Becoming Johnny Vegas. Johnny Vegas

in a way my biggest problem with Upholland was that it was all about academia. There was a lad there in the fourth form whose continuation on to the sixth form, and ultimately Ushaw College (the Geordie finishing school for future priests that people went to after Upholland), was called into question because of his intellectual grades.

      Now, let me tell you, this lad had an emotional maturity way beyond most others at that place. There was an innate decency about him, and he always had time for everyone, no matter what year they were in.

      In the second year we were given a room with huge drawers where we were allowed to store treats brought from home. But mice had gnawed through the back of the cupboards years earlier and so regularly ransacked our precious booty as soon as it was placed in there. We tried to raise the issue with Sammy, but he couldn’t have cared less. The fourth form lad taught us how to catch mice with digestive biscuits rather than cheese when they infested our tuck cupboards – ‘You’ve all been watching too much Tom and Jerry, you lads!’ He was the only person in that place who was arsed enough to try and help us remedy the situation (my dad quickly built me a tuck box to fit in the drawer, which resolved the problem temporarily, but that again was made of wood and within a week there was evidence of vandalism where the mice had gone after my pickled onion Space Invaders). He had time for everyone. He was decent and generous with his knowledge of life. He should have been at the very top of their wish list for future community leaders within the Catholic Church, but he wasn’t considered academically bright enough? Idiots! You had faith in him as a person, so if he were to represent God in some future parish, then wasn’t that surely the best starting point?

      Years later, I was amazed to see a fellow Upholland student, Jason, turn up at my sixth-form college. He had something like nine O-levels and told me how he had hated the seminary but had decided to stay on for the education. In fact, he revelled in telling them he was agnostic when they asked him about his thoughts with regard to progressing on to sixth form. A payphone and a private bunk weren’t a big enough bribe to sway him.

      Most of the recruits they were after were too bright not to see through their bullshit, and by judging the rest on what they knew about the melting point of mercury or gender roles in Shakespeare’s problem-plays, they actually diddled themselves out of producing decent priests by ignoring the finest qualities in folk. That poor lad was too genuine to play the game and, as a result, he never made it.

      To this day, some of the best priests that it has ever been my privilege to know have entered into the priesthood later in life. Like mature students, they have lived in the real world and fully appreciate the sacrifice they are making. They entered into priesthood with a practical and wonderful insight into the very people they would be serving on a day-to-day basis. They could connect, just like this lad, with folks’ daily needs as well as their spiritual yearnings.

      The only different thing about this new school year was that I started the first term a few days later than everyone else in ‘Low figs’ (the Upholland name for second year). I was so bloody apathetic at that point that I can’t even remember why, now, but I think I’d maybe been shown off around some religious retreat my dad had undertaken.