Starting out in High School is a major event for most children. To move from a small rural Primary School and attend one of the largest High Schools in Guyana, when I was twelve years old, filled me with apprehension. Would the city boys and girls make fun of my country accent? Would they be friendly? Would I be able to compete with them? These were some of the questions that bothered me when I accompanied my brother Clement on my first day at Central High School in May 1948.
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Hector - A Central High School Student in 1948 |
Central High School (C.H.S.) was a private school with an enrollment of 1000 students. It first opened its doors in 1940, when Mr. J.C. Luck, a Chinese, started with a few classrooms and teachers. Mr. Luck (J.C.), a carpenter, had helped his children with their studies at home. Their success so impressed his friends and neighbours that they sent their children to him for extra lessons. With some help, he built a few classrooms and the school slowly expanded. To improve his academic credentials, J.C. took correspondence courses from England. A few years later, Mr. Luck, the Principal, and his Vice-Principal, Mr. Adams, earned their B. A. degrees simultaneously. It was a reason to celebrate. I was told that the students were given a week of holidays. This was quite an achievement for two middle aged men at a time when there was no post secondary institution in Guyana. It was also a period when less than five percent of the students from primary school attended High School.
My brothers Clement and Reuben and I paid our school fees quarterly and got a reduction for being from the same family. Once I was called down to the office when I was late with my fees. It was embarrassing. All students wore a school uniform; boys wore khaki pants, a blue shirt and a C.H.S. tie. Girls wore a dark blue tunic, a white blouse and a Panama hat. Girls were addressed as Miss and boys by their last name. Most students rode their bicycles to school; some boys rode long distances and towed brothers and sisters on the cross bar. My brothers and I walked. Other students travelled by steamer (ferry), train or bus. One of my classmates, who travelled by train, left home at 5 a.m. and returned at 6 p.m. Some students were very poor and had very little lunch. They hung around Dean’s Cake Shop and bought a small lemonade and a bun for five cents. We had no cafeteria or lockers at our school.
The Luck family occupied an apartment at the front of the second (top) level of the school on Smyth Street. Ground level was occupied by the lower forms; the first level by Forms 3 and 4 and the second level by Forms 5 and 6. The roof of the building was covered with zinc sheets without insulation below them. There were no fans or air conditioning and I always felt drowsy during the afternoon classes. The grounds of the school were very small and were surrounded by a fence made with zinc sheets. Compared to Canada, physical facilities were very poor at Central High School. There was no playing field on the property. The boys played cricket or soccer after school in a field close to St. Philip’s Church. Girls did not play any sports. There were no library, Science labs, Tech Shop or Family Studies facilities at Central High. Physical Education, Science, Family Studies and Technical Studies were not part of the curriculum.
My school operated with the help of a Prefect System. Prefects wore a special C.H.S. tie. They supervised the halls and classrooms until our teachers arrived. They also manned the school gate and gave detentions for late arrivals and discipline infractions. As far as I remember, they conducted themselves well and we never questioned their authority. I was fortunate to graduate from Central High School without receiving a detention or the strap. I was just lucky. On one occasion, when I was twelve years old, I was sent to Mr. Munroe, a senior teacher, for not completing my homework. I was in tears and Mr. Munroe spared me the strap but gave me a warning. I learned my lesson. In retrospect, I feel that the Prefect System was very successful and was necessary for such a large school with limited space and facilities.
When I was in third form my friends and I were hooked on the series “The Hardy Boys”. We used to rush down to the Public Library in Main Street as soon as school ended at 3 p.m.. I was so engrossed with each story that I was able to have it completed by 9 p.m.. On those occasions my home work suffered. I was told that the girls read “Nancy Drew” stories during that period. In my senior years at Central High I became interested in cricket books and remember reading “Cricket Is My Life” by Len Hutton. He was later knighted by the Queen.
Once I found a crumpled copy of the Scripture Test in the garbage can and did not tell anyone. I prepared all the answers to the questions and received a perfect mark. Afterwards, I felt guilty, especially since the exam was Scripture.
One of my friends in Form 4 was John Holder. He had a very good sense of humour and was always fooling around. He left our school in Form 4 and I lost contact with him. About twenty years later when I was in Canada, I heard that after some years abroad, John had entered politics in Guyana under the name Ramjohn Holder. After his failure in politics he again left Guyana. One evening in 1989, when I was looking at a British-West Indian comedy called “Desmond’s”, I saw a face on the screen that I recognized. I blurted out John Holder. On investigation, I realized that it was in fact the friend that I knew. After nearly forty years, he exhibited some of the same mannerisms which I remember. It would be exciting to meet him and talk about our school days.
For a while I was the Desk Champ in Table Tennis. We played on a long narrow desk and used two books on edge as the net and our Latin text as our racquet. Subsequently we went to Compton Sanmogan’s home in D’Urban Street to play on his table and use racquets. We played cricket next to Clinton Choo-Kang’s home on Hadfield Street, at King’s ground near the Sea Wall, and also at St. Phillip’s ground.
Who can ever forget the Hunt brothers, identical twins, who dressed the same and played tricks on both teachers and students? Also, Ovid Mentore, who was humiliated when he made five consecutive zeros in cricket. And Salisbury, who lost his speech for over a year as a result of a love affair.
One happy period for me was the time Mr. Hope, our History teacher, allowed us to have some fun just before Christmas. Two items which I vividly remember were the beautiful voice of Julian Teixeira who entertained us with a few songs and the skit performed by Trenton Sam and Odel Adams. The latter had us in stitches. They were just fantastic.
