This month an actor I have worked with Michael Coughlin died. His death is mourned by all who knew or acted with him. I was the lighting designer & director of the film recording of the Writer and director Jonathan Kaufman's 'Sherlock Holmes and the Werewolf' in which Michael played Dr. Watson. Here is the interview I recorded with him from the DVD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNfBbHrQDz4&feature=youtu.be
Part 2-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjaQxmqVqgk
Details of St Joseph's Convent at-
https://www.facebook.com/groups/stjosephsconventsidcup/?ref=br_rs
A few stills from the test shoot for the feature film KING LEAR at-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT6hVGMh4YI
Wuthering Heights trailer from April 2017-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaS_-rBoWjg
Sunday, 15 October 2017
Me in an all girl class
(This post is taken from a longer ones on St Joseph's). Current film work:As cinematographer on Wuthering Heights, movie is just about completed. Director,writer & Duke of Cornwall in King Lear: filming to resume. Director,writer and actor in Memoria Draco: filming in 2018. The Facebook group for St Joseph's including film from 1968-1972 at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/stjosephsconventsidcup/
It is the 1970s again & my Catholic school St Joseph's Convent ( which was also a convent) again!
In 1979 we were all in the second year of Mrs Lyons , we were met by our teacher with her fashion styling that Margaret Thatcher appeared to later have purloined from her & our headmistress the fearsome Sister Theresa.
There was nothing aggressive about Sister Theresa, but we knew she carried a cane & she was an imposing presence. We didn't know how much the boys in her class & 50 years earlier the girls she taught loved her as she made sure all them received the best education, and that she remembered just about all of them.
The purpose of our teachers blocking our progress to our classroom, is that we didn't have a classroom. The water tank had burst overnight & drenched our Victorian wooden desks.
So we were to be assigned to other classes. The problem was the class was to be sent to lower years and the teachers would have to teach two classes in the same period. The 24 of us were divided off into the lower age group of back to Mrs Lonsdale, the girls class of Mrs Taylor & the kindergarten class presided over by Sister Antionette & someone else.
The least academic & most unruly boys were sent to the 4 year old class. Their outspokenness was immediately replaced by embarrassment when they were surrounded by kids less than half their age.
So everyone is sorted out
Except me!
For me, Sister Theresa looked through her spectacles & told me to go to my age group, the all girl class of Mrs Cullen. "You're friends with some of the girls & you learn" or similar words my old nun said. The boys and girls were in separate classes from Form II onwards.
She was right I was friends with some of the girls who had come to my birthday parties, and since the age of 5 I had adored a girl of the same age named Nina.
Mrs Cullen was a scary figure. Over 60, her hands resting on a walking stick and afflicted with rheumatism, the only contact boys had with her was her booming voice "What are doing?!" and variations thereafter.
"Sister Theresa told me to come here", I said to the aged teacher shrouded in a heavy brown cardigan at her desk in the bottom left of her classroom by the window. My trepidation towards Mrs Cullen, given every strident outburst I had seen, was replaced by surprise as it transpired that Cullen was a patient, skilled and calm teacher. She had a similar style to our headmistress Sister Theresa.
For at least 6 weeks we remained in our allotted places. None of my classmates in our formerly all boy 9 year old class were pleased sharing a class with pupils aged 4 to 7.
Whereas I was very, very happy and I had one of the finest teachers I have ever known.
In fact it was the best time in any of my education only my time in chemistry labs (will this experiment blow up), my acting course at Goldsmiths or some things on my physics & electronics course and my time in film making /broadcasting at Ravensbourne were similar. Of my naval college, driving motor boats or staring at radar screens was about the most fun there.
Finally we all regathered in our classroom on the first floor of the boys block. Back to Mrs Lyons obsession in finding any excuse to slap young boys, What was more offensive was her middle class affectations & trying to brain wash us into the 'respectability' of working in a bank!
