High School Reflections, 1

I’ve been looking into my past, specifically my high school past.  And among other things, I found out there is an association for alumni for the high school that I went to for five of the seven years of high school in Barbados.  It was a girls’ school when I went there (it is now coed, and no longer at the same site).  I’ve been looking around, trying to find things about them, about my school, and happened upon this gem, which I still remember, and can sing from memory…my school song.

The Queen’s College School Song

Quiet and ordered hours,
Work and leisure and play.
Here are the budding powers
Growing to greet the day.
The world waits on her way
and the gates swing slow apart
And around us rises the stir of the fray
But it comes not into our hearts.

Here we train for the future’s race,
Here we look into learning’s face.
Here we sit at her gracious feet
Who steels our strength for the nearing fight.
When we arise with our arms complete.
We shall carry the light, we shall carry the light.

Life is a road to tread
In dust and labour and heat.
But the light shines over our head
And the cost of the goal is sweet.
What of the weary feet
If the heart beat high to the end?
What if the past has known defeat?
The future is ours to mend.

Here we measure the morrow’s aim.
Here we kindle the morrow’s flame.
Here we learn for the love of our land.
Handled and made for the service of life.
We shall lift our lamps with a loyal hand.
We shall carry the light, we shall carry the light.

This is the QC school crest.  Our school’s motto is “Fiat Lux”, which means “Let there be light.” 

I loved that school.  My principal was Dame Elsie Payne (only a ‘Mrs.’ when she was headmistress in my years there), who was herself an alumna of the school.  Looking back on it now, after all these years, still makes me smile, though the pride is mixed with nostalgia and some pain.  (What memories of my youth are not infused with pain?  None.)

I still remember the names of a few of my friends from there: Dawn Allen (née Clarke), who was my best friend, Jennifer Anderson, Beverley Yearwood, Heather Medford, Robin McPherson, Betty Martinez, Ann-Marie Moore (the equestrian), Mona Edwards, Fiona Williams, Wendy King, the school’s champion sprinter for all her years there.  Dawn, Mona, Fiona and Wendy are still in Barbados, though I know Wendy left for college (she was at UWI Mona, Jamaica with me).  Fiona is a lawyer now, Mona owns a flower shop, Dawn is married with children.  I found Dawn again briefly, twenty-seven years ago when we had to go to Barbados to get our green cards to come to the US.  It was lovely to catch up with her.  I wish I could, again, and with the rest of the crew.

~KDB
Alumna, Queen’s College, Barbados, West IndiesAny QC grads out there?