THINGS THAT MATTER – The Lodge School ethos and the Patrick Frost Award
Ethos – definition: “The characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as manifested in its beliefs, attitudes and aspirations”.
A splendid, inspiring function was held at the Lodge School on Friday morning – the presentation of the first Annual Patrick Frost Award to an outstanding student, Ms. Tasharah Hoyte.
The award was the brain child of two distinguished contemporaries of the iconic Mr. Frost, i.e. Dr. Oscar Jordan, late physician and diabetes specialist, and Dr. Christopher Smith, a Kittitian who was a boarder at The Lodge and now a gastroenterologist in Aberdeen, Scotland. All three of these brilliant scholars and sportsmen went through the Lodge School together between 1948 and 1959. Dr. Jordan won the Barbados Scholarship in classics (in the days when there were only five, not twenty five or thirty five), scoring the unheard of mark of 100 per cent in Latin prose, and proceeded to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, following in the footsteps of Sir Richard Haynes and scores of earlier Barbadians. Dr. Smith studied at the University of Aberdeen, remaining there for the rest of his career, and by coincidence, was a registrar who taught my wife Maureen, dermatologist, who studied there – small world!
Oscar and Chris felt that Patrick Frost had not only spent his entire career teaching Lodge boys – a feat achieved in our memories only by Mr. Wilfred “Chiggers” Farmer and Mr. Herbert “Wox” Gooding, but that he had exemplified, demonstrated and promulgated the ethos of the Lodge School – the essential spirit and philosophy and the conscientious, honourable beliefs, attitudes, principles and behaviour that the Lodge prided itself in, including the importance of fair play. They concluded that a Patrick Frost Award would therefore be a wonderful way of both recognising his unique contribution to the school and encouraging and rewarding the continuing tradition.
Patrick himself, with characteristic modesty, would not like me to draw attention to his heroic dedication to the Lodge and teaching Lodge students – not just English language and literature in the classroom, but sports and the “sporting spirit” and indeed much else about school, community and growing up with a sense of civic responsibility. He himself entered Lodge some seventy years ago at the tender age of seven years and eleven months, in the preparatory form, and returned on graduation from Oxford in 1962. He served as teacher of English, head of the English department, housemaster and bursar, and clearly rivals Mr. Herbert Gooding, biology master who taught a steady stream of annual Barbados Scholars in the glory days of the fifties and sixties, for the title of Mr. Lodge School.
When asked why he spent his life at the Lodge, Patrick replied: “Great influence of former teachers – a wish to try to emulate the example and contribution of people of obvious and genuine substance, and one day to be capable of providing similar influences of development in others – and association with an institution of some significance; and a genuine belief that one could and should add and improve The Lodge as a school. Also the pervading ethos of the school – the learnt concept of duty, satisfaction seeing progress, a competitive urge not to fail in anything, or to let others fail; a desire to create or improve, and, with the maturity of experience, the greater recognition that one should first do something not just for any of the above, but simply for the value of the thing in itself. In short, consideration of others before self in everything.”
These thoughts have inspired the criteria for the Patrick Frost Award, to be given to the student “who exemplifies what we were taught, and perhaps did so instinctively in some cases. In short, the best example of The Lodge School student – for me that would be the person who demonstrated unselfishness in loyalty to the school, its values and to fellow students.” These fundamental precepts have been amplified, and the student considered to best fit most of them for this first, historic award is Tasharah Hoyte, who has just graduated from The Lodge and joined the Barbados Community College Hospitality programme at the Pommarine Hotel.
I was deeply moved by Tasharah’s summary of her experience at The Lodge. She said, when she was given the honour of Deputy Head Girl: “I took my job of collecting and assigning duties extremely seriously. If I wasn’t in class I was roaming the campus to make sure that the prefects were doing their duties to the best of their abilities. I always got to school early and could be found in the office with Mrs. Austin assisting in any way I could. My time at The Lodge School was well spent amongst friends who became family and a place which became home.”
I was also deeply impressed by the impeccable organisation of the function. Mr. Frost, Mrs. Marsha Jordan – the wife of Dr. Jordan, their son Julian Jordan, Mr. Rolph Jordan (Oscar’s brother) and I were led into the beautiful new auditorium by a resplendent cadet drum corps, where students were gathered. The Acting Officer in Charge was Sgt. Stuart and the cadet leading the drum corps was Lance Corporal Watson. Escorts were Corporal J. Hall, D. Clarke, S. Burgess, J. Mayers and others.
Deputy Principal Mrs. Stacia Austin opened the proceedings and led in the singing of the school song. (She is a singer, with a magnificent voice.) Mr. Julian Jordan then explained to the students the history of the main characters at The Lodge and the thinking behind the award. I followed with a bit more history and Mr. Frost replied, with a wonderfully inspiring message. Tasharah was then presented with her well-earned award, which will be displayed in a special cabinet on the wall of the auditorium. Everything was photographed by Mr. David Garner, English teacher, photographer, pastor and polymath, and son of the popular Mr. D.D.Garner, a founding father of the Barbados Labour Party and parliamentarian of the 1950s.
The Lodge has been through a bad patch of poor management and political controversies in the past but it is clearly on the rise again, and will return to its golden age, with a new principal and dedicated staff, many of whom I’ve met, and a determination to perpetuate the noble ethos of the school.
Bouquet: to the Prime Minister for calling for us to reduce food importation by 25 per cent. I have been calling for this in my columns and in the Senate for years. It is also a relief to see my other recommendation of many years taken up – the introduction of a health levy, so we can appreciate our amazing free-at-the-point-of-delivery health services, a luxury afforded only to the most wealthy and highly developed countries.
Next week: “Vaucluse” and other exciting books.
(Professor Fraser is Past Dean of Medical Sciences, UWI and Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology. Website: profhenryfraser.com)