This experience would be of interest to social psychologists or sociologists as being the only boy in a class of 24 girls is very rare, or just about unheard of!
Details of St Joseph's Convent at-
https://www.facebook.com/groups/stjosephsconventsidcup/?ref=br_rs
A few stills from the test shoot for the feature film KING LEAR at-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT6hVGMh4YI
Part of the interview with the actor the late Michael Coughlin from a film recording I directed of the director Jonathan Kaufman's play -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNfBbHrQDz4&t=126s
Wuthering Heights trailer from April 2017-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaS_-rBoWjg
I was the only boy in an all girl class & loved it - this originally appeared on the main blog pages
It is the 1970s again & my Catholic school St Joseph's Convent ( which was also a convent) again!
In 1979 we were all in the second year of Mrs Lyons , we were met by our teacher with her fashion styling that Margaret Thatcher appeared to later have purloined from her & our headmistress the fearsome Sister Theresa.
There was nothing aggressive about Sister Theresa, but we knew she carried a cane & she was an imposing presence. We didn't know how much the boys in her class & 50 years earlier the girls she taught loved her as she made sure all them received the best education, and that she remembered just about all of them.
The purpose of our teachers blocking our progress to our classroom, is that we didn't have a classroom. The water tank had burst overnight & drenched our Victorian wooden desks.
So we were to be assigned to other classes. The problem was the class was to be sent to lower years and the teachers would have to teach two classes in the same period. The 24 of us were divided off into the lower age group of back to Mrs Lonsdale, the girls class of Mrs Taylor & the kindergarten class presided over by Sister Antionette & someone else.
The least academic & most unruly boys were sent to the 4 year old class. Their outspokenness was immediately replaced by embarrassment when they were surrounded by kids less than half their age.
So everyone is sorted out
Except me!
For me, Sister Theresa looked through her spectacles & told me to go to my age group, the all girl class of Mrs Cullen. "You're friends with some of the girls & you learn" or similar words my old nun said. The boys and girls were in separate classes from Form II onwards.
She was right I was friends with some of the girls who had come to my birthday parties, and since the age of 5 I had adored a girl of the same age named Nina.
Mrs Cullen was a scary figure. Over 60, her hands resting on a walking stick and afflicted with rheumatism, the only contact boys had with her was her booming voice "What are doing?!" and variations thereafter.
"Sister Theresa told me to come here", I said to the aged teacher shrouded in a heavy brown cardigan at her desk in the bottom left of her classroom by the window. My trepidation towards Mrs Cullen, given every strident outburst I had seen, was replaced by surprise as it transpired that Cullen was a patient, skilled and calm teacher. She had a similar style to our headmistress Sister Theresa.
For at least 6 weeks we remained in our allotted places. None of my classmates in our formerly all boy 9 year old class were pleased sharing a class with pupils aged 4 to 7.
Whereas I was very, very happy and I had one of the finest teachers I have ever known.
In fact it was the best time in any of my education only my time in chemistry labs (will this experiment blow up), my acting course at Goldsmiths or some things on my physics & electronics course and my time in film making /broadcasting at Ravensbourne were similar. Of my naval college, driving motor boats or staring at radar screens was about the most fun there.
Finally we all regathered in our classroom on the first floor of the boys block. Back to Mrs Lyons obsession in finding any excuse to slap young boys, What was more offensive was her middle class affectations & trying to brain wash us into the 'respectability' of working in a bank!
This experience would be of interest to social psychologists or sociologists as being the only boy in a class of 24 girls is very rare, or just about unheard of!
Details of St Joseph's Convent at-
https://www.facebook.com/groups/stjosephsconventsidcup/?ref=br_rs
A few stills from the test shoot for the feature film KING LEAR at-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT6hVGMh4YI
Part of the interview with the actor the late Michael Coughlin from a film recording I directed of the director Jonathan Kaufman's play -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNfBbHrQDz4&t=126s
Wuthering Heights trailer from April 2017-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaS_-rBoWjg
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