2013-Nov-30-1031Hrs
Hi Errol
So many questions are being raised re lecturers at MTC that I want to answer some of them. The attached is part of what I contributed to documents which have not yet reached other Alumni. Do with it what you will, and thanks for your continued faithfulness to the blog.
I wonder if we really need to start another Fund. Why not amalgamate with the Roland Maundy Fund which may already have a strong management team. I was somewhat disheartened by the slowness of response to registration for the 2013 reunion and comments which reached me later on. Do we need to re invent the wheel? Please feel free to use my comments... my back is broad enough to take any flak.
Pat
"MEMORIES OF MAUSICA…1963-1965 Pat (Allum) Ryan
I wrote these memories some time ago, before I was asked, and because my own family stories put me in the mood to do so. They are not necessarily in chronological order, as I wrote about events as they came to mind.
On Monday, September 9th 1963, when the first intake of residential students arrived at Mausica Teachers’ College, we found that things were not quite in place for us. This turned out to be the first of a number of learning experiences, as our Warden, Mr Fitz James Williams and Dean, Mrs Daphne Cuffie, were by no means at a loss as to what they could do to occupy our minds and the time we had at our disposal. Lovers of Music, they set to work and introduced us to Bless This House and Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, both harmonised in four parts. They accomplished this task in time for a representative group to perform at the Formal Opening of the College which took place exactly one week later. The group thus established was to form the nucleus of the Mausica Teachers Chorale which later became a force to be reckoned with in ensuing Music Festivals.
Also among the entertainers on that auspicious morning of September 16th was a group known as The Best Bluffers, playing guitars, cuatros and percussion instruments and singing inter alia a “parody based on a parody” which outlined the shortcomings of our first week in the hallowed institution… but more of that anon.
Students at MTC had been hand picked for a variety of skills and reasons, and were all in the age range 18-25. Not a few had emerged winners in that year’s Music Festival, a fact which was well known to our Principal Mr Harry Joseph. At our regular post-breakfast Assembly, he set us each the task of delving deep within ourselves for material which would keep the rest of the group engaged, entertained and edified for at least 3-5 minutes. We were expected to perform, or deliver a talk,
The only choice allowed was what we would do in round 1 and what would follow in round 2. After all was said and done, we had each accomplished both. “Have a go!” he said. “Realise yourself! “
I can’t tell now where the first two weeks ended and lectures and Tutorials began, but we were swept into a routine which was punctuated by meal times and snacks. We had been assigned Hostels and Hostel leaders and apart from the few familiar faces of former school mates, we settled down to getting to know one another and generally testing the water. I don’t think we were told about a dress code, but during the week we tended to dress as if setting out to work, I remember the young men looking so smart in their ties and quite a number of ladies wearing stockings/or tights which I did not think were warranted in our climate. Dress was less formal on weekends when we were encouraged to stay on Campus as often as possible. A line had to be drawn though, when exposed hair rollers began to make their appearance in the cafeteria.
I see the faces of lecturers in my mind’s eye more than I remember their names… not their fault, just a condition of the passage of time. Mr Harrington, the Canadian Librarian who quickly nominated and elected Magnell Robinson as his assistant. Mr Girard/ Gerard another Canadian who introduced us to the New Mathematics, there were also two other Canadian lecturers whom I remember fondly but whose names I do not remember. Mr Wilfred Phillips, whose passion for Mathematics blew me away… all those formulae I had learnt “ by heart” to pass High School exams suddenly made so much sense when he demystified them. I was by no means a whiz at Maths, but I did gain sufficient confidence to present a lesson on the Area of a Circle, (complete with simple but effective visual aids) when I was selected to teach in the presence of Moderators during Teaching Practice Finals. I aced it!!
“Life at Mausica is not all love and kisses”…I can still hear his voice and see his face and we had enjoyable English Literature classes with him, but I just can’t recall his name… his friends call him Bunny. The soft spoken Helen Pyne-Timothy… you just had to love her. Constance “Fanny” Roopchand, Mr Joseph.Mangatal, a sensitive man who wept openly when JFK was assassinated… It was Friday, November 22nd 1963 and some of us were going home for the weekend when the news reached the campus.
