Tom Cole, Deadeye and I

I want to thank Tom Cole my English teacher who praised me in front of my leaving certificate class for my interpretation of Wordsworth’s “Immortality Ode”. In a Catholic boarding school it was considered somewhat heretical to embrace beliefs on reincarnation or indeed on the transmigration of souls as being preposterous and definitely unchristian, I held such beliefs and pronounced them clearly as being the most logical differential factor between ourselves and animals as us having the aware consciousness of imagining a hereafter. These beliefs were reinforced by a near death experience I had as a nine or ten year old and a further experience I had on the eve of my granduncle’s death and certain feelings of premonition that materialized in my assessment of expanding scientific knowledge. My trust in my own gut feeling was a primitive unshakeable instinct that would not be browbeaten.

For some reason this gentle, slightly balding, tentative teacher who generally had a slight hesitation in his voice gave me confidence. He displayed to me that it was safe to pause and think from a number of different angles before one committed to voice a definite answer. My friend Dead Eye Sullivan was regarded as a bit of a dunce by the cross section of the senior lads but I always found him to be profound, intelligent, full of humour and way ahead of the smart ass prefects and so called bright boys .His face that twisted in grimaces as he tried to articulate coherently despite being vocally crippled with a machine gun stutter Deadeye’s sweeping vision could discern patience and intelligence and act quietly delivering his message in elucidating eloquence with poetic rhythm in the Kerry vernacular to those he thought worthy as recipients. Now Tom the teacher spoke quietly and while addressing you looked you calmly into the eyes displaying patience, reassurance and interest in your point of view. Having a real gentleman as a teacher made a great difference to me. I could hear and receive without a shield what was on offer, as I was so used to blocking as a reflex action in defence mode with my previous fascistic teachers who always seemed full of spite and resentment to any form of questioning or the right to hold any form of contrary opinion. The kindness key unlocked a rebel that was me and Tom Cole picked a non-dogmatic or religious path that opened the locked door that guarded my precious lonely soul.

Now Deadeye knew I was a softie deep inside, despite my reputation of being a hard nut, for we had had some months of late night and early morning conversation. While the whole school slept, as the teethgrinders and wet bedders in the firebrigade dormitory whimpered their dysfunction in disturbed slumber we talked real and at depth. Somehow post pain in our abusive rearing’s cemented a bonding a close and truthful friendship and a kinship that formed a mirthful anaesthetic that was communicated between us as we snorted to one another in a Munster collusion . Tom Cole had given a soap box to the soul, wings to fly, and the right to be high internally.