I remember her personally making the costumes when we were doing the play "Noah." There were a lot of 76ers in that cast. At one rehearsal when we were supposed to make animal sounds, Toad roared. Without missing a beat, she commented that she had never heard a cow roaring before.
Once when we were reading "Far from the Madding Crowd" out loud in class, I was overcome with an uncontrollable bout of laughter when Gabriel Oak was demoted from the head table when Mr. Boldwood stopped by. Ms. Crichton asked me to go outside until I could control myself. That was one of the few times I was sent out of a class.
At the end of my second year at St. Augustine, I met her on the train travelling from Montego Bay to Kingston. In our conversation I mentioned that we always did a play as part of our annual Canada Hall concert. When I got back to Trinidad, I got a letter from her with a copy of her play, "The Cow was Painted Red." We did that play that year, and it was a big hit.
I can only hope to have as big an influence on my students as she had on me.
Thank you Budus for a stirring memory of Jane Crichton. There were a lot of teachers but only a few that made an impact on our lives, certainly my life. Jane is responsible for who I am today . Never thought that you could have made a living in theatre . She approached me in the heights of track season, convinced me to be a part of the drama club , I was casted in the play she was directing and as they say the rest is history. I never looked back since.
Through theatre I never went on an interview for a job, they all landed in my arms miraculously. I thank her for steering me in a direction I had no control over. I thank her for putting up with my tardiness. After Cornwall we worked closely in Theater, directing and acting as colleagues and thespians.
Returning to the island last year I enquired about her and was advised she had returned to England through complications of cancer. My heart sank. If she had one vice it was smoking. It took a hold of her and never let go. Many of us remembered her Lit class, full of fun, information, drama and as Budus says much laughter. She was talented beyond teaching. A true lover of Jamaica, you would have thought she was a born yardie. Jane Crichton will be remembered , like many others , as a teacher that cared for her boys. Despite all of our shenanigans she never gave up on us. I thank my class of 76ers to have done the right thing to let her smell the roses of our thanks while she was alive.
Our reunion is so important, not only for camaraderie, good times and remembrance but more importantly fellowship.A good chunk of our lives we spent together. We have learnt that through fellowship we remain grounded, forgetting our present obligations and responsibilities. So thank you guys - there is no other group I am proud to be with than the 76ers. We joke, we laugh, we cry and we share but more importantly we honor each other's humanity. May this group continue to manifest that Life is nothing more but love, humility and fellowship.
Selah.
Pablo T
The great Shirley Bassey sums it up in this song...Thank you for the Years. Enjoy
76ers , I understand her funeral will be on Jan 11 in Hereford, England after which her ashes will be returned to Jamaica for Remembrance / Tribute at Doctor's Cave in Feb. I am to get the actual date. If anyone has it then feel free to update.
Greetings to you! A Happy New Year to all of you and a Happy Belated Birthday to members of our crew who celebrated birthdays recently.
For many of us the days at Cornwall were some of our best days because we did things we enjoyed, developed great friendships and we learned a lot. One of the reasons we learned a lot was the fact that we had some of the best teachers: men and women who knew their material and knew how to impart knowledge to us. Jane Crichton was one such teacher. She knew English Language and Literature and she was great at keeping her students interested. Whether it was "Nine One-Act Plays" in first form or "Oliver Twist" later, or "Far From The Madding Crowd".in Fifth Form she knew how to get and keep our attention.
Like a number of you that have expressed your thoughts so far, I was positively impacted by her as a teacher and a person. I knew that I wanted to act when, sometime in 2nd Form, I went to see the Drama Club's presentation of "Simple Spymen" featuring Brian McDermott and Michael Cooke. The next year I auditioned for a part in the play "The Cow Was Painted Red" written by one of Cornwall's most dedicated Old Boys, Leo Oakley (o/c Oel Yelkao). Mrs Crichton, the driving force behind the Drama Club, was the director. The play was about two neighbors who had an ongoing dispute and one morning one of them got up to find his cow painted red. The other neighbor was accused of the act and the matter ended up in court. I was given the part of Willie Sleepee, the Clerk of Court who was asleep half of the time during the court proceedings.As we rehearsed for the Western Drama Festival (held at MoBay High) I learned a lot from Ms. Crichton. She demanded excellence but was also compassionate and understanding.
Well at the Festival the play went well and received favorable comments from the drama critic who had come from Kingston to judge the plays from the West.After that I was hooked on Drama for the rest of my CC years.Each of the years after my 3rd form experience I looked forward to the plays that we would be involved in.
My involvement in Drama helped transform me from being shy to being self-confident and from being afraid of public speaking to being very much at home in front of crowds.I owe a debt of gratitude to Ms. Crichton for her role in my growth and transformation.
