Circular No 972

Newsletter for alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.

Caracas, 20 of June 2020 No. 972

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Dear Friends,

Interesting emails from Brian Gonsalves, and an article on Ivan Laughlin.

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Brian Gonsalves <brian.gonsalves36@yahoo.com>

Tue, May 26 at 7:25 AM

Dear Ladislao,

Thank you for your email and also for the very interesting historical information about the origins of the St Benedict Abbey School in Trinidad, which is remembered with nostalgia by all those who were privileged to have begun their early education in such an iconic setting, albeit under the strict (and mostly fair) supervision of the Benedictine Monks.

As regards the information you have asked me to help provide, I am attaching a summary of brief details concerning five of the old MSB pupils (ref. Derek Wight, Anthony Gomes, plus Terrence, & Bernard Gonsalves and myself) but I have no recollection of the remaining eight contemporary pupils at MSB in the mid-1940s.. Also, as regards John Willems, I can confirm that I did meet up with Johnny, during my last visit to Georgetown in 2012 but do not have his current e-address. I am copying this email to Clive B-G in Spain, who may be able to help with Johnny's email and he can certainly provide up to date details about Kit Nascimento, whom I haven't seen for many years? Incidentally, I don't think Kit went to MSB in '45/46 with the rest of the "Boys from BG" ....

Please let me know if I can try to help with any additional ancient recollections about the Abbey School. Meanwhile, thank you, Laszlo, for all the comprehensive time, effort, and resources that you devote to keeping the spirit and memories of MSB alive and thriving for the rest of us ...

Stay safe, best wishes and good health to all,

Brian

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From Brian Gonsalves

Herewith a few brief details concerning the (very) Old MSB Boys that were contemporary pupils at the Abbey School in the mid-1940s:

I do not know (or cannot remember?) the following eight individuals –

'43 Elson Fernandes, weigh2go@live.com

'45 Desmond Smith, desclairesmith@yahoo.com

'46 Norman Bennett,

’47 John Camp-Campins,

’47 John Derent, (darwent)??

'47 Ian McLean,

'47? Kowbottom

'47 Allan Walker...

However, I know the following 4 well (as they were family) and I´ve met the 5^th (Tony Gomes) albeit a long time ago ..

'45 Derek Wight

A second cousin of mine, who went on from MSB to complete his education in England at St. Edmonds College, Bury St Edmonds, graduating in 1952. Derek returned to and began his business career at Barclays Bank in Georgetown and later worked for the Bank in Jamaica and in the Cayman Islands., where he met and married his wife, Margaret. Margaret's father was an influential local businessman, with diverse commercial interests (Property, Motor Car Agencies and extensive Retail Trading operations). Derek joined the family firm and was extremely successful, over the years, in expanding all aspects of the Company’s business projects. Both Derek and Margaret died several years ago and are remembered, respected and loved not only by their 5 (or 6?) children (plus numerous grandchildren) but also by many friends who admired them and valued their friendship.

'46 Anthony Gomes

Older than me and born in 'BG' but I did not know him well. I believe Tony completed his schooling in Canada, where he later studied for the Priesthood. Our only meeting (that I recollect) was in Georgetown, in 1959, when we were both on holiday from overseas, visiting our families (we travelled together, with a group of tourists, on a flight to Kaieteur Falls & the Orunduk Falls).

'46 Terrence Gonsalves

A first cousin, who together with my brother, Bernard (below) and I left MSB in 1946 to complete our education (with the Jesuits) in England at Mount St Mary’s College in Derbyshire. Terence left MSM in 1954 and went to Canada to attend McGill University, after which he had a successful career as an Insurance Broker in Toronto. He died in 2018 and is survived by his wife, Barbara (nee Jardin) and their two children.

'46 Bernard & Brian Gonsalves

My elder brother, Bernard, left MSM in 1953 and attended London University Imperial College, where he graduated with a 1^st Honours Engineering Degree in 1957. He had an extremely successful career, ending up as the Senior Engineering Director at John Mowlem Co. Ltd, (two of his major projects included the underground Victoria Line and the redesign and construction of New London Bridge). Sadly, he died too young (56) of cancer in 1991.

I left Mount St Mary's in 1954 and joined British-American Tobacco in 1955; following initial management training in the UK and in Holland -1 began my overseas business career with BAT, working in Nigeria, Jamaica, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and in South Africa, before ending up in the UK.

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Voices in the Land

Wednesday, November 6, 2019   

Filed in: Trini to d Bone

Photographs by Mark Lyndersay.

