Circular No 907

Newsletter for alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.

Caracas, 23 March 2019 No. 907

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Dear Friends,

Here are emails from Jan Koeraadt and on Lawrence Scott.

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Gmail Jan <jankoenraadt@gmail.com>

Feb 26 at 6:00 PM

Nigel,

Thanks very much for forwarding this news article.

I forwarded this to the son and daughter of Thijs Koenraadt to let them know about it.

They are between 45 and 50 years of age now and have their own lives.

Much greetings

Jan Koenaadt

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Nigel Boos <nigelboos@gmail.com>

Jan 8 at 12:22 PM

Thanks for this article, Shish.

I have never seen it before, although I am very aware of Lawrence Scott’s background and history.

We were good friends, together with a seminarian by the name of Thijs Koenraadt at MSB.

We in fact were the three guys who had built the tiny grotto the Our Lady on the mountain track leading uphill from the Mount, where there was a tiny stream of water which flowed down a sloping black rock face to a small pool beneath it.

We’d spent quite some time there, and Fr. Peter OSB had to come with us to bless it himself, and to install a small statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Lawrence left Trinidad sometime around 1959 for England to join the Premonstratensians, with a view to becoming a Catholic priest.

However, he later left the Order and as the article states (I didn’t know this) he got married and developed a writing career.

Thank for the memory.

Nigel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premonstratensians

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On Jan 8, 2019, at 9:56 AM, GEORGE MICKIEWICZ <amickiew@att.net> wrote:

Not sure if this article has been published in a Circular……a “famous” alumnus

TT author for UWI lecture

United Kingdom-based Trinidadian Lawrence Scott, 64, a well-known novelist, is in Trinidad for the VS Naipaul Celebrations 2007.

The writer will take to the stage on Wednesday from 5pm at UWI’s Learning Resource Centre, St Augustine, for the continuing of the open lecture series.

Scott was educated by the Benedictine monks at Mount Saint Benedict before leaving for England as a young man.

He has since published three novels — Witchbroom (1993), Aelred’s Sin (1998, winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize), and Night Calypso (2004).

He has also written a collection of short stories, Ballad for the New World (1994).

According to writer, Stewart Brown, Scott’s journey of self-discovery has taken him back and forth across the Atlantic and inspired him to write searching novels of love and belonging, including his prize-winning Aelred’s Sin.

Scott returned home from work one Friday night to find a message from the marketing person at Allison and Busby, his publishers, on the answering machine. 

It said he had won a Commonwealth Writer’s Prize.

“I said to Jenny (his wife) there must be some sort of mistake. I tried to get hold of the publishers over the weekend, but had to wait until Monday, when they said it was true, I’d won the prize for Aelred’s Sin.”

The money involved wasn’t huge, but Scott was required to travel to New Zealand to collect the award and take part in readings and a conference for Commonwealth writers. 

“I found there were surprising parallels with Trinidad there,” he said. “It’s the British Victorian legacy that seems to crop up around the world.

There were at least five cocktail parties. At one of them, I was introduced to the Governor-General as a Trinidadian writer, and he said, ‘Oh, Trinidad. Isn’t that where Vidia Naipaul comes from?”’

The thought of Naipaul’s reaction to this innocent question makes Scott laugh.

Scott said his book Aelred’s Sin draws on the fact that he grew up a Catholic and was very involved in religion from an early age.

Scott is himself a white Trinidadian, described as a “Caribbean Creole” in Witchbroom’s author blurb.

His father’s side came from Germany in the 1830s and were called Schoener.

His mother’s family, the Lange dynasty, were French-descended and part of an established white Creole community.

His father worked as manager of the Petit Morne sugar estate, not far from San Fernando.

In fact, the estate houses were often not much more than big bungalows, but it was a privileged existence,” he stated.

Later, the family moved to Lange Park, which has become a housing development near Chaguanas.

With his O’ Levels completed, Scott set off for Britain in January 1963.

It was the harshest winter in many years, and the young Trinidadian gazed in amazement at the snow-covered fields and hedges as his train took him from London to Stroud.

From there he went to Prinknash Abbey, a 17th-century monastery near Gloucester, where he had an introduction from another monk from Trinidad.

By that time, Scott was already writing and was very interested in the radical brand of Catholicism in vogue during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Wanting to do a degree, Scott first had to pass A’ Levels and then read for an external London degree at a private college in Oxford for which he received a grant.

This was an intellectually stimulating time, as university dons taught his course and he became active in the theatre, working at the Oxford Playhouse as a stage manager and developing ambitions to direct.

From there he moved to Manchester, where he qualified as a teacher in 1973.

By 1977 Scott was ready to return to Trinidad.

He had married Jenny Green, also a teacher, and both were keen to live and work in the Caribbean.

He had been back briefly in 1969, but this was the first real return since the time when he had left the island as an aspiring monk.

“I’d gone away to be a priest and came back as a left-wing teacher.

I suppose people thought I’d changed a little bit.”

He noted that Trinidad society is incredibly tolerant and inclusive when it comes to race and colour.

Some of the ‘big politics’ rhetoric is about race, but there’s room for white individuals in whatever they want to do.

I think some people imagined I was English anyway, but I never felt any animosity.”

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Lawrence Scott

Lawrence Scott (born in Trinidad, 1943) is an award-winning novelist and short-story writer from Trinidad & Tobago, who divides his time between London and Port of Spain.

His novels have been awarded (1998) and short-listed (1992, 2004) for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and thrice nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (for Aelred's Sin in 2000, Night Calypso in 2006 and Light Falling on Bamboo in 2014).

His stories have been much anthologised and he won the Tom-Gallon Short-Story Award in 1986.

