Esprit de corps and 60-60-60

Jan 11, 2009 Features / Columnists, My Column

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The year is only a few days old but already many things have happened in my life. I have made contact with so many of the boys with whom I went to school that I did not even realize just how many are making a contribution in other parts of the world but who are still tied to this country.

In fact, it is as if when they went to school they were in fact being trained for a life outside the country because about ninety per cent of them reside overseas. The few of us here have not done too badly but we must have done something wrong because here we are in our twilight years when we should be paying special attention to our health but we simply do not have the equipment to ensure that we get a thorough check-up to find those things that may be hidden inside us waiting to strike with deadly force.

Peeping Tom made a most remarkable point when he said that people with whom I come into contact with die. I know that he is shivering in his boots because he came into contact with me but he can rest assured that he has to hang around a bit longer because there is so much more we need to do before we become mould or ash or whatever people become when they leave this earth.

The boy who topped the country at the Common Entrance in 1960 died this week. I still remember him as a bespectacled boy who sat a few seats ahead of me when we entered school. It was as if it were yesterday but yesterday can be a very long time ago and so it is in this case.

The custodian of the link between the boys who entered Queen’s College before girls were allowed to sit in those hallowed chairs lives in New York, the son of one of the men who taught in that institution. It is now traditional that if something happens to one of us the word is passed to Mortimer ‘Morty’ London and he reaches alumni wherever they may be ensconced.

So it was that he reached me and so many others to inform us that Colin Oscar Benjamin, who had become a top-of-the-line doctor in Florida, had died. The details of his ailment have not been made clear or perhaps I missed them but suddenly that sad episode opened up a whole new chapter in my life and affected so many others.

There is a saying, “Wheh laugh deh, cry deh.” I am not Allan Fenty and I am not going to try to explain this particular Caribbean proverb. Suffice it to say that in the cross talk intermixed with sympathy at the passing of yet another schoolmate there were a lot of reminiscences.

Many of them are hilarious and best left among ourselves because only we can see the funny side. Suffice it to say that in our golden years, these boys kept chatting about things that happened almost 50 years ago as though they happened yesterday.

It shows that certain things leave an indelible impression on the mind.
My fellow students have done remarkably well for themselves. Some are engineers, some, university lecturers and consultants, some are top flight doctors and more than a few take great pride in making prosecutors shiver. Then there are those who are business executives.

We are linked because there was something about the school that taught us esprit de corps. I remember the time when there was a fight at a football clash between Queen’s College and Saint Stanislaus College for the Dias Cup, the symbol of football supremacy between the two schools.

The entire school was made to go to the match and when the fight broke out it was not surprising that all were expected to represent each other. Those of us on the sidelines picked on Saints students on the sidelines while the footballers did their own thing.

At the next assembly, I still remember a teacher asking whether the boys had given a good account of themselves, and whether anybody had letdown the other. Fighting is a punishable offence but the more serious crime is failing to fight in support of another schoolmate.

Success for one was success for all and so it was that everyone who entered the school knew that some traditions would not be dispensed with. Such conditions reinforced learning and forced the slower ones to do well because in like manner, failure was something that affected everyone.

This should be the case in other schools if the education system is to be lifted to the high levels it had once attained. Instead, I see fragmentation. How can I explain a student of one school going to another school and bringing another to assault one of his schoolmates in the presence of other schoolmates? This was unheard of.

It is not surprising that attempts to form old students associations for the other schools are not as successful as they should be. There was never esprit de corps; learning was disjointed and teachers still are not as committed to the job. There is no pride in the school.

The Education Ministry cannot change this. It must be fashioned from within the school but there must also be the culture. Even President’s College with its residential facility has failed to develop the fierce clannish behaviour that Queen’s College managed to instill in its wards.

Perhaps, every school, with leadership from the top, should begin to develop a fierce pride in the institution and watch the remarkable turnaround in academic performance.
Meanwhile, those of us who had been reminiscing are planning what someone – Charles Cambridge of Raleigh House – dubbed 60-60-60.

What’s that? One of the 60s is about the class of 1960 and that is all I am going to divulge. No prizes for a correct solution.

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