Unbelievable as it seems, my Cayman Islands High School graduating class will be celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.
One warm summer’s night in 1985, we all sat in folding chairs on the top of the large cistern betwixt two buildings, wearing our caps and gowns. The guest speaker politician speechified for triple the allotted time – as such elected officials are wont to do – before the parade of students began, receiving their certificates to the applause of friends and family in the audience.
As I was ‘Wheaton’, I was practically back row, and there were no railings. In retrospect, we’re lucky the W-to-Zs didn’t go careening into the void behind us. One wrong chair shift and we’d have toppled like dominoes.
I sang ‘That’s What Friends Are For’ – the Dionne Warwick hit song from that year. It was a pretty wobbly rendition. My stage fright kicked in and I gulped at least thrice. Not my finest hour. I remember the sweat pouring down inside my graduation gown. As a schoolfriend of mine, Michele Aubert, and I agreed on a recent phone call, “Kids today don’t know how good they’ve got it.” We sounded like a Monty Python sketch.
“Air-conditioning?? We DREAMED of having air-conditioning!”
That being said, we all have some fond memories of our years at high school. We had great teachers; I don’t know how educators manage it now with mobile phones. Back in my day (she said, gently rocking in her chair with a corncob pipe in her mouth), the worst we did was pass notes across the classroom. Remember those? We thought we were being so subtle, but those teachers had eyes in the backs of their heads.
“Miss Wheaton, please stay behind after class.” Gulp.
There were four sports houses: Dolphin, Wahoo, Marlin and Tarpon. I was in Tarpon House, and my mother (who taught maths at the school) was the head of it, which was kind of funny, as she and I shared a similar complete lack of athletic ability. On Sports Day, we’d have teacher Derek Tyler on the microphone, who was unforgiving with his hilarious commentary. Stars took to the field to show their prowess in the 100 metre, shot put, discus, javelin, and all the types of jumps. There were cheerleaders in each house colour, waving their pom-poms along the sidelines.
Outside of sports, we had a school band and choir, and the drama department put on a show at least once a year. There were debate competitions and school assemblies, and the canteen was the big hall in the centre of the compound. Ivan Farrington (who still moonlights as the devil in Hell, West Bay), and his wife, ran the kitchen there. They made the best food. My favourite was curry chicken-and-mac ‘n’ cheese day. I still love that dish.
Just like in the John Hughes’ films of the time (‘Sixteen Candles’, ‘The Breakfast Club’), there were the places we all used to hang out in groups, like ‘the wall’ and ‘the cistern’. Looking back on the pictures, we really could have been the cast from one of those movies. I had short hair and wore Ray-Ban Wayfarers ALL the time, a la Tom Cruise in ‘Risky Business’. I think I fancied myself to be a bit of a Molly Ringwald character (although, mercifully, I did not take perfectly lovely dresses and turn them into the heinous things she created in ‘Pretty in Pink’). Those sunglasses were too wide for my face. Didn’t care. I reckoned I was soooooo cool.
From time to time, there would be special guests at school assembly. One of the years, we had David Prowse show up, otherwise known as the actor in the Darth Vader costume for the original three ‘Star Wars’ films. In the UK, he was more famous for being the Green Cross Code Man – which none of us had seen: A character on TV that taught children how to cross the road safely. He wore that green getup to our assembly, because at least you could see his face in it.
That wasn’t the only thing. The gossamer-thin, spandex pants left very little to the imagination. The outfit might have looked magnificent on TV, but in person, it wasn’t quite as dazzling. Averting the eyes was key.
He started off about the Green Cross Code, but, of course, all of us wanted to hear about the ‘Star Wars’ stuff. If you’ve ever read anything about the man, or seen documentaries on him, you’ll have gathered he was pretty bitter when it came to ol’ George Lucas et al. He began telling us how he was expecting it to be his voice in the part, but then James Earl Jones stepped in – as we all know – and the rest is history. In fairness, hard to compete with Jones’s authoritative timbre when you’re a lad from Bristol, but Prowse was clearly unhappy about the decision. Then there was a whole thing about pay that he should have received and didn’t get; all a bit deep for a bunch of schoolkids on a jolly morning who just wanted to know if the lightsabers were real.
By the end of his tales of woe, no one dared ask him another question about his experience. They just seemed to bring back bad memories.
He was very amiable about having pictures taken with him (avert the eyes, avert the eyes) and handed out a lot of 8x10s with a picture of him on one side and Darth Vader on the other, near the large type that said ‘David Prowse IS Darth Vader’.
Probably not enough space to add “ … so get that through your thick head!”
He wanted to make it clear, even though it wasn’t his face when the helmet finally came off and it wasn’t him voicing the character either.
On another occasion, it was the last day of school before hols and, for some reason, someone in authority thought we’d all enjoy watching a documentary about legendary footballer Pelé on a big screen in the hall. I’m talking the old projector reels system, where everything had a slightly pink hue to it.
Usually we’d be allowed to play board games in class, and sign each other’s shirts (much to the chagrin of parents), but no – everyone sit and watch at least an hour of this grainy film on such a random subject. What a treat for you all.
It’s strange the things you recall when you think back. We were 15 years old and couldn’t wait to get our driver’s licences when we turned 17. Every romantic breakup felt like the end of the world (“I’ll never love again!”), and when we said goodbye to each other in the summer of ‘85, it was like we weren’t living on an island of 20,000 people where we’d probably bump into each other at the supermarket in two days’ time.
That being said, there are some classmates from school I haven’t clapped eyes on in years, yet they still live here. We’re holding our reunion in July and I can’t wait to see them all and reminisce about the days when we were young.
As Dionne sang so many years ago, that’s what friends are for.
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