When the going gets tough, the tough get going, and so it was for Rev. Joseph Manchester who, 40 years ago, was challenged to start a school from scratch in his native St. Kitts.

At the time he was happily teaching science to sixth form students at the then-St. Kitts-Nevis Grammar School (now the Basterre High School), and had also completed his research on adolescent psychology preparatory to taking his Master’s degree in the subject.

The Government said it wanted to build a new, post-primary school at rural Sandy Point, the island’s second town; but the Leader of the Opposition, who was Mr. Manchester’s nephew, challenged the Government to build a secondary school instead.

Perhaps with the idea of setting Mr. Manchester up to fail for political reasons, both the Permanent Secretary and Minister of Education, who were his colleagues at the grammar school, decided Mr. Manchester was the “ideal” person to establish the island’s first high school. He, however, preferred to continue teaching physics and science, but in the end, as a civil servant, the choice boiled down to: “Accept the challenge or lose your job.” So, Mr. Manchester accepted the challenge.

And what a challenge it proved to be. The obstacles he faced included the designated buildings being unconnected, sprawling, and not designed for use as a school; Government’s provision of untrained, inexperienced teachers, and also a decree that the students must buy their text books. There was no playing field — just an unkempt area strewn with rocks and pebbles.

When no furniture had arrived by opening day, Mr. Manchester made good his promise to send the children home until it did. Four years later there was still no telephone.

In terms of student intake, the new principal was faced with sorting out the academic pathway for 453 children of disparate abilities: some were enumerate, illiterate and had poor skills, while the older students had to do their ‘O’ levels.

There was only one way forward: To set out a five-year plan, and build the high school up year by year, which Mr. Manchester did.

In addition to his academic master plan, the list of innovative measures grew. Students were required to wear uniforms and conform to a code of discipline, and their help was also enlisted to create a playing field and pathways.

“The children picked up all of the pebbles and stones, and then brought grass to school and planted it, while the manager of a nearby estate kindly volunteered to regularly mow the grass for us,” now-Rev. Manchester says.

He also obtained trees from the Government’s Agricultural Department to landscape the area. Today, a huge rubber tree attests to the success of that reclamation project. The students happily collected seashells from the adjacent shoreline to help create pathways.

Since the school was in a relatively poor area, the local bookshop agreed to let the students buy their books on an instalment plan — a move of which the education authorities disapproved.

“Mr. Manchester must not be allowed to use his own initiative, children must buy their books,” they ruled.

Undaunted by the endless series of obstacles, however, the principal pressed on with his goal of creating a bona fide high school.

Academically, students were no longer allowed to pointlessly repeat a previous term’s work. Instead, they had to learn to catch the vision of what a high school was all about and continually tackle new work.

“We had a holistic approach to all aspects of education, not just intellectually,” Rev. Manchester says.

He ended the Sports Day tradition of gender-segregated pursuits. Henceforth, girls and boys would compete equally in the same sports, with trophies awarded for individual, team and house performances.

The approach to miscreants was also new. Despite protests from the teachers, and in the interests of fairness, the principal insisted that he would also hear the students’ version of events in order to give them “a true sense of values through discipline and good behaviour”.

“As a result of that policy, we didn’t have many problems. I was known to be fair but firm,” Rev. Manchester says. “Values are caught, not taught.”

Indeed, on the 25th anniversary of the Sandy Point High School’s founding a former student recalled that, under the first principal’s aegis, the students felt for the first time that someone truly cared about them and their wellbeing, as a result of which they genuinely felt badly if they let him down.

So the lessons of values had borne fruit — an important factor in St. Kitts, where education is a means of social mobility.

The new high school became an impressive model for success — so much so that Mr. Manchester was asked to move on and create another Government school. Instead, thanks to his wife’s cousin, the late Dr. Bertram Ross, he moved to Bermuda to teach science to third, fourth and fifth-year students at Berkeley Institute.

Again, the same principles of order, discipline, good study methods and responsibility for one’s actions applied.

‘Firm but fair’ was still his style, and students were encouraged to be organised and independent.

Potential cheaters were warned they were not hurting their teacher but themselves, and would be in serious trouble in the working world if the lesson was not learned.

As with all memorable teachers, former Berkeley students and their parents still come up to Rev. Manchester today to thank him for the academic and life lessons he taught them.

“I didn’t realise the impact I had on the discipline at Berkeley, and the difference I made in the lives of children,” the ex-science teacher says modestly.

While teaching at Berkeley, Rev. Manchester was also a lay preacher at Wesley Methodist Church, filling in twice for extended periods following the sudden death of the incumbent minister.

Later, having left Berkeley Institute at its assistant principal, he moved to Canada to become a lay supply minister with the United Church of Canada, before entering the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax, Nova Scotia and becoming a full-time minister.

Now officially retired, Rev. Manchester has twice returned to Bermuda to fill in: once at Wesley, and currently at Emmanuel Methodist Church in Southampton.

Nevertheless, the man who founded the first high school and changed the face of secondary education in St. Kitts has never been forgotten, which is he was recently invited to return home as the guest of honour and one of the speakers at celebrations marking Sandy Point High School’s 40th anniversary.

Today, plaques commemorating Rev. Manchester’s services as a “pioneer administrator and excellent educator” are tangible reminders of the days when he struggled against seemingly impossible odds and won.

“The school is a lot bigger now, but the standards are still very high,” Rev. Manchester says.

“It is doing really well, and has over 700 students. In fact, I understand children are coming from all over St. Kitts to attend, to the extent that are having to curtail that.

“Some of the children I taught now have their children attending. When you start something like that and leave it in its infancy, you don’t want it to be aborted, so I am very pleased to see it succeed. We really were pioneers.”

As with every life change he has made, while the former educator enjoyed revisiting the school he founded, he was not overcome with nostalgia upon his return.

“I have learned in my life that I have a role to play, and that is to build and move on, and let someone else take the ball and carry it.

“My purpose was served. It was an experience for me to know that I had not been forgotten after 40 years.

“As I reflect on what was accomplished at the Sandy Point High School, what has been achieved is due to the guidance and inspiration of Almighty God, the commitment of dedicated teachers, and the co-operation of children and their parents.

“Once the vision was caught, the school was assured of a firm foundation.”