot of their fellow pupils.  I wrote:-

Dear Fr…….,

My name is Paul Malpas and I attended St. Bede’s College 1957-1963.  For 18 months now I have been working to bring to light serious issues of mental, physical and sexual abuse suffered by former pupils of St. Bede’s during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s by former members of the staff of the College, in the hope of bringing some peace and justice to these men.

Some of these former pupils were so severely traumatised it has affected their whole lives and the number of known suicides of former pupils are far and away above the national average.

My main reason for this action is to help these people acheive peace and justice in their troubled lives, to help others who have not yet come forward and to protect those that are not yet born from experiencing the same horror that my generation suffered.

I know that you were associated with the school as pupil or teacher in this period and I wonder whether you can add anything to this story.  You have to see and talk to these survivors to understand their grief and I have been doing this for some considerable time; so perhaps you might reply as soon as possible.

If you find that you cannot speak on the subject, reply anyway and, if you wish, you could reply anonymously.  Somewhere, someone in the Catholic Church in the Salford Diocese must care enough to want justice and goodness available to these men who are all in their 60s and 70s.

Yours sincerely

Paul Malpas

I wasn’t asking much, all they had to do was accept what we all knew to be the truth and offer help both spiritual or physical, anonymously if they wanted to, but offer something of their priestly selves.  I sort of knew the quality of some of the priests I wrote to and really did not expect much, but I thought that a leopard might change its spots one day and it is always worth a stamp.

In fact as it turned out and with the cost of air mail postage stamps between Ireland and England and France, it cost me more than the cost of an airline ticket from Knock to Manchester.  The results were good, some of these priests replied and I found this to be very courageous. Some even agreed with me.  They too recognised the Bede’s of my blog. I will not mention names as their outpourings could well affect their own interests.   The Bishop might well consider knocking down their pensions a notch or two, it has been known,  certainly their own standing amongst their peers, tied tightly with this seeming vow of omerta, might be damaged.

So I have received endorsement and corroboration and offers of help if I can decide where this help is best channelled.   At least some priests stand shoulder to shoulder with me and are prepared to show compassion for their fellow pupils even as the Bishop seems to hide behind lawyers and insurance-speak.

The others, those that did not reply, I hold in contempt.  They could at the very least have shown good manners by replying.  They could have replied and said there was no such thing.  However in the long run, this act of immaturity, this inability to feel for their fellow man, or embrace the truth, will at some stage disconnect themselves from their pastoral responsibilities, they will then be no more than empty cans.

These men were there at the school on a daily basis.  They experienced this abuse, if not by action, by word of mouth.  They can no longer behave like the three monkeys, they have a duty to God.  They are nearing the end of their time on this earth and still cannot admit, 50 years after the event, that abuse, which tainted the very air of the school, took place at St. Bede’s College.  By denial they gain nothing.  This muted behaviour  cannot possibly help them on their way to the heavenly peace they so desire.

When a decent chap becomes a priest (and in this bunch of priests who did not reply there were some decent chaps once, I knew some of them) they start to believe what Bishop Thomas Holland used to say at ordination, “You are no longer a man, but a man of God”.  But that does not mean they should lose their sense of individuality.  The most of them seem to be bound in a god-forsaken union that says that if they spill the beans all is lost.  As that maddest of mad-hatters said in his memoir that the staff of his school (Upholland) “provided us young boys and men with a harmonious pattern of the priesthood.  Easier for them to do that than for today’s priests.  It was a point of honour, in the tradition of the nineteenth and the early decades of this century, to stay within a highly disciplined code of external behaviour.”  These “men of God” have to make themselves a cut above the rest and not expose their flaws and immaturity when it would be far better for everyone especially themselves to show humility

These days every action of the majority of  priests seems driven by the insurer’s  need for obscurity and obfuscation.  But we need better men than these and it is because of them that the Church is in such a delapidated state.  Three cheers for the  men who at least believed in themselves a little bit and have endorsed this difficult task of mine.