The Folk Song choir seemed to happen to us and around us… the repertoire being built up from remembered choruses which often led to new compositions as we created verses to tell a story, and in the case of La Porrinden, a calypso by the late Trevor Davis. Among the students of the 1964 intake there was a young lady who sang Avouillette for her Assembly presentation and that folk song in French patois became an immediate favourite with the choir. We accepted songs from all sources and on one of our outings to Queen’s Hall , we heard a group of school children singing Rice and Peas which soon found its way into our history. Very soon, we had a collection of so many songs with spontaneous harmonies generated during the course of rehearsals that we were able to “build” a Folk Operetta which was presented at Queen’s Hall.
Given the structure of the student intake, MTC had always embraced multiculturalism and it is therefore not at all surprising that our first Folk LP was multilingual and included a song in Hindi with student Dolly Maraj as soloist. This song which was included at my suggestion, actually came from a Hindi film. My mother, sisters and I were fans of the pre Bollywood “Indian” films and regularly went to the Palace Cinema near the Library Corner in San Fernando.
As Pioneers , students of the 1963 intake had been spared “ Initiation”. I think the 1964 intake were handled with a certain degree of sensitivity and I have fond memories of the mock marriage of Monty and Fareeda. It warms my heart that they took it a step further and have remained a closely united couple. The previously very shy Fareeda is now a Performance Artiste in her own right, whom I have had the pleasure of seeing at the Talk Tent.
Who does not remember “ Khaki Pants”, that last resort snack offering from the cafeteria? Mausicans were quick to find apt and humorous names for people and things. The big bus which took us off campus to events soon became the Fat Taxi and I will not go into the nicknames that some people endured. I rack my brains to call to mind how much “ pocket money” we got from the Government at the end of each month, when we filed into Mr Gittens the Bursar’s Office.. Was it really $50.00 (minus $2.00 for the Students’Representative Council ).? Of course we were receiving Board, Lodging and Tuition at no financial cost to us. I do remember the parties organised to celebrate birthdays on a regular basis and other social gatherings , all of which took place in the Assembly Hall. We had a sort of mantra ,,, Set up, fete up, clear up… which ensured that by the following morning everything and everyone was in place for the day’s activities.
Much of what I have shared here relates to our social life at Mausica, but I think they were very important to our bonding process and to the eventual outcomes of our academic life there and beyond those walls. We got together in study groups to review lecture notes and discuss topics, so that the sum total of what we took away was so much more than we could have accomplished by individual study. I am still to understand what went so wrong later on to cause the college to be closed down. I remain eternally grateful to have been a part of that experiment in Residential Co-educational Teacher Training. Having graduated from High School in 1956, I had been teaching since January 1957 in denominational Secondary schools, with little or no hope of Training in sight. I had a “good” job but wanted to be a better teacher. I saw MTC as a great opportunity and grabbed it. The experience helped me to grow as a person, to “realise” myself as Harry Joe had urged us to do. We all passed our final exams in 1965… we were not a randomly selected group so that must have been the fulfilment of expectations. Academic achievement was, however, only a part of what we came away with and Mausica Teachers’ College certainly enabled me to go out and face the world, making worthwhile contributions along the way.
NOTE: Best Bluffers… from Camp Granada to Hello Mudder, Hello Fadder September 16, 1963
I composed the parody on a parody… the original music comes from Dance of the Hours by Amilcare Poncielli
Hello mudder, hello fadder
Here we are stuck at Mausica
Got no blankets, got no pillows
some of us don’t have a bed but guess that follows.
We’ve a kitchen, but there ‘re no cooks
Lovely library but no school books
Classy college, nothing in it
Seems our needs are getting greater by the minute
Take we home, oh mudder, fadder, take we home
We promise not to ask to leave your loving care again
Take we home, oh mudder fadder take we home
We promise not to fret…
and give you cause to send us back to get…
Wait a minute, trucks are coming
pillows, blankets, things are humming
if they keep on so improving’
mudder ,fadder, from Mausica we’re not moving!"
Pat Ryan 65
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