The school was Kostka Hall, Brighton, Victoria, which is a preparatory school to Xavier College, Kew. The quotes are taken from ‘Kostka: Xavier by the Sea’ by Helen Penrose and Catherine Waterhouse, published in 1997.

‘Father McCurtin was already seventy-two years old when he began at Kostka. He was gentle and cheerful, with a keen sense of humour. “He didn’t teach the younger boys in class. He was very fatherly and chatty. I remember he used to come and talk to the boys, but mainly the big boys.” Some Kostka boys remember him as particularly strict – he strapped boys at assembly in front of the whole school for serious offences.’