2008 Reminiscences By Dr Radcliff D Lisk
DELIVERED TO SLGS-OBA AT ANNUAL THANKSGIVING SERVICE ON SUNDAY 30TH MARCH 2008. By Dr.Radcliffe D Lisk
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and Fellow Regentonians: Are you down hearted?
It is a pleasure and honour to deliver this Reminiscence talk today even though the notice was a bit short, but like a true Regentonian we are always ready to rally around for the cause.
In order to call yourself a Regentonian, you have to have gone through an Experience call it an Apprenticeship, which on the average last for 5 years. It is a combination of pain, provocation, humiliation, but above all camaraderie, bonding and a unique sense of belonging. I am not a Freemason but I do not believe that there are many fraternities that supersede the togetherness of Regentonians. I will divide the talk into three parts, the school, the teachers and the boys.
THE SCHOOL
Location
I entered the Grammar School in 1960 and left in 1967. I did not fail but rather went through to 6th form. The school was then at Fourah Bay Road, the site of the present Bishop Johnson School. It was a barracks like set up, with single storey blocks of one or two classrooms arranged in a circle with a large playing field in the centre. Unfortunately after over 40 years at Murray town we have not been able to provide proper playing facilities for the pupils. There were many large trees, and right in front of the school ran the railway track going to Dove Cut. Every boy eventually became an expert at jumping on and off passing trains, which perhaps is a reflection of the speed of the train rather than our own athletic prowess.
Pivotal events: independence, 1st girl pupil, move to Murray Town
During my time in the Grammar school, many pivotal events occurred both in the school and in the country. I was in my first form when the country achieved Independence and just finishing my sixth form when we had our first Coup d’Etat. The best and worst of Democracy. In the school, the first girl pupil, Daisy Decker, started when I was in form 2 and was fortunate enough to be in school when we moved to our brand new building, exquisitely furnished and equipped, at Murray Town. It ended decades of humiliation particularly from Prince of Wales boys that our school song said ‘on the western side of Freetown’ and we were at Fourah Bay road. Having also attended the Regent Square Municipal School at the Old Grammar School at Wellington Street, it meant that I had attended school in three of the four main sites of the Grammar school. The other was Batten burg hall near to Victoria Park.
Penny Day, E. James
Never mind the excitement to enter the Grammar school, you are not really accepted as an equal until after Penny Day on 25th March. So between September and March you live in constant fear and apprehension knowing that you are going to be whipped and battered on Penny Day. At the Fourah Bay road site there were many trees that grew long strands that the boys would harvest and plait into formidable whips in preparation for Penny Day. Come the day the distribution of pennies start with the Sixth form and end with the freshmen in the first form. By then all the wolves would be lurking around almost forming a circle preventing any escape. I however had one trump card. I had an elder sister attending the Annie Walsh Memorial School. I knew that some the senior boys were interested in her and I had promised one of them Eric James of James International, to facilitate contact but ONLY if I can be assured safe passage to the school gate after receiving my penny. He therefore acted as a human shield and when we reached the gate told me that was far as the arrangement went and it was now up to me. I ran all the way to the Clock Tower before stopping and looking over my shoulders!
Frank Wood
The Principal on entry was Frank Wood, an Englishman in the old colonial mould with short khaki trousers and woollen hose up to his knees. He was the most athletic principal at the time as he could and would chase the boys the whole length of the corridors and often catch them. His motto was: ‘one boy, one desk, one book, silence!’ He would be utterly surprised today that in some schools in Sierra Leone, there may be more than one boy to a desk and very often no books at all. By the time I was leaving the principal was Rev. Otolorin Palmer.
Otolorin Palmer.
1.Regulation trousers
His main legacy was what he called ‘Regulation Trousers’, and skirt for the girls. At that time there were certain pupils and two that come to mind are Adebayoh Richards and Egerton Cole. What they put on as trousers were so short that they were no more than khaki swimming trunks! So Oto declared that trousers should be free fitting and when the boy kneels the end of the trousers should be no more than 6 inches from the floor. When the girl kneels her skirt should touch the floor. Oto will go around with his tape measure doing random checks on the pupils. One way some of the boys dealt with this was to have their ‘regulation’ trousers that they would wear over their short trousers when they get close to the school premises only to remove them again on going home. But what I remember most was one morning we were all assembled in the hall for morning prayers. It was deadly quiet and at the last moment everyone was in stitches with laughter and the whole place was a pandemonium. All attention was focussed on a pupil, Salami Coker, of blessed memory, who was approaching the hall in a massively oversized military khaki short trouser barely above his ankles struggling to hold on to his waistline by a rope-like belt. His face was deadly serious not to mention that of Oto. But he was complying with the regulation trousers!