The positive influence of teachers like Jane Crichton was uppermost in my mind when I went back to teach at Cornwall from 1982 to 1983. I wanted to help students develop their potential as my CC teachers had done for me.
Like a number of you have said, I am happy that she was one of the teachers honored at our 2006 Reunion and I would like to say thanks to the planning committee for their wisdom in having made the recognition of these special individuals such an important part of our gathering.
Larry, do you have any more details on the funeral? A number of Old Boys in NYC are in touch with Old Boys in England and we would like to see who we can get to attend the funeral. By the way, one of the Old Boys in the UK is Ian's brother, Jerome Miles. I don't know how far from Hereford he is.
Does anyone have any address information for the family, so that we can send our thoughts or cards? I think I heard some time ago that her daughter Eleanor was living in the UK.
Gwynydd Jane Price was born at St Thomas Vicarage in Exeter on September 1st 1943 - the first child of the vicar, Philip Price and his wife Emily Price. Having spent their early years in Exeter, the family moved to Jamaica in 1952 when Philip accepted a mission by the church. Jane, the older sister of David and Kate was just 8 at the time.
Jane loved her life in Jamaica - a central and recurring theme in her life was the love of the beach and that was Doctors Cave Beach in Montego Bay. She first learned to swim at the Beach - spent most of her weekends there - grew up and met friends, old and new, all on the soft familiar sands.
She attended St Hilda’s Diocesan School in the cool hills of Browns Town, St Ann as a boarder with her sister Kate. The school’s motto “res severa verum gaudium” - hard work brings true joy took some time to resonate in her life as by all accounts those school days on the hill were spent assiduously avoiding ‘hard work’.
After completing her secondary education at Montego Bay High School for Girls, Jane went away to to study for her degree at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. It was there that she probably developed her huge talent for writing fiction as I recall her oft told tale of the time one of her Geography papers made it into the Resource section of the University’s Library. Having chosen to write a paper on Jamaica’s Cockpit Country - a vast limestone feature in the interior of the island, Jane found to her dismay that there was a dearth of available data making it impossible to complete her task. Undeterred, and many years before the advent of Google, Jane proceed to create the necessary information. Her creative efforts were rewarded with an A, and so impressed was her professor that her paper was submitted to the Library - as a resource for all students to learn from!
On returning to Montego Bay a University Graduate, Jane resumed her life there as a young adult. It was there - and probably at the beach - that Jane fell in love with and married Roy Crichton. The union produced her two children - Jimmy in 1966 and Eleanor in 1967. Jane considered her children to be her two greatest achievements in life, and she was always immensely proud of Jimmy and me.
In the meantime, her long and illustrious career as a teacher of English and Drama began. She was a formidable and feared - and much admired - young teacher whose first job was at Montego Bay’s leading all boys High School - Cornwall College. Jane impressed many young men during her years there - not just because she was a beautiful young woman. She, in the words of one of her students was “a great teacher who exuded discipline without demanding it and who made dedication to task meaningful - a nurturer of both mind and soul”.
Teaching was a passion for Jane - rivalling her passion for the Beach - but never exceeding her passion as a mother, and grandmother. She taught her students more than the love of the written word, more than the ability to express themselves in the spoken language, and more than how to become the character in a play and ‘be’ the part. She gave reluctant young people the confidence and the encouragement they needed to become life-long learners. Many of Jane’s students started careers in the Theatre and many others became teachers themselves. One of her former students said that in his career as a teacher he “could only hope to have as big an influence” on his students as she had on him.
Jane never backed down from a challenge, and she was never afraid to chart new courses in her life.
In April 1980, at the age of 36, her marriage to Roy having broken down, and the social unrest in Jamaica having reached new levels, Jane decided to relocate to the UK with her parents who had retired and were heading home to Devon. After 10 days of sailing across the Atlantic on the final passenger voyage of the Jamaica Producer - a cargo ship better known for transporting bananas, we pulled up at Newport Dock in Wales.
This was the first of several times that Jane ‘started over’. She had a new job teaching at Clayesmore School in Iwerne Minster, Dorset and this brought fresh challenges as she became a House Mother to 65 teenage girls. Jane always seemed to be able to meet her challenges head-on, and even though she had nothing but the clothes on her back when she returned to the UK, through her hard work and determination, she was soon able to buy her own home and after a couple of old bangers - a brand new mini of which she was very proud.
Jane loved life fiercely and passionately - her emotions she would pour into her poetry and writings, as all of us well know. And although she had reconnected with her UK family and had the trappings of a good life, she felt a great longing to be with her children after her mother died in 1994.
Jane returned to Jamaica in 1995 to teach at her alma mater, Montego Bay High School and to resume her love of the Beach and the Theatre. She would be seen most weekend mornings gathering shells on the shoreline, developing her tan, and generally catching up with life with old and new friends alike. Jane picked up new friends like she gathered those beautiful shells and she treasured each one for their unique traits.
