In 1991 I was taking a visiting British emissary from Treasure Isle Hotel
to a 10 a.m. meeting with then-Chief Minister H. Lavity Stoutt. On the way, the emissary said he was just going to deliver a letter to Mr. Stoutt, and I thought this process would be quick, simple and easy. The personal secretary, Beverly Hodge-Smith, opened the door and said, “Mr. Stoutt will see you now.”
As we entered, the chief minister, sitting by his conference table, beckoned us to come in and be seated. The emissary sat next to him on his left side while I sat on his right. Looking directly and sternly at the emissary, the chief asked what news he had brought from the British government.
The emissary said the news was bad, and he regretted to inform him that the British government would not provide funding for the then-BVI Community College (now the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College), and then attempted to give Mr. Stoutt the letter that he said confirmed this news. Upon hearing this, the chief slammed his left and then his right fists continuously onto the table with precision, force and speed. Upon hindsight he made the great boxer Mohammed Ali look slow and clumsy. The table vibrated and shuddered with each blow with its own musical sounds! The chief’s face swelled like a “pompous” fish, his eyebrows apparently moved some distance up his forehead, and clearly he was furious!
‘Shocked emissary’
The letter was suspended in mid-air held by a shocked emissary. Then the emissary told me to take the letter and proceeded to move it towards me. Mr. Stoutt’s eyes followed that letter like radar locked onto its target ready to launch missile at a moment’s notice. So I told the emissary it was not addressed to me; therefore I could not receive it. I sat there thinking how the Virgin Islands was snarling at the remainder of the once mighty Great Britain, and its old proud claim that the sun never sat on the British Empire.
Was Mr. Stoutt’s performance genuine, considering that he could put on a good show if wanted to? Was he thinking or planning for independence from the British? Why was he so upset and furious? Why was he so transformed?
Struggle
Then I remembered his struggle to establish and sustain a college. The chief was ridiculed locally and overseas about the college. The British felt that if they did not support it financially, he would have to abandon and close it. So why a college if he was faced with so many adverse and overwhelming difficulties? In 1989 I accompanied him to Jamaica for a week and every day and night (breakfast, lunch and dinner) he spoke and prayed about his dream of a college.
Firstly, he saw education existing in a symbiotic relationship with every aspect of development. Hence, if his people were to participate meaningfully and enjoy the benefits of every aspect of development then they had to be educated.
Secondly, education was the key for creating and managing positive social engineering changes where the quality of life for the citizens needed to be of high standards. Therefore, education for all in the context of access at every level (primary, secondary and tertiary) was a priority for him.
Elihu Rhymer, a local businessman and talk show host, told me that the chief felt everybody should be given an opportunity to advance themselves as the late A.D. Watts had given him an opportunity which impacted positively on Mr. Stoutt’s life.
One of the chief’s favourite phrases was, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” He kept telling me that the English-speaking Caribbean would still be in the dark ages if it were not for the University of the West Indies, which enabled Caribbean people access to tertiary education (and which was cheaper and more affordable than going overseas). He said that sending one person overseas generally was equivalent to training about six people at UWI.
The answer to having a college, the chief proudly said, was to bring quality tertiary education to people at reasonable costs, and that is what the BVI Community College was going to do (and is still presently doing while impacting positively on the entire local society and the Caribbean).
In the meeting, the chief shouted that he would find money to build and sustain the college, and he immediately began stamping the floor violently with his feet. Since he was receiving medical attention for his left leg, I grew more concerned about his health. I figured he would have been exhausted from the blows to the table, but apparently he was being re-energised by the thought of fighting for his dream, and thus was picking up momentum, striking both the floor and the table.
So I told the emissary it was time to go and stood up to leave. The chief continued shouting, saying he did not know why I brought the emissary to his office to upset him. When I opened the door, there was Lorna Smith, then permanent secretary; Ms. Hodge-Smith; and Emerson O’Neal, then head of the Development Planning Unit. They were in emergency mode and anxious to enter the chief’s office to see what was happening.
Back at Treasure Isle Hotel, the emissary invited me to tea and noted that at times the messenger gets killed and the message never gets through. He asked me to take the letter to the chief, but I reminded him of what I said earlier. Next day, the chief invited me to his office and told me that people like the emissary would never deter him from pursuing his dream of having a college despite the enormous challenges he was facing.
Twenty-one years after the founding of the college, I ask myself where would the VI be had the late chief minister not defied the British (and his critics) and pushed on with his dream and vision? History has shown that Mr. Stoutt’s dream of a college was philosophically, socially, educationally, economically, spiritually and financially practical, viable and great. I salute you, Mr. Stoutt, for your vision for HLSCC. May your spirit rest in peace in the great beyond.
Mr. Turnbull was one of six students (along with Lorna Smith, Dancia Penn, Carmen Howell, Patricia Johnson and Annette Malone) who Mr. Stoutt saw off personally as they left for the University of the West Indies in 1969, he said. Afterwards, Mr. Stoutt boasted for years that the British had been giving the territory one annual scholarship, but he managed to obtain six, according to Mr. Turnbull.
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