THE TEACHERS
At this point I will concentrate on the teachers at the time. In any educational experience there are always teachers and lecturers that leave an impression. This may be for their academic brilliance, their kind-heartedness, or in some instance their notoriety. I am not going to say in which category some of my teachers fall. It is up to you to make up your minds. I was fortunate to attend school during the time of two legends, Pa Reffel commonly known as Uncle Boston, (I still don’t know why he was called that, maybe the older boys may know) and the Rev. Anderson also known as Tapioca. By the way all the teachers had a nickname.
Pa Reffel
1. Percy Davies:
Pa Reffel was a brilliant mathematics teacher but seriously grammatically challenged. He was also Secondus House master and in charge of his house sports. At the time secondus was not doing very well in sports and Pa Reffel was keen to turn their fortunes around. They had a good high jumper in Percy Davies. But because of a previous altercation with Pa Reffel Percy refused to participate. So Pa Reffel went to Mama Macfoy who was our school Bursar to vent his frustration. He said ‘mama Macfoy this boy Percy can jump 6 feet, Father style. He can also do Western Rolls, and scissors but he would not jump for secondus. I begged him once he wouldn’t, I begged him twice, he couldn’t, I even took out a sixpence from my pocket and said ‘boy you can buy grannat on your way home’ and begged him again but he cantnt!!! Mama Macfoy, this boy will kill me. On another occasion after accompanying the school football team to play the Bo Government School, on his return he was asked what the score was. He said, ‘we didn’t win, they didn’t win, we didn’t lose, they didn’t lose. The boys persisted, so how was the game sir? ‘We drew draw drawn!!’
2. Showman in classroom
Within the classroom, Pa Reffel was a bit of a showman. He would invite us to give him a problem from our maths book which he would solve on the blackboard and then swing round and asked ‘answer!’ We will look up the answer at the back of the book and as expected he would be right. There were occasions though when we would give him the wrong log readings and inevitably the answer would be wrong. It however did not take him long to find this out and he would be quite annoyed. On one occasion after he had done a trigonometry problem, which, as you know involved drawing, triangles and other shapes and measuring angles and all that, the answer was wrong. He checked everything, the logs and couldn’t find a reason. Then a smile appeared on his face as he pointed to a faulty line on the board. He said ‘no wonder the answer is wrong, look at that line, it is not straight, the ruler must have shoobed!!’ By the time we left school we had given him another name ‘Mr Rifle’ instead of Reffel because as we say in Krio ‘e de shoot’.
Rev. Anderson
1. Son of James Lisk.
In the first form there was no teacher that we were in complete awe of than the Rev. Anderson. Pa Anderson or Tapioca was not only strict but actually enjoyed caning us. When he is in the classroom our heart rates at least doubled. We were so scared of this man that even when we know the answers to his questions we could hardly bring ourselves to say it correctly. My first encounter with him was in his first lesson. He asked every boy to stand and say his name. When it got to my turn I said Radcliffe Lisk. So he asked who my father was to which I replied James Lisk. He asked ‘you are the son of James Lisk? Well I licked your father and I am going to lick you too, Mount him’. I had 6 strokes for no reason at all. When I went home and related the story to my father he said ‘borbor bear, nar so e tan’.
2. Take off thy shoes…..
There was a boy in our class called Roy Macauley. I believe he is a session musician in London and plays the guitar. He was reading the passage on Moses in the burning bush; since I am on the pulpit I can confidently quote the text as Exodus 3. When he came to the verse that read ‘take off thy feet from off thy shoes for the place whereth thou stand is holy ground’, Roy Macaulay said’ Take off thy foot from off thy feet’. Needless to say he was severely beaten. If only the modern Bible was available then it would have saved his skin because it now simply reads ‘take off your sandals’.
3. Word of God
In the second form I recalled an incidence when a boy Macormack was reading the bible and mispronounced a word. Rev Anderson who was parading up and down the isles whipped his legs and the bible fell from his hand. That is the worst thing that could happen to anyone. Rev Anderson said, ‘you mean you throw the book of God on the floor?’ Not only was he severely beaten but every time he comes to the class and remembers the incident he would say ‘ you are the boy that threw the book of God on the floor’ mount him. He must have been punished over a dozen times for his crime.
4. Wayrakepe
But our day came when word went round that Rev Anderson was ‘wayrakepaid’. For those of you who do not know what that is, it is a powder made from the leaves of certain plant that is extremely irritant. The victim will scratch incessantly and will almost take all his clothes off. You can imagine the pleasure we derived from this. The boy who did it was never identified otherwise I am sure he would have been sentenced to death!
The Rev Davies
The Rev Davies fondly known as Banke was the antithesis to Rev Anderson. He was a docile and kind man and we of course took full advantage of that. He was very thin and lanky and his wife who was a caterer in the school was a very large woman, at least four times the size of Banke. I am sure you can guess where our imagination took us!
