Author and Educator Carmen Barclay Subryan is a ‘Special Person’

Feb 19, 2017 News

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“I was quite alarmed when I came here and I never saw anybody reading a book. It was quite appalling; all I was seeing was people on their phones and other gadgets. So I thought to myself, I would like to help change this; find a way to help young people gravitate to books.”

By Enid Joaquin
 
Dr Carmen Barclay Subryan…It seems as though I have known that name forever, and it has

always been one that conjures up images of a woman of great prestige and sophistication.
After all, she had taught at the prestigious Howard University in the United States for no less than forty-one years – yes, you got that right – forty-one years! And she had even written books based on her early years in Linden, where she was born, and where she received her early education.
I’ll confess, the prospect of interviewing this lady, while exciting, was somewhat daunting. But I had made up my mind, because she is one of our own and for all her achievements, we are justifiably proud to acknowledge her as a Special Person.
Carmen has retired from Howard and is presently here in Linden catching up with family and friends but most importantly, collecting material for another book that she is currently working on.
She has also started a drive to reawaken the love of reading in youths.
Towards that end, she plans to present at least four hundred copies of her book “Black-Water People”, to the fourth form students of secondary schools throughout Linden.
The Linden School of Excellence was presented with some of the books two weeks ago. Next in line would be her alma mater, Mackenzie High School.

EARLY YEARS IN LINDEN
Reflecting on her early days at Spieghtland, Carmen spoke quite candidly of her childhood escapades. Oh, how she cherished those days diving in the nearby Demerara River and swimming to her heart’s content…then “ducking” under the balahoo and hiding when she heard her mother calling.
“Those were the best days, as I was not only a great swimmer, but could climb trees as

well – coconut trees. I was the tomboy in the family. I was not allowed to wear trousers (pants) but I used to pin up the dresses between my legs, when I was going climbing.”
Carmen’s athletic abilities saw her participating and excelling in swimming, athletics and netball at Mackenzie High. She proudly recalled, “I did not just excel in academics but in sports as well, and during that time, Mackenzie High was the reigning national netball champions. I even have photographs still, of us receiving the trophy from B. L. Crombie as national champions.
Carmen was born to Sybil Barclay nee Allicock and Lawrence Barclay, in 1944. The Barclays had ten children, and lived at Spieghtland, formerly known as Plantation Retrieve.
The family later moved to Silver Town and then Rainbow City, after the Bauxite Company bought the property at Spieghtland for the establishment of the Alumina plant.
Our Special Person was married in 1972 and later divorced in the early eighties. She is the mother of two daughters and two grandsons.

PASSIONATE ABOUT EDUCATING YOUNG PEOPLE
Having taught at one of the highest institutions of learning, Carmen is passionate about educating young people wherever she goes, but especially here in her hometown.
“I was quite alarmed when I came here and I never saw anybody reading a book. It was quite appalling; all I was seeing was people on their phones and other gadgets. So I thought to myself, I would like to help change this; find a way to help young people gravitate to books.”
That apart, Carmen is also pursuing an initiative in collaboration with the Linden Fund USA to establish a Resource Centre for teachers in Linden.

BOOKS
Her books “Black-Water People”, “Black-Water Women” and “Black-Water Children”, trace her family’s history and that of Plantation Retrieve where they lived.

In those days the area where the once imposing Alumina plant now sits, was owned by her foreparents, the Allicocks. The property was bought by the Demerara Bauxite Company (Demba) sometime in the late fifties to facilitate the building of the presently defunct plant.
Of course I had read the book “Black-Water People”, before I met the author, and I was always intrigued by this woman who migrated to a first world country to further her education, and then sat down to write of her faraway “underdeveloped” community- a bauxite mining town.
I could not have been more wrong in my conjectures. Those books were not penned by Dr Subryan while she was at Howard studying for her masters or even after she graduated – they were written while she was right here in Linden- a mere teen just out of high school.
That though, didn’t come as too much of a surprise to me, because back in those days, Mackenzie High School was churning out quite a few scholars. Carmen, of course, had gone there on a scholarship – a trend she continued throughout her academic journey.
Carmen graduated from High School when she was just fifteen years old. One year later she started teaching at Christianburg Primary, and did that for a couple of years, before she attended the Teachers’ Training College in Georgetown for two years.
She subsequently returned to Linden and taught for another two years before leaving for the United States in 1968.
Carmen said that she applied to Howard University, because she already had two relatives there, Charles and Joan Bremner. There were also a few other Lindeners there.

“Luckily I had worked a couple years and saved my money for one year’s fee, and that was a good thing, because you just couldn’t go to the university-you had to show that you had a year’s fee. However I told myself I was not going to pay another penny in fees – I planned to study and work hard and get scholarships. And that is what I did…I had researched the scholarship requirements and had discovered that if you were in the one percent at the top of the University- you were on the Dean’s list, and you could get free tuition.
So that is basically what I did, and I got my first free year and then I got a second and a third.
It was a four-year programme, but I did it in three, so I got my Bachelors (magna cum laude) Phi Beta Kappa- which is the oldest academic honor Society in America, and once I got that, I decided to go ahead and do my masters.”
Carmen subsequently got a Graduate “assistanceship” based on her grades, and so she did her masters, while simultaneously serving as a teacher’s assistant.
She received her Bachelor’s degree in 1971, her masters in 1973 and started teaching at the said university in 1974. She subsequently decided to study for her PhD while she was teaching, because if she studied for that simultaneously, she could receive free tuition.
“So I got my masters, my Bachelors and my PhD in 1983, majoring in English Literature and minoring in journalism, through hard work and Scholarships.”
All the while she continued to teach at the university.
At Howard, Carmen was attached to the Centre for Academic Reinforcement- now known as the Centre of Excellence. She had been instrumental in establishing the Centre where she taught, until retiring in 2005.
The Centre, Carmen said, was responsible for bringing students up to par in English Language, before they undertook their chosen course of study.
“The work that I did was “undergraduate writing”, especially for students who were coming into Howard deficient in writing skills. Howard needed good teachers to bring them up to par…so that they could get going, especially the athletes. So usually in the summer, they would pay me extra to work with the football teams, because football is big in the South and the university would recruit some of these kids, but a lot of them when they come, they really would not be up to Howard’s standards. So we had the Centre where we would work with them and then they would go on into the regular streams, because it would make no sense having them there, if they were not up to par.”
“The centre was established in 1974 and I was one of the first Teachers there. I was actually instrumental in starting the English part of it. The last couple of years, just before I retired, I was just working with students from Saudi Arabia and different places, so it was quite a challenge, but I liked the one on one situation where I worked with them…some of them were grown people, and it was not that they were dumb – they were just challenged in the Language department.”
With all of her years of experience teaching the English language at the University level, is it any wonder that Dr Subryan would want to see young people in Guyana on the whole, develop a passion for reading?
She had been quick to point out during our recent interview, “If you don’t like to read, how are you going to succeed? How are you going to develop your writing and comprehension skills? How are you going to be able to even communicate effectively?”
And she is of course committed to doing her part in ensuring that young people once more develop the passion for reading.
Apart from the “Black-Water” series, Carmen recently authored a book of short stories entitled “Realities”. All of her books are available at the Linden Museum and Austin’s Book Store in Georgetown.
She is presently on an extended vacation in her hometown Linden, where she is enjoying the company of two of her siblings, Irene Adams and Rickford Barclay.

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