Merton and his father moved to the home of Owen's aunt and uncle in Ealing, West London, where he was enrolled in Ripley Court Preparatory School, a boarding school in Surrey. There he connected with the studies and community and joined all the students for Anglican services on Sundays, experiencing a temporary boost for his prayer life. During holidays, Merton stayed at his great-aunt and uncle's home, where occasionally his father visited. Toward the end of 1929, Merton moved to Scotland with his father who was ill and soon taken to North Middlesex Hospital in London, where he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. In 1930, Merton boarded at Oakham School in Rutland, England, from which, together with his grandparents, he visited his hospitalized father Owen, who died on January 16, 1931. Merton had his grandfather's assurance that he could provide for Thomas, and Tom Bennett, Owen's physician and former classmate in New Zealand, became Thomas's legal guardian. Bennett allowed Merton to use his unoccupied house in London during the holidays. In 1931, Merton visited Rome and Florence for a week and also saw his grandparents in New York. Upon his return to Oakham, Merton became joint editor of the school magazine, the "Oakhamian". At that time in his life, Merton was an agnostic. In 1932, on a walking tour in Germany, he developed an infection under a toenail. He ignored it, and it developed into a case of blood poisoning so severe that at one point he thought he was going to die. But "the thought of God, the thought of prayer did not even enter my mind, either that day, or all the rest of the time that I was ill, or that whole year. Or if the thought did come to me, it was only as an occasion for its denial and rejection." His declared "creed" was "I believe in nothing." In September, he passed the entrance exam for Clare College, Cambridge and, then 18, toured Europe: Paris and Marseille, walking to Hyères and Saint Tropez, and by train to Genoa, Florence, and Rome. In February 1933, Merton lived in a small pensione by Palazzo Barberini and San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, from where he came to appreciate the beauty of Rome, and was then drawn to its churches. In the apse of Santi Cosma e Damiano he was transfixed by a great mosaic of Jesus Christ come in judgment in a dark blue sky, now discovering "Byzantine Christian Rome".