The ‘Sheriff’ of East Ruimveldt Secondary

Aug 22, 2010 News

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Retired headmaster Samuel B. Moffatt is a ‘Special Person’

“You can’t build on sinking sand. I had a meeting with the Ministry of Education. I said. ‘You sent me there, I can’t work under these conditions with the quality of teachers.’ I gave them a list of the teachers I wanted weeded out. I said that they were no example to the students. From the Deputy
Head right down. She was undermining my authority, in a silent way. She would be in the staff room reading Mills and Boon while the other teachers were working.”

By Michael Jordan

A sudden hush enveloped the building as he stepped into the corridor. His eyes missed nothing; his ears were alert for the slightest sound. He walked with arms slightly aspread, like a sheriff walking through a lawless town. But he had no badge pinned to his shirt; no ‘six-shooters’ were strapped to his thighs.
This imposing and respected figure was none other than Samuel B. Moffatt, and he was the Headmaster of East Ruimveldt Secondary School.

When he first began to walk those corridors back in 1970, boys’ gambled brazenly and undisturbed in washrooms, and young men with criminal intent boldly walked into the premises to snatch valuables from the teachers’ staff room.
But by the time he left 13 years later, ‘Moffy’, as we fondly (but secretly) called him, had transformed East Ruimveldt Secondary into a respected school with students who could compete academically with other top institutions in the country, and on the track with some of the country’s top junior athletes.
He was stern. But he was also compassionate and had a sense of fun.
Samuel B. Moffatt was born on December 18, 1927 on a Sunday afternoon in Enmore, East Coast Demerara to Theodore Moffatt, a Buxtonian, and Elizabeth Moffatt. One of three children, he first attended St. Stephen’s Primary and then went to Agricola Methodist under Samuel Harper, the Headmaster. From there, he attended Alleyne High School, and then moved on to Cardiff High in Charlotte Street.
But he did not remain there for long. Much to his father’s disappointment, he left school abruptly.
“I wanted to work. As a teen you don’t want to be under parental control, you want to handle your own money. My father wanted to dictate who should cut my pants and who should make it.”
“There were two jobs that my father wanted me to do, either to teach or to be a church minister. He had wanted me to stay in school. He said ‘I not tired minding you,’ but I had promised to do private study, so he let me go.”
In March 1949, he heard that there was a teaching vacancy at Chatham High in Regent Road, Bourda, and decided to apply.
“In those days, private secondary schools’ salary was twenty dollars a month. But the school wasn’t doing well so he sent me to Modern Academy, because he didn’t want me to be out of a job.”
That school then merged with two other private schools and became BK Education Trust, which was located in Charlotte Street.
He was now working for $25 a month.
“I was able to buy a new brand Rudge sports model bicycle for seventy-two dollars.”
He then returned to Chatham High for the “big pay raise” of $40 a month.
He had been teaching at private schools all this time. However, private schools had no pension plan, so he applied to the Education Department (now the Education Ministry) for a teaching job. He was sent to act as an ‘unqualified headmaster’ at a Wineperu school, located some 26 miles from Bartica.
He spent seven tough months there.
It was a ‘Regulation 95′, school, and he was the only teacher for about 20 students.
“You had to teach from nursery division right up to Standard Six. It was challenging. As a young man, I went there not knowing anybody. My salary was fifty-five dollars a month, with no out-of-town allowance or travelling allowance. I had to travel the 26 miles by boat to and from Wineperu to Bartica to get my salary. I had to pass Monkey Jump with all those rocks and rough water.”
“That wasn’t good enough for me. I didn’t like the interior life, the young men would either gamble, or drink rum on the landing. There was nothing edifying. But I kept myself away from that.
When I looked at the area I found I would have been wasting time. There was no library, no tuition, and I was afraid that I would have gotten into the circle of young men. I didn’t want that, since I was brought up under strict home conditions.”
He headed for Georgetown and sought a transfer to St Aidan’s Anglican at Wismar.
“That was the turning point for me I became an Unqualified Assistant Teacher, earning sixty-one dollars a month.”
After two years, he transferred to St. Theresa Anglican at Peter’s Hall on the East Bank Demerara.
By 1958 he was married to his present wife, Gloria. Around that time, he decided to qualify himself further by entering the Teachers’ Training College.
But there was a catch. He was married but he had had no salary.
“The government took away my eighty dollars (salary) and gave me a five dollar-a-month stipend. I had to take the wife back home to her parents, because I had no source of income while living in college.”
But eventually, in 1960, he graduated (Class One, Grade One). He was now a trained teacher, earning $125 a month.
“My father was happy,” he recalled. He himself used to call me ‘teach’.
“Nowadays, people don’t have regards for young teachers. In those days, even before I became a trained teacher, the residents, from Agricola to Peter’s Hall would call me ‘Teacher Samuel’. They would invite me to any function and I would have to give a speech. When I graduated I had more respect.
The headmistress and the members of staff… so much respected me that the head of the school wanted me to go from class to class to teach my colleagues teaching methods. (I was about 31 at the time). I was embarrassed, because some of these same teachers knew me as a little boy pitching marbles.”
