Eventually I arrived in Malta. Alex returned and preparations were on the way for me to teach at St. Edward’s College which I had walked out of as a student in my early years. I taught mathematics and English but a certain lady on the Board of Directors had decided that I was not fit to teach Religious Education regardless of whether the monks at Ampleforth had honoured me by allowing me to teach religion all the way up to the sixth form. It seemed that, according to the lady in question I had been too carefree when I was a young man. This reputation had stuck and was still around, 30 or so years later.
The boys were extraordinarily kind to me, listened and worked hard in my class. The teachers were mainly polite and helpful, and it is with some sadness that I left the following Christmas to open up a language school.
I must admit, this was very much something I wanted to do and after trying out the idea in two hotels, helped by my friends Albert and Joe, I decided to join Louis who owned one of the biggest group of companies. Peter, another friend of many years, had given up his place in St. Julians and invited me to meet Louis with the intention of a 50/50 partnership in a Language School, situated in Peter’s previous offices.
We met, had an excellent meal at the Hilton Hotel and decided to get on with the setting up of ELANGUEST.
On the morning of my meeting with Louis, I was more than a little confused and troubled as being in partnership with one of the richest men on the Island did not fit in with Ursula and I both being members of the Third Order of Franciscans.
As I was about to leave, having asked Ursula to pray about the whole project, the post arrived, and an envelope was addressed to me. I opened up the letter and in it was a picture of a group of nuns in Blue and White. I was amazed to recognize the face of Katheryn Williams, the Seventh Day Adventist who was one of them. The letter inside was addressed to our dear friend, Fr. Michael Hollings, who was well known internationally, asking him to pass it on to us. Katheryn had no idea of how to contact us but knew that Fr. Michael was our friend, and our names were David & Ursula, who used to live in Kingston Upon Thames. She also told him we had a son called Francis.
My amazement was compounded when out of the envelope dropped a prayer card with the words “Go ye therefore and teach all nations.” Again, the Lord seemed to have spoken in the most dramatic way and off I went to the meeting with a light heart and full of hope.
Refurbishment work got underway in the building in Ross Street and in May 1992, the school had its first intake mainly of Czech students. The first three years were very difficult as no one really knew how to go about marketing the school. I was suddenly thrust into the role of wearing many caps, Managing Director, Head of School, Director of Studies. Thank God for Ursula who did most of the administration work.
I said to Ursula one day, “When the Infant of Prague is brought here, all our problems will be solved.” For three years, money was poured into the company but eventually, my partners felt there was very little hope of us becoming financially solvent. I was then 56, had four young sons, and would have found it impossible to get a new job as I had little or no money.
One day one of my Czech students turned up with a beautiful image of the Infant of Prague which was a near exact duplicate of the original. It is made of porcelain and beautifully dressed in hand-made garments. A young Swedish student came to the school and asked if we would prepare her for the Cambridge Exam certificate. This we did and she managed to get funding from the CSN in Sweden. As a result of this, we were accredited by the CSN, and the Swedish Language agency promised to send a large number of students spring and autumn for long stay courses to prepare for the Cambridge exams.
At the same time, we were contacted by a very prestigious German agency who had been told about us by two students who had come to our school by mistake, thinking it was some other school. Although we sent them off to the correct school, they were soon back in our office, telling us that they liked our school so much they wanted to join our lessons. When they went back to Germany, they raved about our school to their university tutor. He just happened to be a close friend of the agent who had contacted us.
I told our Partners that things were about to change for the better, if they just held on a little longer but they insisted on leaving the Partnership and going their own way.
My friend Cecil, an accountant advised me as to how to get over the problems, but we still needed to find a few more thousands to cover the bank overdraft. One evening, when we were going through this trauma, I received a telephone call from our dear friend Lalage in London asking me if I could use ten thousand pounds. She was praying and the Lord told her that I needed the money. I assured her that I certainly did and explained my predicament, telling her that I could not guarantee returning the money to her. She told me not to worry and to repay it, if and when I could. With that, and some other help, we managed to carry on.
Over the next four months the promises that the two new agents had made were fulfilled and students started pouring in. Our fortunes changed overnight. Within a few months I was able to return Lalage’s gift and over the next year, our student arrivals increased by 500%. We had succeeded and were very conscious of the Lord at work. We thank you Lord for your presence in our Lives and your Fatherly hand in every detail of it.