Life and career

Born in Trinidad on a sugarcane estate where his father was the manager for Tate & Lyle.

Scott is a descendant of Trinidad's French and German creoles.

"His father's side came from Germany in the 1830s and were called Schoener. His mother's family, the Lange dynasty, were French-descended and part of an established white Creole community."

Scott was educated at Boys' RC School, San Fernando, Trinidad (1950–54), and by the Benedictine monks at the Abbey School, Mount Saint Benedict, Tunapuna (1955–62), before leaving at the age of 19 for England.

There he attended Prinknash Abbey, Gloucester, studying philosophy and theology (1963–67), St Clare's Hall Oxford, gaining a BA Hons. degree in English Language & Literature (1968–72), and Manchester University, earning a Certificate in Education, English & Drama (Distinction) in 1972–73.

Between 1973 and 2006 Scott worked as a teacher (of English and Drama) at various schools in London and in Trinidad, including Sedgehill, London; Thomas Calton Comprehensive, London;

Presentation College, San Fernando, Trinidad; Aranguez Junior Secondary, Trinidad; Tulse Hill Comprehensive and Archbishop Tenison's, London.

Between 1983 and 2006 he taught Literature and Creative Writing at City & Islington Sixth Form College, London.

In parallel to his teaching, Scott's career as a creative writer includes the publication since the 1990s of novels and collections of short stories.

His stories have also been broadcast on BBC radio and have been anthologised internationally, notably in The Penguin Book of Caribbean Short Stories, The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories and Our Caribbean, A Gathering of Lesbian & Gay Writing from the Antilles (Duke University Press).

He has published poetry in several anthologies and journals, including Colours of a New Day: Writing for South Africa (Lawrence & Wishart, 1990), Caribbean New Voices 1 (Longman, 1995), Trinidad & Tobago Review, Cross/Cultures 60 (Editions Rodopi B.V. Amsterdam – New York, 2002), Agenda and Wasafiri.

In addition he is the author of numerous essays, reviews and interviews on the work of other Caribbean writers, including Earl Lovelace and Derek Walcott.

Scott was a Writer-in-Residence at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in 2004.

In 2006–09 he was a senior research fellow of The Academy for Arts, Letters, Culture and Public Affairs at the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT).

His academic research has included the Golconda Research/Writing Project, an oral history project in Trinidad.

He has also researched extensively the life and times of Trinidad's 19th-century artist Michel-Jean Cazabon, which work informs his 2012 novel Light Falling on Bamboo.

Writing

In 1986, Scott's short story "The House of Funerals" won the Tom-Gallon Award.

Since 1992 his published books include four novels, a collection of short stories and a work of non-fiction.

His first novel, Witchbroom (1992), was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was abridged as a Book at Bedtime on BBC Radio 4 in 1993, abridged by Margaret Busby in eight episodes, produced by Marina Salandy-Brown and read by the author.

A 25th-anniversary edition of Witchbroom, published by Papillote Press, was launched in Trinidad at Paper Based bookshop in Port-of-Spain on 18 March 2017, with a keynote address by Earl Lovelace and readings by Ken Ramchand, Barbara Jenkins and Marina Salandy-Brown.

It was described by Trinidad and Tobago Newsday as "a breathtaking novel, filled with memorable characters and important history."

Of his 1994 story collection Ballad for the New World, Publishers Weekly said: "Scott ... has filled his collection of 12 short stories with all the rich nuances of the Caribbean, creating a convincing backdrop that allows even the most sedentary armchair traveller to visualize each tale's progression."

Scott's second novel, Aelred's Sin (1998), described by Raoul Pantin as "a fine and sensitive and compassionate book…a worthwhile contribution to the hallowed tradition of West Indian literature", won a Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book (Canada & Caribbean) in 1999.

Night Calypso (2004), Scott's next novel, was described by Mike Phillips in The Guardian as "unique in being a serious, knowledgeable and beautifully written treatise about a little-known corner of experience and its relationship to a wider world", while Chris Searle in the Morning Star called it "an educative, startling and moving reading experience".

Scott's most recent novel, Light Falling on Bamboo (2012) was called "really a fascinating read" by Verdel Bishop in the Trinidad Express.[24] 

Set in early 19th-century Trinidad, while the novel is a re-imagining of the life of the celebrated landscape painter Cazabon, according to Monique Roffey's review in The Independent Scott captures so much more.

This novel shows us the dark 'truth of an age' in a small corner of the New World, once dependent on slave labour.

"Selwyn Cudjoe's review stated: "Lawrence Scott has written an important historical romance. [...] the loving attention that Scott devotes to detail, sensitivity to light and colour, and his determination to capture the many tones of his landscape and people give his romance a translucence and luminosity that is wondrous to behold.

We owe him a debt of gratitude for offering us this way of seeing during this period in our history."

In 2015 Scott's collection of stories “Leaving By Plane Swimming Back Underwater” was published by Papillote Press.

Alexander Lucie-Smith wrote in the Catholic Herald: "Scott’s writing resembles that fretwork familiar from decaying porches and window frames: intricate, almost rococo, and because Trinidad is such a multi-layered place, because nothing is simple, his style is perfectly suited to his subject.

Scott comes nearest to any English language author I know to carrying off that difficult task of evoking a place that is real and at the same time completely other."

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EDITED by Ladislao Kertesz,  kertesz11@yahoo.com,  if you would like to be in the circular’s mailing list or any old boy that you would like to include.

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Photos:

57RB0002a4, Roberto Bodington and UNKNOWN

66JK0010JKOMEDALS, Jan Koenrrad with a medals display

16LS0001LSC, Lawrence Scott

63LK5159FBAPL, Aelred Plimmer Rugby Team 1963