It was a really strange sight when Father Hamilton was addressing a group of them.

They stood in rows silently watching and listening. It reminded me almost of a military formation. I very rarely overheard anything he told them but he always seemed to end any of his speeches with ‘Our time is at hand, my children’ or some similar variation.

I’d never seen such concentration from kids like that before but I rationalised it by comparing my own responses to his sermons, he was a master orator and I supposed it was only natural that people younger than me would pick up on that too.

Perhaps the strangest of...