Great Mountain resident Reuben Vanterpool served as the speaker of the Legislative Council from 1997 to 2003. The former educator now works full-time as an artist, and he was among the painters who created the mural on Fahie Hill. He is married to Olive Vanterpool, who he dated the old-fashioned way, after writing a letter to her father seeking permission.
I was born at Great Mountain on July 2, 1946. I was the seventh of nine siblings. My father was Osborne and my mother Alphena.
It was primary up to primary three, then you transferred to Road Town, because the schools in the countrysides didn’t have anything more than primary three.
Teaching career
I became a teacher by default. There wasn’t many things to do. I finished high school and they wanted teachers. Teachers were always in short supply. It was a respected profession, but it was also recognised that it was not a paying job.
Whenever there was a job that was better paid, people of course went to it. The hotels were just opening up in St. John and people were going there. Very soon afterwards, Little Dix Bay opened on Virgin Gorda. Those were the two options: Otherwise, you’d go into the labour market and do construction, and that wasn’t much money then.
You stayed home and did some farming or you applied to government to see if they had some space to squeeze you in.
Teaching was the only one with much room, but you had to have certain basics to get into teaching.
As a teacher, it was difficult: You came out of school and you’d get an initiation — a crash course in the form of a workshop — and you had the opportunity to get information from more experienced teachers. Then you became a trainee before you got the opportunity to go to training. I spent two years teaching and after then I went to training at the Leeward Islands Teaching College in Antigua.
Speaker of the House
When I retired from education in 1994, I went into my own business: an art gallery in Road Town. The owners called for it, so I couldn’t enjoy that for too long. Fortunately, I didn’t have to relocate at the time because they asked me about accepting a nomination for the speakership. In fact, they asked me in early 1996. I said no. That wasn’t my thing. I wasn’t too keen on it, so the matter rested for a while. Six months later, I got a call again asking me if I would reconsider. So I said at least let me think about it this time. I asked my wife what she thought about it. She said, “Well, you always pride yourself on being community minded, community spirited, and you’re regarded as a community worker — maybe this is a time for a different kind of community work.” I also asked my siblings, and they all ganged up against me. They said they think I should accept it: I might be of help.
I told the premier at the time, Ralph O’Neal, that I would accept the nomination. I was there for six and a half years.
[The government] couldn’t afford for a member of their side to be voted to the speakership. That would have been one less voice to speak for them and one less vote in the house, so they had to find someone who they thought was neutral enough, and I wasn’t known to be a member of any party, and I’m still not a member of any party.
I agreed to the nomination, and it wasn’t difficult because the government had the majority and they were the ones who nominated me.
Balance
The opposition expected that being nominated by the government, I would be partial to the government, and there was a general community perception that that would have been the case. There is the knowledge among many people who know better that if you’re partial in there, if you don’t go in the middle of the line, there’s going to be trouble; you’re going to embarrass the government who nominated you, you would alienate yourself from the opposition, and you’re going to have difficulty doing your job.
You forget about affiliation and do your job according to the Standing Orders and the Constitution: That’s your Bible. You don’t have any bosom friends in there, neither on the government side or the opposition side. If the government want to tell you what they are doing, fine. Most times I didn’t know what they were doing. That wasn’t my role to know what they were doing or how they were operating. If things that came before the house were right or not right, that was my concern.
Today
I would have gotten in trouble if I was in there now. They would have kicked me out. I see some things going on there now that ain’t right. They make all kinds of statements in there that they shouldn’t be allowed to make according to the Standing Orders. They’re not supposed to make comments about the others there in the House. That’s a formula for backflow of arguments and trouble. You don’t politic in there either. When you reach in there, forget about politics. I hear so many political statements in there as if they are still on the campaign trail. When the campaign trail finishes, it finishes. This is the government business, the business of the people.
If I was in there, they would have pushed me out. In fact, I would have given them an ultimatum: “If you all don’t behave better than this, I’m walking.”
Interview conducted, condensed and edited by Ngovou Gyang.
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