In 1953 we had a week’s holidays to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. The streets of Georgetown were decorated in red, white and blue as British Guiana, then a colony, celebrated. For our part, we decorated our cricket stumps with the Royal colours. As many as fifteen of us, with some in the trunk, packed into Clinton Choo-Kang’s car and went to the beach to play cricket. We had a wonderful time.
When I was in Form 4, I did quite well at The Junior Cambridge Examination. At that time all of our exams were set and marked in England. Desmond Wharton, Rudolph Insanally, Atta Sankar and I received from Mr. Hoppie, a prize of two chocolate bars each for getting double distinctions in English Language and English Literature. The following year did not go well for me as I missed a few weeks of school when I had whooping cough and chicken pox. I secured Grade 3 on The Senior Cambridge Examination. It was disappointing. A few of my friends got Grade 2; very few students got Grade 1.
Most students left High School at the end of Form 5. Some joined the Civil Service. Others got jobs as teachers or became clerks in stores or with corporations. Job opportunities were very limited. I remained in school and went into Form 6 where I spent two years studying for The Higher School Certificate Examination. Those were two wonderful years during which long lasting friendships were cemented. We were a good class and worked hard with our studies. I remember getting up at 3 a.m. to study because I found that time quiet and cool. Some of us supplemented our studies by taking correspondence courses from Wolseley Hall in England. The subjects which I took in my exam were English Literature, Latin, English History, European History, and a general paper comprising of English and French. I wore long pants for the first time when I wrote my final exam in December 1953 and received some teasing from Mrs. Griffith, our neighbour.
In early 1954, while we were awaiting our exam results, several of us were invited to the wedding of one of our classmates Bibi Rahaman. She was eighteen and was getting married to a wealthy Trinidadian. She was a very attractive girl. A few months earlier we witnessed a love affair between Bibi and our English teacher. I remember him stopping in the middle of the lesson and making eye contact with her. We were too embarrassed and afraid to react in any way. That was over forty years ago. Today’s young generation would, most certainly, have reacted differently.
I was ecstatic when exam results were published in The Daily Chronicle and I had passed. I rushed around to many of my relatives and gave them the good news. Our class had done very well. Hard work had paid off. I was seventeen at the time. Three of my friends Arthur Chang Yen, Harry Jainarine and Neisha Khadir were only sixteen. We were too young to enter the Civil Service; the age for entry was eighteen.
Our teachers deserve a lot of credit for our success. One teacher whom I admired was our Principal, Mr. J.C.Luck. He was involved in school administration but covered classes in Latin and English when teachers were absent. He spent most of the class period entertaining us with jokes and his many experiences. The work that he covered was done so well and made so simple that I wished that he had been a regular teacher. Old J.C. had many children all of whom went on to be successful. His two sons, Donald and Stanley, did some supply teaching when they were on vacation from the University of The West Indies in Jamaica. They were medical students. We liked and admired Donald because he was a very good teacher and had a very good sense of humour. Another son, Rudy, also taught for a while. He was interested in Economics and Politics and after becoming a lawyer, entered the political arena. For a while he was a Member of Parliament. Mrs. Stella Low, J. C.’ s daughter, and her husband (Tweety) were teachers at Central High. Mrs. Lam, another daughter, and her husband ran the school Book shop.
A tough but good teacher was Mr. Hoppie, who taught English in Forms 4 and 5. He stressed precis writing. He also had a good sense of humour but was sarcastic at times. A few years ago I visited Mr. Hoppie at his home in Guyana and he told me how proud he was to be honoured a few years earlier by former students at a Central High School reunion in Toronto. Some of my other teachers were Mr. Adams, Mr. A. E. Luck (Cowie) - J. C.’ s relative who taught Math, and Miss Jackson (Terror), our Latin teacher who was very strict. I still remember many Latin words and phrases and find them helpful in English and Science. Wilfred Mohabir (Balzac), a cousin of mine, taught English in Form 6. Others were Mr. Caleb, Mr. Smith-Green, Mr. Forte, Mr. Collins, Miss Collins, Mr. Munroe, Miss Ten-Pow, Mr. Hope and Mr. Gordon.
Bobby Moore, a senior student and Head Prefect was an inspiration to me. At the time he did a fair bit of extra-curricular duties and public speaking. I remember attending a few evening lectures given by him. One was on the career of Robert Clive, the British statesman. It was an excellent presentation. A few months later I wrote an English History exam and to my surprise there was a question on the career of Robert Clive. It was a breeze for me. Bobby later became Guyana’s High Commissioner to Canada.
I have often wondered why so many students were successful in Guyana in spite of the poor facilities in our schools. There is no simple answer. However, one major reason is the desire/motivation on the part of the students. We realised that an education was the key to suitable employment. There was the choice between being a labourer/cane cutter and being a civil servant/teacher/clerk. The job market was very limited. Also we showed a lot of respect for our teachers. They had received no teacher training and many did not have a good academic background--most were at Grade 12 or Grade 13 level. They never encouraged open discussion in the classroom. During my years at C.H.S. only three teachers had degrees. However, what they lacked in training was compensated by dedication and perseverance. We did our homework or paid the penalty. There were no excuses or after school jobs to prevent us from doing homework. School was our number one priority.
In 1990 I visited Central High School but what I saw bore no resemblance to the school I knew. It had been taken over by the Government and was in need of repairs and equipment. There is a Central High School Association in Toronto and it is raising funds for a renovation programme. The fact that there is such an Association is testimony of the high esteem that we as former students have for our Alma Mater.
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Hector with friends at OAC in 1960 |
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Hector with "old school friends" Harry Jainarine and Len Singh (from Central High School) |