Jane was a proud mother and a gloating grandmother. the only thing that could exceed Jane’s passion and pride in her 2 children was her complete devotion as a grandmother. She positively preened when boasting of her 8 grandchildren and proudly showed them off to all and sundry.
Tragedy marred this bliss in Jane’s life when her firstborn Jimmy’s life was snuffed out by a bullet in March 2005. No parent should experience the death of their child - and Jimmy’s passing created a dark void in the souls of my parents - one never recovers from such loss.
But Jane sought and found solace in her writing and was able to make sense of her life through continuing to contribute her talents in the classroom, on stage and through the love of her “little ones”.
In 2010 Jane’s script about Annie Palmer, the notorious White Witch of Rose Hall was brought to life by her protege Douglas Prout in a musical drama that debuted in February of that year in Montego Bay’s Fairfield Theatre - an establishment Jane co-founded in 1975.
The White Witch, literally bought the house down - it was a monumental drama that took Jamaica by force. So much so that at the Jamaica Drama awards ceremony in 2011, it won 13 awards in the 14 categories it was nominated in. Jane was lauded for the Best New Jamaican Play. It was the icing on the cake for Jane and well deserved recognition for all she had done for Jamaican Theatre.
Jane returned to the UK in February 2013 having been diagnosed with cancer and she began the battle of her life. She fought valiantly, enduring several surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation. Through it all Jane had the support of her sister Kate, and her family and Jane had the support and love of her friends - old and new, all of whom made her final year one of joy and laughter, companionship and love.
As her friend David said “we will spend a lifetime counting the footprints she left on the sands of time”.
Jane was very much loved - she gave it and she received it. In the end, she succumbed to her illness with dignity and grace. A life well lived.
Administrator
Submitted by Richard Cooke:
Ms. Crichton will live on in our memories.
I remember her personally making the costumes when we were doing the play "Noah." There were a lot of 76ers in that cast. At one rehearsal when we were supposed to make animal sounds, Toad roared. Without missing a beat, she commented that she had never heard a cow roaring before.
Once when we were reading "Far from the Madding Crowd" out loud in class, I was overcome with an uncontrollable bout of laughter when Gabriel Oak was demoted from the head table when Mr. Boldwood stopped by. Ms. Crichton asked me to go outside until I could control myself. That was one of the few times I was sent out of a class.
At the end of my second year at St. Augustine, I met her on the train travelling from Montego Bay to Kingston. In our conversation I mentioned that we always did a play as part of our annual Canada Hall concert. When I got back to Trinidad, I got a letter from her with a copy of her play, "The Cow was Painted Red." We did that play that year, and it was a big hit.
I can only hope to have as big an influence on my students as she had on me.
May her memory be for a blessing. (???? ?????)
Administrator
Submitted by Paul Tomlinson:
Thank you Budus for a stirring memory of Jane Crichton. There were a lot of teachers but only a few that made an impact on our lives, certainly my life. Jane is responsible for who I am today . Never thought that you could have made a living in theatre . She approached me in the heights of track season, convinced me to be a part of the drama club , I was casted in the play she was directing and as they say the rest is history. I never looked back since.
Administrator
Submitted by Lawrence McNaughton:
76ers , I understand her funeral will be on Jan 11 in Hereford, England after which her ashes will be returned to Jamaica for Remembrance / Tribute at Doctor's Cave in Feb. I am to get the actual date. If anyone has it then feel free to update.
Administrator
Submitted by: Noel Chin
Dear Fellow Cornwallians of the Class of '76:
Administrator
Submitted by Eleanor Crichton
The Life & Times of Jane:
Gwynydd Jane Price was born at St Thomas Vicarage in Exeter on September 1st 1943 - the first child of the vicar, Philip Price and his wife Emily Price. Having spent their early years in Exeter, the family moved to Jamaica in 1952 when Philip accepted a mission by the church. Jane, the older sister of David and Kate was just 8 at the time.
Jane loved her life in Jamaica - a central and recurring theme in her life was the love of the beach and that was Doctors Cave Beach in Montego Bay. She first learned to swim at the Beach - spent most of her weekends there - grew up and met friends, old and new, all on the soft familiar sands.
She attended St Hilda’s Diocesan School in the cool hills of Browns Town, St Ann as a boarder with her sister Kate. The school’s motto “res severa verum gaudium” - hard work brings true joy took some time to resonate in her life as by all accounts those school days on the hill were spent assiduously avoiding ‘hard work’.
