A stalwart in Albion

Dave Lindo, Gleaner Writer

ALBION, Manchester:

VERA PAULINE Trowers has contributed immensely to the parish of Manchester and Jamaica at large through 52 years of dedicated service in the education field as a teacher.

Trowers has also been a stalwart in the community of Albion in Manchester, where she has lived all her life. For the people of Albion, she is a mother, a teacher, and a confidante. As a young girl, she attended the Albion Elementary School, where she shone academically.

The 80-year-old, in remembering her early days living in Albion, said that the community was a good one. "The area was very quiet. There were hard-working people. You had respectable people who worked hard for their living, mostly farmers, not like these lazy ones these days," recounted Trowers.

Things were not easy for her in those early days as she was very poor. Her mother and grandmother, with whom she lived, did not have much to give. However, with the ambition to succeed, she pressed on until she became qualified as a teacher.

"I was too poor to think of having a profession, but I was determined to have one. Teaching became the natural thing for me," Trowers explained. "I was the brightest child in the class, whichever class I went to, so you became helpful to the teachers. And then they, too, by involving you, made you copy them somehow. I admired my teachers and wanted to be like them."

Trowers started her journey in the teaching profession as a probation teacher at Albion Elementary in 1954.

Free education

With no money to further her education, she was one of many who benefited from the initiative of Norman Manley to provide free tertiary education. "I had to lift my hat off to Mr Manley when he brought in free education, free college, emergency-teacher training," Trowers said. "They opened Moneague Teachers' College at that time for teachers who had passed some of the teacher's exam outside. So I went to Moneague for a year and got qualified as a teacher afterwards."

Trowers taught at Albion Primary for 26 years and then moved on to Mandeville All-Age, where she completed 44 years teaching at government schools. After retiring from Mandeville All-Age, she did eight more years at the private school, Mount St Joseph Preparatory School, before retiring from the profession.

Looking back at her long career as a teacher, she said she had no regrets. "It was very rewarding and challenging where the children are concerned," she said. "When I went to Mandeville All-Age, I got the rough classes. You meet up some children who come to school under adverse circumstances. Some think that they are rude boys."

She added, "They saw that someone cared for them, and I showed them that they had value and had a place in society."

Anyone who knows Pauline Trowers would know that she is a long-time supporter of the People's National Party who calls Norman Manley her hero and idol.

She has had the privilege of meeting him on various occasions. Commenting on Manley, she said, "As you look at him, you could see that he is a gentleman who carries the progress of his people as his first priority. He showed it in his speech, in his ruling. That is how he did everything - to make the poor man feel that, of course, there is a place in society for you and your children.

Despite being confined to a wheelchair, Trowers goes all over the place. "I go to Denbigh show every year, the horticulture show in Mandeville, and church. I don't let it get me down," she said.