One of the most extraordinary memoirs of recent years, the acclaimed writer John Cornwell has finally written his own story, and the story of a choice he had to make between the Church and a life lived outside its confines. John Cornwell decided to become a priest at the age of thirteen, a strange choice perhaps for a boy who'd been sent to a 'convalescent home' for having whacked a nun about the head. Growing up in a chaotic household, sharing two rooms with his brothers and sisters, his hot-headed mother and - ...
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One of the most extraordinary memoirs of recent years, the acclaimed writer John Cornwell has finally written his own story, and the story of a choice he had to make between the Church and a life lived outside its confines. John Cornwell decided to become a priest at the age of thirteen, a strange choice perhaps for a boy who'd been sent to a 'convalescent home' for having whacked a nun about the head. Growing up in a chaotic household, sharing two rooms with his brothers and sisters, his hot-headed mother and - when he was around - absconding father, John spent his time roaming the war-torn streets of London looking for trouble. One day, at his mother's suggestion, he responded to a call from his local parish priest for altar servers. The 'dance of the rituals', the murmur of Latin and the candlelit dawn took hold of his imagination and provided him with a new and unexpected comfort. He left post-war London for Cotton, a seminary in the West Midlands. In this hidden, all-male world, with its rhythms of devotion and prayer, John grew up caught between his religious feelings and the rough and tumble of his life back in London; between seeking the face of God in the wild countryside around him and experiencing his first kiss; between monitoring his soul and watching a girl from a moving train whose face he will never forget. Cornwell tells us of a world now vanished: of the colourful community of priests in charge; of the boys and their intense and sometimes passionate friendships; of the hovering threat of abuse in this cloistered environment. And he tells us of his struggle to come to terms with a shameful secret from his London childhood - a vicious sexual attack which haunts his time at Cotton. A book of tremendous warmth and humour, 'Seminary Boy' is about an adolescent's search for a father and for a home.
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This book is a fascinating account of a boy who came from the slums of London, became a seminary student at a college in the Midlands of England and eventually wins a scholarship to Oxford University. The seminary was in a remote and wild part of England with no distractions except long walks. Life was harsh in the seminary; cold showers, hard beds, poor food and lots of prayer on hard kneelers. The priests are a mixed group with some cold and inflexible while others are kind and try to alleviate the conditions under which the boys lived. All sexuality was repressed but there were always undercurrents of homosexuality in some friendships between the boys. The priests emphasize the reading of various saints of the Church, and John Cornwell tries to emulate their teachings to quiet some natural inclinations of adolescent youth which are regarded as sinful. Juxtaposed in his story of seminary life is the life of his very dysfunctional family in London. He is happy to flee from their poverty and problems with violence to the quiet of the seminary. Despite the hardships, John flourishes and becomes a good scholar. Due to the unforgiving attitude of the Headmaster, John's life does not work out as he had hoped but in the end he is the winner by earning the freedom to continue his studies in the stimulating atmosphere of Oxford University.
