When I was about nine or ten, in the end of the nineteen fifties, I was sent up to Clifton Convent in Montenotte, about a mile up the road from our house, to learn how to be an altar boy.
My teacher was Mother Raphael, a large woman, all in white with a huge flowing robe and wimple. The tuition took place in the parlour of the convent, a place of high luxury, enormous potted plants and many religious pictures and statues.
It was kept in an unnatural state of cleanliness with mahogany tables and sideboards shining within an inch of their lives.
There, sitting on parlour chairs which had backs that we weren’t allowed lean back against, my cousin Michael and I were put through our paces of the mass, in Latin.
“Intribo ad altare Deo” weren’t just the first words of Joyce’s Ulysses at that stage but the first words of the liturgy.
Our reply was:
“Ad deum qui laetificat juventutum meum” .
It never struck my mind to wonder what these words meant.
They were the mass and their music and wonderful flowing consonants were a pleasure to learn (that is until you got it wrong and got your ear pulled painfully by Mother Raphael)
Some of the words were wonderful, I remember being intrigued by “Habemus ad Dominum”(which I imagined related to Hansel and Gretel) “ Sed libera nos a malo”(this always brought Zebras to mind) and the ringing tones of the Kyrie Eleison, Christi Eleison, Kyrie Eleison triplets and , always the relief of the final blessing;”Ite Missa Est” to which we were allowed to respond with an unironic;”Deo Gratias”

Eventually, after about six months of Mother Raphael’s tuition, we were allowed on the altar, but only as a very second fiddle.
We weren’t allowed touch the cruets, those little vases of wine and water which the priest did mysterious things with, and particularly, we were not allowed touch the bells.
These were rung at specific moments at the mass, the Sanctus, the Consecration to indicate those moments of particular veneration when the congregation were supposed to go on to their knees and bow their heads in respect and prayer.

On the second morning of my altar training the head boy server called in sick and it was generally realised that I was to be on the altar on my own.
Mother came running in a panic to give me a last minute pep talk on the coming event.
It was tacitly decided that I wasn’t ready for the cruets, I was sure to spill something, but they decided to risk me with the bells so I was moved over to the right hand side of the altar, the side with the bells.
All went well for the sanctus and the consecration but as soon as the priest started to recite the wonderful sonorous tones of the Kyrie Eleison I lost the run of myself and rang the bells out of place.
The congregation was thrown into a frenzy of kneeling, and not kneeling, some confused people remaining in a sort of semi kneel semi stand position, from others there was sibilant whispering as the more aware realised that something was seriously wrong. A bell during the Kyrie! It was a sort of blasphemy.
I was met after the service in the sacristy by a thunder faced Mother Raphael who reckoned her reputation was permanently destroyed and ate the face off me.
It was my last time serving mass, and I recognise my loss of religious devotion and gradual slide towards atheism from that moment.

Post Scriptum

I got curious about Clifton after I had written this piece and googled it.
It still exists as a convelascent home and has a picture of its chapel on a website.
The scene of my fall from grace;