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Mark H

Late 1970s for and this must have been my First Communion, raised Catholic like I was and attending a Catholic school like I did. Nice try, church, but you didn't sink your claws deep enough into me for it to stick.

A scan of a colour photo taken in the late 1970s. We're in what might be a school hall. The walls are panelled in warm-toned sheets of wood and the wall directly ahead of us has huge curtains tied back, the outer two in grey, the middle one in blue. A couple of adults and a child are standing in the background, near the curtains, but the focus of this shot is on a young boy and a priest. The boy is around seven or eight years old, wears a white shirt, red tie, and light grey trousers. He has a red button on his shirt breast pocket and is holding a sheet of paper in his hands barely in view at the bottom of the shot. He has unruly dark hair and a lopsided smile that almost conceals looks sinister. The priest wears all black with the small white collar, is mostly bald, and is smiling. Flash from the camera gives him a dark shadow behind. The photo is at a slight tilt adding to the mild sense of menace.
#Photography#TBT#1970s
Mar 06, 2025, 10:45 AM·Public·Web
2boosts·9favorites
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McDyer

@neonbubble
It didn't stick for me either, but much to my parent's chagrin, I am heavily informed by what those liberal nuns taught me-with their money.

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Mathzy

@neonbubble

I recognise the closed stage doors of St Colman's Church Hall. I wonder if I was there too since we'd have likely been in the same 'batch'?

Don't recognise the priest though. He has certain Hammer Horror vibes going on.

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Mark H

@mathzy

"Send in the next batch."

I don't have any memory of going to St Colman's at all. I couldn't actually tell you which church my mum dragged us to, though, but I always assumed it had to be St Paul's given the school location. Checking the map and it looks like we lived about equidistant from both churches so it could have been either.

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Mathzy

@neonbubble

I'm 90% sure they're St Colman's Hall stage screens behind. I think the Communion shite was done at the 'mother church' - St Colman's always trumped St Paul's on that.

That said, I have no memory of my First Communion except that we had to start confessing things beforehand!

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Mathzy

@neonbubble

Ooh no - I'm wrong. St Paul's must have had wooden screens too because the rest of those photos are definitely St Paul's.

(Plus - I see you're wearing your St Paul's school tie there - probably the only one we owned before St John's.)

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Mark H

@mathzy

I thought it probably was, but I couldn't quite marry up the exterior shot of the red brick building with a Google Maps view and my memory of St Paul's ceased a couple of years before yours when we moved and I changed school, so it's all less well-formed in my brain.

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