Patrick O’Meara (1930-2009)
This website is now dedicated to my father Patrick O’Meara who died on 5th May 2009. The Funeral was conducted at Randalls Park Crematorium.
Thank you to all previous visitors of this site for your comments to my Dad. He was always happy to receive correspondence from around the world about his book.
https://www.storyblocks.com/audio/search/funeral?media-type=music
The Lawrence College, Mt Abu, was one of four schools associated with the name Lawrence. It was a military-funded school and my eldest sister, Kathleen, and I were there during 1935. It was, like other Lawrence schools, a co-educational establishment. The senior staff were mainly retired, ex-military personnel.
The Headmaster was Major Tarbottom (retd.), an unfortunate name. I had never heard it before and always wanted to see his backside to find out just where the tar was spread or, was he born with tar on his bum? I would ask myself. Furthermore, I was intrigued because I felt that, if the tar had been applied after he was born, the application must have been very painful. I had seen hot tar being spread on roads and, on one occasion, had seen a labourer get some on his bare feet and yell as though he was about to die. Poor Major Tarbottom, I thought, it must have been so painful.
I was the youngest boarder in school and all the girls used to want to fuss over me. On one occasion, three or four of them, teasing me and telling me that they were going to kiss me, tried to pull me into the girls’ dormitory. I struggled without success and finally, just at the door of the dormitory, I must have decided that attack was the best defence because I leapt forward and bit the girl immediately in front of me on the chest. I bit hard.
She screamed out in pain and let go of me, likewise the others. I didn’t get kissed, — more’s the pity when I think of it and, many times since then, as I grew older and “discovered a thing or two”, I have wondered how nice it might have been to bare the young lady’s breasts and service her properly.
The Lawrence College, Mt Abu, was one of four schools associated with the name Lawrence. It was a military-funded school and my eldest sister, Kathleen, and I were there during 1935. It was, like other Lawrence schools, a co-educational establishment. The senior staff were mainly retired, ex-military personnel.
The Headmaster was Major Tarbottom (retd.), an unfortunate name. I had never heard it before and always wanted to see his backside to find out just where the tar was spread or, was he born with tar on his bum? I would ask myself. Furthermore, I was intrigued because I felt that, if the tar had been applied after he was born, the application must have been very painful. I had seen hot tar being spread on roads and, on one occasion, had seen a labourer get some on his bare feet and yell as though he was about to die. Poor Major Tarbottom, I thought, it must have been so painful.
I was the youngest boarder in school and all the girls used to want to fuss over me. On one occasion, three or four of them, teasing me and telling me that they were going to kiss me, tried to pull me into the girls’ dormitory. I struggled without success and finally, just at the door of the dormitory, I must have decided that attack was the best defence because I leapt forward and bit the girl immediately in front of me on the chest. I bit hard.
She screamed out in pain and let go of me, likewise the others. I didn’t get kissed, — more’s the pity when I think of it and, many times since then, as I grew older and “discovered a thing or two”, I have wondered how nice it might have been to bare the young lady’s breasts and service her properly.
Lawrence College, Mt Abu — Main Building
Lawrence College, Mt Abu — Playing Field
Our junior classroom was on a floor above the gymnasium, a completely separate building from the main school block. I noted that during classes several of the students would put up their hands and say “May I be excused please, Miss?”. Then the teacher would say “Yes”, and the student would leave the classroom for what seemed like an eternity. I wanted my share of this absence from the class-room and asked one of the pupils what it was all about.
“Well, it’s when you want to go to the ‘bogs’ .” I was told.
So the next day I asked to be excused, but when I got outside the classroom I could not be bothered to run across the playing field to the bogs in the intense heat but, instead, I just imagined I was running across. My eyes did all the work but I totally miscalculated the “speed” of my imaginary “run”.
Right, now I am at the top of the stairs. Now I am at the bottom. Now I have run across the playing field and am at the bogs. Now I am doing a pee. I’ve finished and am running back and up the stairs. I have returned. Now I enter the classroom.
Of course the whole deal took less than fifteen seconds. I re-entered the classroom.
“Well, didn’t you want to go, after all?” asked the teacher and all the other kids giggled.
“I went,” I lied.
The teacher, almost certainly thinking I had pissed on the landing, went out and had a look. She came back in, looking puzzled.
“You were very quick.” She commented.
“I think I must have run very quickly.” I said, and then realised I was not breathing heavily enough to convince her that I had just “run” a couple of hundred yards.
After that I lost interest in being excused from the class. It was far too complex a business just to get out of the classroom for a few minutes.
The night before embarkation was spent at the Union Jack Club near Waterloo Station in London. There were several other military families there and all were due to embark on the same boat as us, which was the P&O “Strathnaver”. It was a troop-ship and one of a class of Strath- boats, like the Strathallen, Strathmore and Strathclyde and so on, which had been contracted for use by the government for transportation of troops and their families to the various outposts of the Raj. The “Strathnaver” was an electric ship as opposed to a coal-fired steamer and was, consequently, quite a speedy ship. So much so, in fact, that we were due to sail as a solo ship and not in a convoy as so many of the other vessels did.
“We’re too bloody fast to hang around with other ships.”, the captain had said. “We’ll be in a hurry, we’ll make all speed and make it to Bombay in 11 days.”. He was right, spot on target.
But that meant that we only stopped at Suez. In any case, there was no point in stretching out the trip. The war was on. Many of the shipping lanes were thought to be mined. U-Boats were known to be on the lookout for anything which could be thought of as carrying arms or ammunition to the Forces. In fact, after the voyage the captain told us that we had been chased twice during the voyage. But, as he said, it was probably only because they wanted to see what the rush was all about and what sort of vessel was performing so well.
We travelled in darkness at night and there was little or no entertainment even for the adults. Georgie Mold, the son of another serviceman, and I decided to have a concert on board and asked for the assistance of the Deck Officer.
He said, “Yeah, that’s OK. What play are you going to put on?”
We told him we were going to write the play ourselves and engage the services of a bunch of other kids as actors. It was going to be called “The King” and we wrote in parts for all the little blighters who wanted to take up the thespian way of life. It took about two days to write and twenty minutes to perform which, looking back on it, must have been quite an achievement for a couple of nine year-olds. There was this one fellow with whom we had difficulty. He was supposed to be one of the crowd when the King appeared, and to be surprised at His Majesty’s appearance.
His one line of dialogue, with surprise in his voice, was to have been “Cor, blimey boys. It’s the King!”
But the little sod refused to say the line, commenting that it actually meant, “God blind me.” And, “I don’t want to ask God to make me blind.”
Georgie and I were thoroughly pissed off with him but eventually allowed him to get away with…
“Oh, I say, chaps! Look, it’s His Majesty, the King”, or some such crap.
The play was put on in the afternoon, on “C” Deck, and most of the parent-adults were there, cheering on their little “Oscar celebs.” We thought it was a great success and the captain arranged for everyone who took part to have a dollop of ice-cream afterwards. Which, if you think about it, was no big deal since the food, including as much ice-cream as you could eat at the table at mealtimes, was free. However, it all went down very well, but nobody asked us to put on another show. That was a pity because Georgie and I had immediately got down to writing our next play and we did so want to exclude the fellow who had insisted on changing his lines.
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!