My name is Ivan Laughlin and, although I am Trini to the bone, I am Caribbean in the marrow.

I’m a war baby, born 15 January 1942.  Muhammad Ali is the 17^th.

When they were sprinkling [greatness] they passed me and touched him first.

As a five-year-old, I used to walk from Long Circular Rd to the Savannah, take the tram to City Gate, pick up two packs of nuts and go back. 

Or take the bus down Long Circular Rd to Cipriani Blvd, where Miss Eccle’s school was, and go back by bus, all by myself, at age five.

My parents split up when I was about seven.

My mum took us to live with my grandmother, Evelyn Anderson, on the Maracas Estate. 

The move from the urban to the rural had a striking impact on me.

At the Abbey School, I was one of maybe 25 day boys amongst the 150 boarders. 

[One day], in form two, the maths teacher was sick and the principal, took the geometry class.

He said, “Laughlin, go on the blackboard and describe theorem one”. 

I couldn’t understand it and couldn’t explain it.

He said, “You don’t understand the language!

I began to see maths in a different way.

Literature and maths have a connection, [which is] the language that goes with them.

How the principal, taught us theorem one was a revelation.

He taught us how to draw maps as rectangles.

Chupara Point is the most northerly point of Trinidad.

You trace it to Galeota, then down to Galera – you frame Trinidad in that way and you suddenly understand where Icacos was, San Fernando and so on. 

He did the same thing with Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana.

All of a sudden, I’m seeing the Demerara and Essequibo Rivers, Suriname, Brazil, Venezuela.

I learned the Cockpit Country in Jamaica and all of the Caribbean that way.

The land became the centre of my understanding.

My love for the land was nurtured by my grandmother, by Miss Eccles and the Abbey School – and by cricket! 

Puss Achong, the left-arm googly bowler – they named it “the Chinaman” after him – Clifford Roach, the West Indies 1930s prolific opening batsman and Lance Murray, father of Derek [all trained us].

To hear these fellas talk about playing cricket in the 30s was like a semester in a university.

My mother and my grandmother shaped me. 

These two strong, remarkable women were feminists before the word was even used.

When people ask my religion, I say I am a wanderer – because I wander the land. 

And, when I wander the land and hear the birds and feel the breeze, I start to wonder. That’s my religion.

Lance Murray, was a land surveyor.

After cricket training one day, he said, “Laughlin, what you planning to do?” I had just finished O Levels. 

I couldn’t do A Levels because my mother and father had split up and, in those days, there was no free secondary education.

He said, “Come and do land surveying with me”. So that’s what I did.

Aged 17, I went to work in the government service as an apprentice land surveyor at $3.50 a day. 

I was actually like a labourer.

[First black full-series West Indies captain] Frank Worrell took charge just when [first Jamaican Prime Minister Alexander] and [first Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister Eric] Williams, between them, killed the West Indies Federation. 

I saw the Federation collapse [under politicians] and I heard Frank Worrell saying the Leeward & Windward Islands had to be in West Indies cricket. 

Until then, the team was picked from just Guyana, Barbados, Trinidad and Jamaica.

At the same time the politicians were breaking up the islands, Worrell was combining them!

In 1966, [after much simi-dimi] I asked [world-famous intellectual] CLR James, who was a Workers & Farmers Party general election candidate, to speak to [me and my student friends].

I was 23 and completely overwhelmed.

Imagine me chairing a meeting at which CLR James spoke!

It was after midnight when we got back to [his digs]. 

We sat in the car and spoke for two hours.

He said, “Ivan, tomorrow morning, I’m going to lie in my bed late and contemplate the veracities of life!”

Those were his final words to me.

Here he was, a philosopher of the highest order, talking to a boy in his early 20s!

I was thinking of going to Canada to extend my studies when [New World Group member and Tapia House Movement leader] Lloyd Best said, “No, no, no, man. 

UWI is the place to learn what you have to do.”

And, so help my God, that’s what I did.

I did a BA in economics and government at UWI and became a member of the New World Group. 

Learning about the Caribbean from these astonishing Caribbean minds was the big thing! It made my life, whatever it became!

I spent a year in Tobago before I even qualified.

I literally walked the length and breadth of Tobago, double-checking the plans. 

I learnt about the land that way.

I met the most remarkable people, simple folk who understood what survival is.

Every time I hear Andre Tanker’s exceptional composition, Morena Osha, its rhythm and poetry, I remember standing on the top of a slope in Kenya in 1987, looking down at Masai womenfolk washing clothes in a river. 

