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Life at Ardenne

1978-1983/4

 

“My friend Dahlia is a woman amongst women (and men) – she is truly accomplished and lives a remarkable life. First and foremost Dahlia is a great friend and confidant to many. Professionally, Dahlia is a pharmacist, an entrepreneur – she owns two pharmacies: The Medicine Chest on Beckford Street and Charlie’s Pharmacy on West Queen Street. Dahlia is also a regular columnist for the Jamaica Gleaner. She also gives back to her community in many ways including establishing a community-based program to protect her inner-city clientele from HIV. Dahlia is currently a final year doctoral candidate in public health at the University of London.”
Carolyn Vincent-Jackson

 

Life at Ardenne 1978-1983/4
By Dahlia McDaniel
Dedicated to the memory of Jasmine Rose Archibald who entered Ardenne with most of us, but never graduated.

    By the time I entered Ardenne in 1978, I already knew the school song by heart and was familiar with several songs from our school hymnal. My family belongs to the Church of God, and automatically several family members attended Ardenne from as far back as the mid-1950’s, the days when men like Karl Samuda attended. My brother Dave graduated in 1978 and my sister Carol was in 3rd form when I started.

   From years before I went to Ardenne I  knew about Peanie who sold peanuts, oranges and Jew Plums, and old Mass Joe who rode a bicycle, and sold Kisko, fudge and ice cream. They were decent men – Peanie was handsome and wore shoes that were made locally by a shoe-maker. Mass Joe laughed a lot, showing off his dentures. He wore an elastic band around his ankles, enveloping his pants hem, to keep the pants out of the spokes of his bicycle when he rode.
   1978 was a challenging year for Ardenne. It was the very first year of a two-shift system. Additionally those students who attended Ardenne Extension High School were automatically incorporated into the High School. Girls on the evening shift wore the same uniform that the Ardenne Extension girls wore, the tunic and white blouse, while those on the morning shift wore the full blue uniform. Ms. E.M. Clare Gayle who had been the principal for several years handed over the reins to Mr. Roy J. Ebanks in 1978. Rev. Glen Oswald Jenkins Archer made his appearance on the Ardenne scene in that year too, a man who would help to change the face of Ardenne forever. Two new houses (Cohen and Mills) were added to the previous four (Harrison, Olson, Colter and Phelps).
   There were so many adjustments to make as a first former, apart from doing 200 subjects. On our booklist for 7th grade was a recorder for music classes (something like a little flute) which we never used. I was 10 years old and the youngest child in my class (and perhaps the youngest child in the school). I was placed on the evening shift which ran from 12:30 until 5:40. It was such a long school-day which ended at night. So I had an excuse for my poor grades in first form.

Novelettle McClarty was my best friend. Cavel McLaren, John McFarlane, Sigmund Mighty, Roddington Mullings, Ann-Marie Morrison, Carol Matheson, Olive Martin, Carlos Lecky and Dionne Moonah were in my form. I only remember that old Ms. Smith who had taught my uncles English in the 1950’s also taught me Mathematics in 1978, and a young pretty long-haired lady Ms. Newman taught me English. Adios Amigos was my Spanish textbook.

 

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Dahlia  

Dahlia McDaniel

   That’s all I remember about schoolwork in first form. That same year I was diagnosed with a very low instep, a deformity of my ankles, which warranted me wearing surgical boots past the ankles, made by a pleasant, elderly man in a wheelchair at Mona Rehabilitation Centre, to correct the problem. Have mercy! 1978 was a tough year.  My fellow Ardennites were not nice, especially the boys. I entered the canteen during lunchtime (3:30 p.m.) and a bully shouted out to me from across the canteen, “Hey girl, don’t wear back yuh father police boots come to school again, yuh hear!” I ran away from there. Everybody knew that my dad was a policeman, since I would regularly be transported to or from school in a marked police car. How cool is that? Not cool.
   I spent many tears on those boots, and many hours in Mrs. Dawn Bennett’s office. Dawn Bennett, Ardenne’s guidance counsellor for years, occasionally had to visit my class to tell them not to laugh at me due to a deformity and having to wear boots. How I tried to turn those navy-blue socks over the boots to conceal the top, but the boots still looked weird.
   First form came to an end, and my parents and I had had enough of evening shift, so they negotiated for me to join the morning shift. We changed from ‘forms’ to ‘grades’. I was placed into a ‘bright’ stream, grade 8-2. This is where I met Jasmine Rose Archibald, my inspiration and best friend for the next 3 years. She was a natural leader, and was 2 years my senior. Anything Jasmine told me to do, I’d do it without question. She was the brightest student in the class and held that status until the end of tenth grade. Mrs. Ritchie-Haughton who taught us English and Literature including “Romeo and Juliet” referred to us as the two flowers, Jasmine and Dahlia.
   Through my association with Jasmine my grades improved in 8th and 9th grade. She was going to be a Clinical Psychologist and I was going to be………..well I was going to be somebody…….. maybe a child psychologist or a nurse. Maurice Forrester, Nadine Cheddar, Rosemarie Henry, Camelia Hudson, Janet Knight, Ann-Marie Jones, Karen Williams, Bridgette Hutchinson, Judith Hall, Antoinette Clemetson, Jacqueline Thompson, the ‘stoosh’ pair Shirlene Esterine and Lorna Golding,  are the persons I remember most from 8-2 and 9-2.

   Food choices at Ardenne in those years were varied. We could get cooked lunch, patties, raisin bun and cheese, cinnamon or Danish roll and boxed fruit drinks, milk (plain, chocolate or cherry-milk) or sodas from the canteen, which was always crowded. We could buy stuff from Peanie or Mass Joe outside the back of the Olson Hall, or if we were lucky, some team like football or netball team would have a fundraising sale of ice cream with different flavours than Mass Joe’s, or we could buy good old banana chips from the caretaker’s wife who was doing a lickle business on the side.


 

 

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