After completing her secondary education at Montego Bay High School for Girls, Jane went away to to study for her degree at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. It was there that she probably developed her huge talent for writing fiction as I recall her oft told tale of the time one of her Geography papers made it into the Resource section of the University’s Library. Having chosen to write a paper on Jamaica’s Cockpit Country - a vast limestone feature in the interior of the island, Jane found to her dismay that there was a dearth of available data making it impossible to complete her task. Undeterred, and many years before the advent of Google, Jane proceed to create the necessary information. Her creative efforts were rewarded with an A, and so impressed was her professor that her paper was submitted to the Library - as a resource for all students to learn from!
On returning to Montego Bay a University Graduate, Jane resumed her life there as a young adult. It was there - and probably at the beach - that Jane fell in love with and married Roy Crichton. The union produced her two children - Jimmy in 1966 and Eleanor in 1967. Jane considered her children to be her two greatest achievements in life, and she was always immensely proud of Jimmy and me.
In the meantime, her long and illustrious career as a teacher of English and Drama began. She was a formidable and feared - and much admired - young teacher whose first job was at Montego Bay’s leading all boys High School - Cornwall College. Jane impressed many young men during her years there - not just because she was a beautiful young woman. She, in the words of one of her students was “a great teacher who exuded discipline without demanding it and who made dedication to task meaningful - a nurturer of both mind and soul”.
Teaching was a passion for Jane - rivalling her passion for the Beach - but never exceeding her passion as a mother, and grandmother. She taught her students more than the love of the written word, more than the ability to express themselves in the spoken language, and more than how to become the character in a play and ‘be’ the part. She gave reluctant young people the confidence and the encouragement they needed to become life-long learners. Many of Jane’s students started careers in the Theatre and many others became teachers themselves. One of her former students said that in his career as a teacher he “could only hope to have as big an influence” on his students as she had on him.
Jane never backed down from a challenge, and she was never afraid to chart new courses in her life.
In April 1980, at the age of 36, her marriage to Roy having broken down, and the social unrest in Jamaica having reached new levels, Jane decided to relocate to the UK with her parents who had retired and were heading home to Devon. After 10 days of sailing across the Atlantic on the final passenger voyage of the Jamaica Producer - a cargo ship better known for transporting bananas, we pulled up at Newport Dock in Wales.
This was the first of several times that Jane ‘started over’. She had a new job teaching at Clayesmore School in Iwerne Minster, Dorset and this brought fresh challenges as she became a House Mother to 65 teenage girls. Jane always seemed to be able to meet her challenges head-on, and even though she had nothing but the clothes on her back when she returned to the UK, through her hard work and determination, she was soon able to buy her own home and after a couple of old bangers - a brand new mini of which she was very proud.
Jane loved life fiercely and passionately - her emotions she would pour into her poetry and writings, as all of us well know. And although she had reconnected with her UK family and had the trappings of a good life, she felt a great longing to be with her children after her mother died in 1994.
Jane returned to Jamaica in 1995 to teach at her alma mater, Montego Bay High School and to resume her love of the Beach and the Theatre. She would be seen most weekend mornings gathering shells on the shoreline, developing her tan, and generally catching up with life with old and new friends alike. Jane picked up new friends like she gathered those beautiful shells and she treasured each one for their unique traits.
Jane was a proud mother and a gloating grandmother. the only thing that could exceed Jane’s passion and pride in her 2 children was her complete devotion as a grandmother. She positively preened when boasting of her 8 grandchildren and proudly showed them off to all and sundry.
Tragedy marred this bliss in Jane’s life when her firstborn Jimmy’s life was snuffed out by a bullet in March 2005. No parent should experience the death of their child - and Jimmy’s passing created a dark void in the souls of my parents - one never recovers from such loss.
But Jane sought and found solace in her writing and was able to make sense of her life through continuing to contribute her talents in the classroom, on stage and through the love of her “little ones”.
In 2010 Jane’s script about Annie Palmer, the notorious White Witch of Rose Hall was brought to life by her protege Douglas Prout in a musical drama that debuted in February of that year in Montego Bay’s Fairfield Theatre - an establishment Jane co-founded in 1975.
The White Witch, literally bought the house down - it was a monumental drama that took Jamaica by force. So much so that at the Jamaica Drama awards ceremony in 2011, it won 13 awards in the 14 categories it was nominated in. Jane was lauded for the Best New Jamaican Play. It was the icing on the cake for Jane and well deserved recognition for all she had done for Jamaican Theatre.
Jane returned to the UK in February 2013 having been diagnosed with cancer and she began the battle of her life. She fought valiantly, enduring several surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation. Through it all Jane had the support of her sister Kate, and her family and Jane had the support and love of her friends - old and new, all of whom made her final year one of joy and laughter, companionship and love.
As her friend David said “we will spend a lifetime counting the footprints she left on the sands of time”.
Jane was very much loved - she gave it and she received it. In the end, she succumbed to her illness with dignity and grace. A life well lived.