Old Birkfeldians Mike Richards & Mick Toomey

We are taken back down the decades by Mr Mike Richards OB, who arrived at the school for the 1946/47 academic year. He came to St Joseph’s from Brentwood, having been handed over by his mother to a teacher at Liverpool Street station. He was one of a group of youngsters taking the steam train to Ipswich. There, the boys climbed aboard Felix, an antiquated pre-War charabanc, for the final leg of the journey to Belstead.

‘Shown around, my first dormitory was where we unpacked and I met another new boy from Laindon, Mick Toomey, and so we bonded. During that influential time, we shared the duty of getting ‘puffing billy’ going, a mechanical pump that spread the waste water from overfull tanks around the woods!’

Lessons continued at Oakhill and Junior boys walked there every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday for Mass … back to boarding for breakfast then back again for lessons. Later as Seniors it was Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. However, changes were afoot and classes were developed at Birkfield and even a new Chapel was constructed.

Jolly’s field had been created and one of the sanctions imposed for misbehaviour was to pick two buckets of stones from this new sports ground.

Over the years many changes occurred, including the establishment of a shooting club and a farm.

‘All this time among many friends was Mick Toomey, who was a class lower but because our homes were close, my father met up with his and he drove us to the school. There are many an anecdote and memories of past times and on the whole, I was happy there…. Sport was good and I had two years in the 1st XV and the Cricket XI. We both did our National Service before settling down to work.’

Mick Toomey headed up and expanded the Toomey Motor Group after the death of his father, building it into quite a large organisation. His interests outside the motor trade including charitable housing works in the Basildon area. He continued to support St Joseph’s with a regular cricket prize and took a particular interest in the farm.

Mick, who attended early Mass most days and had a strong relationship with Our Lady - having visited the Međugorje pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina several times – sadly died during the Covid pandemic in November 2021, although his death proved to be from cancer.

Mick Richards wrote, ‘His funeral in Basildon in January 2022 was huge with the Bishop and several visiting clergy taking part in a church full of company personnel, friends and family. He had set a standard of hard work and honesty that was the ethos of the company and his life following the school motto: Labore et Tenacitate.’

Driver Required Bag of Tricks to Mobilise Felix

Felix I was bought in 1946 for £300 and her task was to transport the Junior boarders from their meals at Birkfield to their classes at Oak Hill. Built in 1927, the 20-seater Albion Viking was canvas topped and had previously worked the route at Felixstowe front, before being laid up during the Second World War. The bright blue bus was also used for fixtures, Scout camps, school trips and shopping expeditions. A driver who knew her well described the starting technique:

1. Remove plug from flooded cylinder.

2. Retard ignition and half open hand throttle.

3. Close choke by pulling a wire on radiator.

4. Flood carburettor.

5. Swing starting hand

6. When engine fires, RUN!

7. When 10-foot high fountain has subsided, switch off, replace plug and repeat 1 -5.

8. Open choke, advance ignition, close hand throttle and drive off without stalling the engine.

Her successor, Felix II, was purchased in 1951, Another Albion, she was a 32-seater coach and had done service with the RAF since 1937.

The driver reported, ‘The end came when, with the opening of the Stokes Wing at Birkfield, the primary purpose of the bus ended. Felix II’s fuel consumption – three miles per gallon of petrol in town and 10mpg on a clear run – was just too high for luxury usage alone.

Today, things are rather different. Transport at St Joseph’s College is managed by OB John Atkinson and the school has a fleet of 12 liveried minibuses and a pool car, primarily used by Boarding.