But he yearned to teach in a secondary school, so he was transferred to the then recently-opened Anna Regina Secondary in 1961.
When the University of Guyana was established, he attempted to enroll, but the officials at Anna Regina Secondary did not want to lose a good teacher, and refused to let him go.
“I reapplied in 1964 and said that I would resign (if not allowed to attend UG) since I wanted to further my education.”
He was transferred to Georgetown in 1964, where he spent a year teaching Latin, English, Literature and Comparative Religion. He also entered UG to study part-time.
“Those were difficult days. Class would start sometime at four or five in the afternoon. I had to be there for four, until nine in the night, and sometimes there were tutorials from nine to ten. Then you had assignments, and you had to go home and study. Sometimes I would not go to bed till three in the morning.
At one point he taught at Queen’s College, but moved on as his status was elevated.
“From QC, I became Senior Master at Covent Garden Secondary, then to Deputy Headmaster at Cummings Lodge Secondary.”
By then he had completed his BA in English, after graduating in 1969. He then received a post-graduate diploma in Education in 1971.
But it was in 1970 that his most challenging time as a teacher began.
“The then Minister of Education, the late Shirley Field-Ridley, had wanted me to remain at Cummings Lodge Secondary (as Deputy Head) because the HM was not a graduate.
But I realised that this would have caused a conflict with the HM and me.
“So she (Mrs. Field-Ridley) said: ‘Do you know any school you would like to go to?’ I said that I heard of a East Ruimveldt Secondary and I would like to go there and work with the people in the area.”
At the time, he had no idea where East Ruimveldt was or about the school’s unsavoury reputation.
“She was surprised. She was happy because that was a ‘hot potato’ she had gotten off her hands. There and then she called up the Assistant Chief Education Officer.”
It was a rude awakening for Mr. Samuel B. Moffatt.
“There were negatives, both external and internal. The police told me that most of the inmates from jail came from East Ruimveldt. Certain areas were called ‘Warlock ‘, a certain area was ‘Blood Alley’, then some students came from Albouystown, others from Charlestown (Hell’s Kitchen).
“The boys (from the area) would come and gamble when school was going on. They would play bat and ball… and the expletives and the noise. They would come and vandalise the school. They would enter the building during lunch time and throw down benches.
When the parents gave First Form children their twenty-five cents, they (the boys) would box them up and take it away. When the teachers left their bags, especially during lunch time, they would run in the staff building and snatch their bags and run out. I said to myself: ‘what have I gotten myself into, after having passed through schools like QC, where discipline was so high’,”
“To solve these problems, I sought the help of the police department. I asked them to patrol the areas now and then and drive around the schools, and to stick around at midday.
“The police department was very helpful. I got rid of the gambling, and the stealing and vandalism. But I had internal problems. The students had no love for education…no desire for education. The schoolboys used to gamble in the toilet and on the school steps. They would come to school when they liked and how they liked. School would call at eight-thirty and there would be no teachers. As a matter of fact, the first shock I got was when school called at 8:30 hrs, and I, the new HM, arrived at 8:00 hrs, and there was nobody around.”
“Students would get up and walk out, nobody stopped them. 1969 to 1970 was a challenging year for me.
I had to lay down the rules. Could you imagine big boys, 17, 18, not writing exams?”
“You can’t build on sinking sand. I had a meeting with the Ministry of Education. I said. ‘You sent me there; I can’t work under these conditions with the quality of teachers. I gave them a list of the teachers I wanted weeded out. I said that they were no example to the students.
From the Deputy Head right down. She was undermining my authority, in a silent way. She would be in staff room reading Mills and Boon while the other teachers were working.
The school had a science lab and the school was not teaching science, a technical drawing room with no technical drawing classes, needlecraft room and no needle craft.”
Mr. Moffatt began holding lessons for his fifth form students free of charge, including on Saturdays.
“At first the girls would come dressed as if they came to picnic. Some would come inside and some would not. What I did was to get an old register, and I said: ‘regard Saturday morning as a normal day of school. Come fully dressed in uniform. I am marking you present or absent. They had to bring excuses from parents as to why they were not there.”
It paid off within a year.
“They got good results in English and Literature that year. Then came 1971…it was a great leap from 1970, when they sent me a new set of staff. We worked wonders in that space of time. No teacher took any money for extra lessons. We got students who got six and seven ‘O’ Levels. A high percentage of the teachers (eventually) came from that very school. We produced students who went on to Queen’s College Sixth Form.”
During the years of Mr. Moffatt’s tenure, East Ruimveldt Secondary produced several professionals, including doctors, pilots, engineers and teachers. Athletics was also a big part of the school curriculum, and East Ruimveldt also produced several of the leading junior athletes of the time.
Samuel Moffatt finally called it a day at East Ruimveldt in December 1982.
“I gave my heart to that school,” he said wistfully.
“Tears came to my eyes when I was going to give my final address. The head prefect, a girl, held my hand and took me to the stage said ‘brave up’. I couldn’t let them see me crying.”
A job well done!

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