Ellis James Laing

No one could miss me with these thick lensed glasses that took up 50% of my handsome face...look at it this way, I was a pacesetter - way ahead of Steve Urkel. Over the years, the glasses have become considerable smaller, lighter and trendier! Thank God!

Graduation Programme - I think my batch has the distinction of being the only group to graduate in July, right at the end of the school year, rather than in November.

At my Graduation in 1985 I moved the Vote of Thanks...I had been Vice President of the Student Council in my final high school year.

This is me...trying fi gwan nice...and ongle in Grade 7!!! I was always neat and I had this brown knapsack at the time...glasses inna mi han because mi waan lose di "goggles" look...poor me...sigh!

Around the same time, I am sure. For all I know, I may have put on the outfit just for the picture but I do recall wearing this outfit to an uncle's funeral in December 1980. I never did quite make it to Pulse...their loss.

I was a shy student but I was involved. No, the word "nuff" is not quite a fitting description of me but I was always involved in clubs and societies...Student Council Representative every year except the penultimate, and then elected VP in 1984 -85; Drama Club, Key Club, ISCF, 4H Club, even a part of Souls for Christ formed I think by Everald Shaw and Michael Watson...firebrand Christians of our year group. I have always believed in community and group efforts and was a hard worker. I eventually served on the leadership of most groups but to this day have not been a "limelight-seeking profiler." It runs against my grain.

I really enjoyed acting although I was so conscious of myself...my Sunday School/Church experience pushed me along that line...Leila Clarke and others introduced me to Festival of Arts in Speech at Granville All Age, and later Marcia Hylton and Marilyn Sterling were Club Advisors at WKMHS.

Aldoah di glasses mek mi look like di real nerd and a science buff, I was dismal in the sciences; rather I excelled in the arts and humumanities...mi eventually get trained as a legitimate half eediat poppy-show, having studied Theatre Arts at the Jamaica School of Drama. Mad...sick...'ed nuh good.

Graduation - July 1985: If you know me well, you know I lost my mom before I even did Common Entrance Exams in 1980. Much of who I am I owe to my father, Randolph (r), who after retirement from his Public Health position in the 70s ran the school canteen. He was (still is) one of the most strict men I have ever known...and truly feisty with a dry wit. Principled though, and so initially I had to join the line at the canteen (like everybody else)*...I am sure it was Miss Kizzie who eventually told me to come inside the canteen to have lunch...LOL. My sister Velores (l) became my surrogate mother, I guess...and was one of my greatest supporters until her death in 2007. **I wonder, though, if that was my Dad's doing or mine...the sense of fairplay existed in me from way back then.

Playing tourist here in Jamaica...Holland Bamboo Avenue (June 2009)