I remember, just before the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic, relaxing at a bar just outside Santa Cruz and listening to a few over 60 year olds talk about their early training in skills such as welding, auto mechanics, construction, and joinery.

They credited St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) for those training courses in the 1960s and 70s.

They explained to me that most of them were never day students at STETHS. They came in the evenings for lessons which provided the groundwork for sustainable careers as tradesmen in various sectors, including the high-paying, bauxite/alumina industry.

As I listened, memories came flooding back of my time at STETHS, 1968-72, and of seeing the evening students arriving for classes.

I remembered leaving school at 5:00 pm in a rickety old bus driven by Mr Blackwood, also called “Capo”, and watching scores of young people, teenagers, and some in their early 20s streaming into the school.

Evening students not only did practical courses but also academic subjects at schools like STETHS, in preparation for overseas examinations. This was prior to the coming into being of the Caribbean Examinations Council.

As far as I can work out, most high schools no longer do evening courses — certainly not to the same extent of 50 years ago.

In the case of practical courses such as metalwork, woodwork, food preparation, etc, the void was apparently largely filled by the trade training centres of the late-1970s, which evolved in the 1980s to be embraced by the HEART Training Programme.

That interesting afternoon at the bar also reminded me of my own comical relationship with woodwork when I first entered STETHS.

If my memory serves me right, back in the late-1960s first-form boys had two 40-minute sessions in the woodwork shop each week, supervised by the late, legendary teacher, Joe Evans.

I had always liked to watch carpenters and furniture makers and loved the smell of freshly sawn board. But I noticed from my first session in the woodwork shop, which was equipped with several industrial-type cutting machines, that Evans kept an especially close eye on me.

By the following week I understood. “Myers!” the teacher shouted from across the room, “stay away from those machines.” It dawned on me that Evans had rapidly concluded that I possessed 10 left fingers and could possibly pose a danger to myself as well as his job.

At the end of that woodwork session and after every such session for the rest of that school year, I would hear the stern instruction from Evans: “Myers, sweep out the woodwork shop.”

For the entire year, the only woodwork tools I was allowed to use were a chisel and a mallet. My task was to complete what I came to understand was the most basic of routines, the dovetail, which is to fit as seamlessly as possible, one piece of chiselled wood into another.

The entire year ended and I couldn’t get that dovetail right, not even when my friends rallied round as volunteer consultants. It became a standing joke, and I came to understand that there are some tasks I am better off leaving to others.

I learnt in those days at first hand, that capabilities differ and that all skills deserve equal respect. I saw friends who struggled to make head or tail of what I considered simple passages in prose become complete masters in practical settings such as auto-mechanics, metalwork, woodwork, as well as on the farm — commanding great respect from their tutors.

Back in those days there was strict gender separation when it came to practical subjects: Boys did the traditional “manly” courses; girls did home economics, which included dressmaking and foods. I can’t recall ever entering the laboratories where girls did their practical subjects. But every now and again we boys got a tasty sample of their work.

Thankfully, that silly gender barrier has disappeared in schools.

To the great envy of many of us in the STETHS batch of 1968-72, those boys who did well in practical areas were the first-choice recruits when the bauxite-alumina companies and industrial manufacturers came calling at the end of high school. I was never able to confirm the truth of it, but reports at the time said some recruits weren’t even interviewed, such was their proven expertise.

Around 1969/70, when the time came to choose a practical area that would carry me through the rest of my high school life, I chose agriculture. Partly that was because I felt my 10 left fingers would be less conspicuous on the farm than elsewhere. Also, the agricultural option allowed me to do my favourite subjects — history and geography — in the external exams to come.

To my amazement, I ended up getting a passing grade for agricultural science. To my dying day I will marvel about that.

— Garfield Myers, the Jamaica Observer’s Editor-at-Large in South Central Jamaica, is a past student of St Elizabeth Technical High School which is celebrating its 60th anniversary.