PRESS RELEASE
150 Dorset school children celebrate the torture and death of a saint with the help of three priests and Frank Sinatra!
On Monday the 23rd of June pupils at St Thomas Garnet School in Bournemouth will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the gruesome death of their patron saint with a special open air mass and a concert by Anthony Adams – the country’s best known Frank Sinatra impersonator who was runner up in the TV talent show ‘The One and Only’.
Thomas Garnet was the nephew of Father Henry Garnet S.J. , Superior of the Jesuits in England for twenty years before being arrested and executed in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot. Thomas became a Jesuit in 1604, shortly before the arrest of his uncle. Thomas was arrested about the same time, imprisoned for eighteen months in the Tower of London and then exiled. He had never had anything to do with the Gunpowder Plot. On his return to England he was arrested for priesthood and lodged in the Tower of London once again. Even though Thomas Garnet was sentenced to be Hanged, Drawn and Quartered, he refused to allow himself to be rescued from jail and is reported to have gone to his death a ‘happy man’ because he is quoted as saying that “On this day I am the happiest man alive”. His bravery in refusing to renounce his faith so impressed the crowd that they pulled on his legs to kill him during the hanging process and so not be alive for the subsequent butchery.
St Thomas Garnet’s School, Parkwood Road, Boscombe, Bournemouth BH5 2BH.
23rd June 2008.
0900-1000: Open Air Mass in the school grounds conducted by three priests.
1315-1415: Concert featuring Anthony Adams. Anthony, who has two children at the school, will honour St Thomas Garnet by singing the Frank Sinatra classic ‘My Way’.
Julie-Anne Cutler, Head teacher of St Thomas Garnet’s School.
Father Denis Blackledge from Corpus Christi Catholic Church.
Children from St Thomas Garnet’s school.
Contact
Julie-Anne Cutler 01202 420172 enquiries@thomasgarnets.com
Notes for the editor:
St Thomas Garnet’s is a non-selective independent Catholic school for boys and girls with pre-school kindergarten provision. There are 124 full time and 36 part time pupils on roll, aged between 3 months and 11 years. Around a fifth of these pupils have English as an additional language. Within the kindergarten, 46 pupils are funded under the nursery scheme. Around half the school’s pupils are Catholic; the remainder are from other Christian denominations or other faiths. The school is maintained by a charitable trust.