27th May 2001

Right Reverend and Dear Monsignor:
It was always so hard to write to you. You were so awe-inspiring, yet often suprising. Do you remember the time you came to visit us (Me, and Tim and Jon Hulse) early one Saturday morning. The doorbell rang. My mum answered, and you were standing there holding up the milk bottles, dressed in your finest lay suit (looking like a mafioso from the fifties - double breasted, pin-striped, hair oiled back). While you were ushered into the front room by my mum, my dad ushered us into the kitchen, so we could be working on our homework when you asked about us. After a cup of tea you came and chatted to us.
How could you chat to someone like you. So flawed, so big, so formal, so much a visionary: but you always seemed extremely interested in us pupils. I know you knew everyone by name.
The first time I met you (the "interview"), you asked me if I was going to Oxford or Cambridge. Well I tried to get into Oxford - passed the exams, but failed the interview - I was too arrogant, and told them, Why go to Oxford and get a BA, when I could go to King's London, and get an LL.B with better teachers? So they said, "Why don't you...." But the point is, that from day on, you expected excellence from us. Actually, I hated Law and never practiced.
The demise of the school, however, in no way reflects the demise of your spirit, but the realities of life as we all stumble forward.
So, in the spirit of your vision for each of us individually, and in the hope that we might each achieve some measure of that vision for ourselves:

I have the honour to be,
Right Reverend and Dear Monsignor,
Your humble (and a little less awestruck, and a little more honest) pupil.

Anthony Hulse

Anthony Hulse