2011-Sep-29-1841Hrs
Dear Rodney,
Like you, I celebrate the life of Dr. Williams who had a vision for the people of Trinidad and Tobago and as a result, so many of have had the opportunity to better our lives.
I wish to share with you the accolades, nostalgia and reveries of our MTC lecturer, Mrs. Linda Edwards-Romain who penned the lines below and shared them with me and so many others, I am sure:
"My dear Gwendoline:
I take this opportunity to send you this essay I wrote to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Eric Williams birth.I sent copies to the other Mausicns on my list, then saw your name and comment on the e-mail blog from Errol.
My friend Selwyn Cudjoe responded to say that he will be reading poetry at Oxford University tomorrow, as part of a commemorative project., honouring Dr. Williams. I asked him to read Stephen Spenders "I Think Continually Of Those Who", the first line is the title.
So many say thar Dr. Williams did nothing for TnT, because they are ignorant. Your generation, my generation, knows.
Linda E Edwards-Romain
Standing Tall, at 5’ 2”
A personal commemorative on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Eric Eustace Williams, Ph.D. Founding father of Trinidad and Tobago, an independent country.
By Linda E. Edwards.
“Whenever a man stands tall in the estimation of others, he must remember that he is standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before.” Most Rev. Desmond Tutu, accepting the degree of Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, UWI, St. Augustine, 1987.
Himself a short man, Rev. Tutu was perhaps, paying tribute to another short man, who made all of this possible- the expansion of the University from Imperial College, through a College of Oxford University offering the Humanities, Sciences and Agriculture, to a full university with faculties of Medicine, Engineering and Law, from which Tutu was now receiving accolades for his work in the fight to free South Africa. It was my unique privilege to be there, just as it had been my privilege twenty-one years earlier, to sit on the podium with Dr. Williams; the American Ambassador, Robert Miner; the Provost of the University, The Bishop of Trinidad and Tobago; and Her Royal Highness, Alice, Countess of Athlone, to whom I was selected as honorary train bearer for the ceremonies laying the cornerstone for the New College of Arts and Sciences at STA. The Countess was Chancellor of the University at the time, and Dr. Williams was Vice-Chancellor.
In the official pictures of the ceremony, I am the tall undergraduate student sitting to the rear of the dignitaries. The sun on my face made me frown. Sunglasses would have been unthinkable for any but Mr. Miner and the Doc. I would have liked to walk closer to the doc, in the procession, just to see how much taller than him I was, but protocol assigned me to the rear, a glorified sort of servant status, and I never got next to him. The 5’ 2” in the title is an estimate from my 5’ 9”perspective.
The legacy of Dr. Williams really begins, not with Full Internal Self Government, in 1956, or Independence in 1962, but in 1964 when a host of new undergraduates surged into St. Augustine, to help create a better educated, more committed Middle Class. Most of our degreed people, he hoped, would learn to appreciate their rainforest as well as the snows of Europe. A degree in those days, as it still is in many parts of the Third World and the Commonwealth, was almost a guaranteed passport to the good life. I was not so much interested in the Good Life, as I already had a good one, such as it was. It was a chance for me to read, and read, and read, and to write. My good life at the time, included a Diploma from The Government Training College, with distinctions in almost everything, three A-levels that I had studied for, unaided by mentor or teacher; a husband, a beautiful boy-child and a job. The last three kept me from constantly holding a book to my nose, though occasionally burning the dinner, because I was reading and cooking. Going up to the University, meant for me, untrammeled reading.
Dr. Williams had said that the future of the country was in the child’s school bag. He meant that and opened up every opportunity to educate our children beyond the rote learning without questioning, that had dominated the education system prior to independence. Today’s children want to know the “Why” of everything, and “because I said so” is not enough, not in the classroom at least. This new breed of student, those of my era, took our irreverent attitudes to UWI and made some drastic changes among the privileged class that previously went there.. When once you turn someone on to thinking for himself/herself, you cannot turn back the clock. He must have known this, but knew also, that thinking for oneself is a must if a people are to be free. If he could see what the under-thirties are doing about thinking today, he would squirm.
I often describe myself as an Eric Williams Scholar. By that I mean, that “bright” as I was supposed to be, so designated by all my teachers, I would not have gone to university without the scholarship programme the government, under Dr. Williams, invested in. I was one of eleven children of a family of small farmers, and educators, but no one in our immediate family had gone to university before. Cousin Bert was a Pharmacist (the Hon. Robert Wallace,) and we had relatives who had been school principals and teachers before me, but none had gone to university. This was true also, I am sure, for all my friends who went to UWI between 1964 and1970.
As a follow up to University, I taught at a teachers’ college, where it was an honour to teach at least two members of TnT’s diplomatic service, the Hon. Dr. Harold Robertson, Consul General at one time in New York, and the Hon Lester Efebo Wilkerson, TnT’s first Ambassador To Cuba. Dr. Robertson re-acquainted himself with me, before I knew where he was. He was at the Consulate in Miami when I asked to send a donation of books for teacher education, through the Diplomatic Channels to the Ministry of Education. He facilitated this by my mailing the books to Miami, and the consulate sending them on. I never got an acknowledgement from the Education people, but I hope the books made a difference, even if they ended up in someone’s private collection.
I have been a teacher all my life, and maybe would have been if Dr. Williams had not come along. Both my aunt and great aunt were teachers before my sisters and I started. But going to UWI opened the mind, doors to other cultures, and the remembrance of what commited teachers could do, to push a student forward.
Whenever I decide to lend a student a book, even though to me, books are very precious, I do it in the name of my poetry teacher at UWI, Dr. Landeg White, a young Welshman, who, once trying to explain something, with the limited resources we had in our library; and getting nowhere, jumped into his car and scooted up St. Augustine Circular Road, to his house, to get another book that explained it better. Whenever I invited students to my home, at Christmas, for tea or just to talk, I do that in remembrance of him also. For Dr. Carl Campbell, I honour the memory of his scooping me up off the floor, when, six months pregnant, I had stepped on a rug in front of his office, in the wet, and it had skidded out from under me. The compassionate caring he showed, taught me that teachers can bridge gaps between themselves and students simply by being kind.
In the Region 1V Education Office of the State of Texas, there is a portrait of me hanging on the fourth floor. It says “Teacher of The Year, NFISD, 1996.” That portrait is there due to Dr. Williams also. I got into trouble with some of his sycophants, because I said one of his books on the curriculum, was too difficult for a student of basic history to read and understand. Capitalism and Slavery needs an extensive vocabulary, and dictionary handy. Every page has at least one word that the average O-level student of 1968 did not understand. But saying this, was like saying the emperor had no clothes. I had to migrate, but my enormous skills and my UWI degree got me a teaching position, even before I got a green card.
So, on this 100th anniversary of his birth, I thank our founding father for opening doors for us, his people, all his people, like no one else ever did for maintaining a steady course of independence from Britain, and distance from the United States of America, which would have gladly gobbled us up; for giving us watchwords like Discipline, Production and Tolerance, which many of us no longer practice; and for all the other ways, including the lectures at the University of Woodford Square, that helped to push our people forward.
Happy Birthday, distinguished elder, son of our soil, visionary and scholar.
I remember. I am grateful.
Linda Edwards
Houston, Texas USA"
Gwendoline Williams
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