IN THE MINDS of its past pupils, the Girls’ High School is still very much alive. Although the School merged with the Grammar School in 1967 to become the Basseterre High School, the experiences the students had at that School and the standards and culture which moulded them remain with them forever.
Past pupils of the Girls High School meet every year on the Sunday nearest the date of October 16 (the date of the founding of the School in 1929) at a Service to give thanks for their Founder, their exemplary education and to pay tribute to past pupils who have blazed a trail in fulfilling the School’s motto – Ready to Serve. This year they met at the St. George Anglican Church on Sunday October 18th at 8.a.m.
The following is the REMEMBRANCE given by Past Pupil Mrs. Viola Nisbett-Jacobs at the Commemorative Service this year.
“THE ST. KITTS GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL first opened its doors on Wednesday , 16th October, 1929. With the advent of a new system of education in 1967, a merger with the St. Kitts Grammar School saw the birth of the Basseterre High School.
The founder, Miss Miriam Pickard, could never have imagined that 86 years on, former students and staff of the school would still fondly celebrate Founder’s Day with such immense pride. In her memoirs she writes ,“ all I did in those early days was conditioned by my thought of what the school was to become….or so I hoped!!”
What did she do in those early days that impacted the lives of so many people?
Seeds were sown in the young minds that integrity and high ideals of service were just as important as achieving academic success.
The encouragement and reminders to learn all we could as thoroughly as we could, to use both hands and brain and to serve others in any way we could without thought of money were unceasing.
No one would ever forget the morning assemblies. These with the school song have provided lasting memories for us all. The motto READY TO SERVE was indelibly engraved in everyone’s consciousness.
The Lamp Lighting Ceremony every morning was an important tradition which every high school girl remembers with nostalgia. The symbolic lighting of the lamp by a student on behalf of the entire school reinforced the need to be ready to serve others, to always give of our best and to be a light in our community.
Isn’t it amazing that although Miss Pickard was Headmistress for only 24 of the 38 years of the school’s life, successive headmistresses and staff members caught a glimpse of the vision of the founder and maintained the traditions!
Isn’t it amazing that former students of the school, some now ‘feeble of foot and rheumatic of shoulder’, some who never even knew Miss Pickard personally, all share visions of childhood and lingering memories of what it meant to be a GHS student!
Every time we sing the school song and reflect on the lyrics, we recognize that we are an endangered species but one that will not become extinct any time soon.
What an enduring legacy! “
Viola Nisbett-Jacobs
October, 2015