Lemon, People
Other teachers worthy of mention were Lemon Johnson who prided himself as a strongman. He can whip a whole class. He was doing just that one day when he came across Austin Seymour a very big boy. He put the cane down, rolled his sleeve, clenched his fists and challenged Seymour, ‘come on, this is man to man’. There was also a Peace Corps called Stevenson or ‘People’. He only refers to the class as ‘people’. On entering he would say Good Afternoon people, keep the noise down people or this or that people. So his nickname was ‘people’
Dedicated teachers, welford, pulling,berry.
We had some excellent expatriate teachers such as Mr Welford who taught physics and Mr Pulling Chemistry, both British and our English teacher Mr Berry, an American. So serious and dedicated were these that they escaped our frivolous attention.
Pa O.P.A Macauley
Lastly I will mention Pa O.P.A Macauley. He was loafer extraordinary. He took a whole year to teach us or rather to revise with us the definitions of nouns, verbs adverbs etc. He then made the fatal error of contesting the General Elections, standing in the Mountain Districts. He only had 69 votes and lost his deposit. When he returned to school he was greeted by his new name ‘Mountain Cut out’.
THE BOYS:
You tend to remember boys in school for many reasons. They may be your friends, your academic rivals, bullies or they may be famous perhaps for sporting or academic prowess or just plain notorious. There were four streams in Forms 1 – 3. Streams A,B,C,D. This is based on age not on ability. The smallest boys, like myself, were in the D stream and the big boys in the A stream. When I say big, I really mean big. Some of these boys had children! You don’t mess with them. Some of these boys hold no fear for teachers. Boys like Adewole John, Salami Coker, Billy Jones.
These are some of the boys I remember for various reasons:
Saio Sallay
We had a boy called Saio Sallay. We used to call him Salary Saio. His only mission in life was to study and study and study. He read between lessons, during lunch break, before start of school, and while we wait for the bus to go home. Rumour has it that during exam periods he would deliberately soak his bed with water to stop him sleeping at night so he could read.
Alvin Langley
In the second form a boy by the name of Alvin Langley joined us from CKC. I have never met anyone so gifted in Latin. He not only can write Latin but also can even speak it. Whenever a teacher comes in the classroom, he would get up and introduce himself ‘ I am new boy Ma’ or ‘I am a new boy Sir’. And that became his nickname. By the way just like the teachers, all the boys also had nicknames. I wont tell you mine.
Desmond Johnson
In fact there was a boy who had two names. Desmond Johnson was called No 9 because we had a teacher that called us by numbers depending on the alphabetical order of your surname. For some reason Desmond Johnson’s number stuck for the rest of his time in the school. But the name that he was infamous for was ‘Chapel Fund’. We were in the first form when Sierra Leone became independent. The government gave each school pupil Le1 through the schools so the money can be used to celebrate the event. Our form teacher therefore invited suggestions for the use of this money. There were many, including throwing a party, going on a picnic, or even sharing out the money to each pupil. It was then that No 9 put his hand up and suggested that we donate the money to the Chapel Fund. That was the closest I have been to seeing someone lynched!! So incensed was the class that from that day he was known as Chapel Fund.
We had fun with boys joining from other schools, as they come with their own way of doing things which do not necessarily meet our approval, and it would take them time to adjust. In the Sixth form a boy joined us from Bo School, Bai Conteh. At that time the bible readings at morning prayers were read by sixth formers. Having just been in the school for a few days it was his turn to read. He stood in front of the school and said, ‘ the lesson is taken from the Gospel according to St. Isaiah’. The poor boy was a Muslim and unfortunately for him the lessons on the previous days were from Matthew and John. You can just imagine the reaction of the school, and of Otolorin Palmer.
Just like Alvin Langley’s penchant for Latin there were also one or two boys with incredible gifts for certain subjects. Atiba-Davies was never beaten at Mathematics from first to fifth form. Similarly Ivan Carrol in Chemistry. I was a kind of an all rounder, a Jack of all trade and master of none.
There were other boys worthy of mention. We had Reti Williams who was the William Hill of the day. He was the organizer of the Gambling Ring. Often he is the KT with a substantial cut on the stakes. Then we had the ‘strong men’. Foyo Beckley, Ken Ken, Salami Coker. Then there were those we held in virtual reverence. Senior Prefects and Head boys like Lemuel Johnson, JonesAsgill, Arnold Gooding, Molai Turay, and Sama Lengoh.
CONCLUSION
We owe our achievements in life to the Sierra Leone Grammar School for giving us the foundation. It is for this reason that our support for the school should be unwavering and unambiguous. I was lucky that my two sons also went to the school and we must do all we can to help develop the school now that it has achieved independent status. A first class education combined with boarding facilities will encourage Old boys in the diaspora to send their children if even for a year or two just to taste that flavour of ‘the band of comrades true, a band that ne’er was rent, since the fathers to the old boys gave, the Glorious name Regent’.
LIVE FOR EVER, SUNDERED NEVER, FAULTERING NEVER, GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