I caught a glimpse of a young woman, bare-breasted, short-haired – a representation of true African beauty.

This sight, I have never forgotten.

[Guyanese writer] Wilson Harris, for me, was [a hero] because he was a land surveyor! 

He saw the mysticism of the land in Guyana. Palace of the Peacock [shows what] a remarkable thinker he was.

In Tobago, I passed Englishman’s Bay and got up on to the ridge overlooking Palatuvier. 

When I looked down from there, I thought I was in the Garden of Eden.

My perspective is, how you shape the land, is how you shape the civilization.

The land tells you what to do.

We don’t need mega-projects; we just have to listen to the voices of the land.

A week after signing a three-week contract to look at land issues in Belize, on Independence Day, 1994, I fell off the side of a cliff. Cracked my skull.

Broke my leg in two places.

They gave me three hours to live.

They had to take off part of the skull and sew a burst vein in the brain. 

Dr Mahadeo told me I wouldn’t be able to work for nine months.

I said, “I’m flat broke, I got to work.”

He said, “Okay, go and work for three hours and rest for two.  No more than that.”

I worked ten hours a day for three weeks and travelled from Belize to Guatemala and Mexico.

Then I went to do the same thing in Turks & Caicos.”

After six weeks, I came back to the doctor.

He said, “But Ivan, you’re in great health! What happened?”

I told him, “Hard work!”

I’ve been a vegetarian for 40 years.

[National Alliance for Reconstruction Prime Minister ANR] Robinson [appointed] me chairman of the National Housing Authority, where I developed the sou-sou land approach. 

My “Sou-Sou Land Story” was selected by the United Nations as one of the ten finest human settlement issues for low-income people.

We won an award. I wrote it myself and gave it to the company.

Women are the hope for the future of mankind. Thank God!

Russia had invaded Afghanistan and a quarter million refugees came through the Khyber Pass and they had to redo the city of Peshawar to accommodate them. 

They selected six people from all over the world to give their views on it – and I was one.

In Karachi, they thought I was a Pathan because of the colour of my skin, my beard, my nose.

The taxi-driver talked to me in Urdu or Arabic, Pashtun, whatever it was, before, in broken English, he asked where I was from. 

I told him the West Indies.

He said, “You know [legendary Barbadian cricketer Sir Garry] Sobers? [Jamaican fast bowler Michael] Holding? [Antiguan master batsman Viv] Richards?” I said I knew them all.

He put his arms around me and hugged me.

Now, THAT is globalization! Not all these politicians talking this-or-that!

When the volcano erupted in Montserrat, the British government had to send a contingent to look at Plymouth, the capital, and 20 per cent of the island being devastated. 

I was recommended. I designed two settlements for the refugees who were living in school classrooms.

In 2004, Hurricane Ivan hit Grenada and US Aid [asked me] to look at how they could deal with family land [issues, so that] people could collect the aid they wanted to provide.

The female immigration officer at the airport looked at my passport “

Your name is Ivan?” I nodded.

She said, “Why you coming back to Grenada? We now trying to deal with you!”

I ended up spending two years in Grenada, doing a human settlement perspective for the whole island.

It led to me doing a guest lecture at Yale University.

I dealt with disaster issues in different circumstances in the world and [relied on] the things I learned from Sou-Sou Lands and Tapia. 

The way I utilized that is the way we could shape the world.

Trinidad has the best possibility of signalling to the world how to cope with that – but the political institutions have failed us from that standpoint.

That is why I get depressed. [Because] I see what is possible.

I NEVER think, “It’s too late!”

No matter what happens in the world, something comes out of whatever it is, which suggests another possibility. 

The [operative] word is, “suggest” – and, if you don’t grasp that...

So I never stop suggesting. I’m a great suggester.

I don’t like the words, “Trini”, “Trinbagonian”, whatever.

I prefer to say I’m a Caribbean person from the islands of Trinidad & Tobago. 

But, if I have to, I’d say a Trini is someone who UNDERSTANDS and loves the land.

To me, Trinidad & Tobago means this land of ours.

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EDITED by Ladislao Kertesz,  kertesz11@yahoo.com,  if you would like to be in the circular’s mailing list or any old boy that you would like to include.

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Photos:

45UN0014GRP, BG Boys

13LK0926FBCDF, Cornel de Freites

20LK0001FBILA, Ivan Laughlin

54LK0001FBPCL, Phillip Clegg