Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Mervyn Morris went to the University College of the West Indies (UCWI) at 17 years old, some six months shy of his 18th birthday. He had done some acting at Munro and started at UCWI as well, but did only one play as it was too time-consuming. "I was serious about my sports," Morris told The Sunday Gleaner. He played tennis and field hockey as well as cricket at Munro, where he was a wicketkeeper/batsman. Morris says he was not bad with the bat was not a good wicketkeeper, doing well enough with fast-bowling but "very poor at reading slow-bowling".

He lived on Block A, Chancellor Hall, moving on at the same time as P.J. Patterson, who would later move to Block D. Morris did English, History and French, doing best at the first. "I liked English, but especially studying the metaphysical poets," Morris said. These included John Donne, Andrew Marvell and George Herbert.

He says that he did some Shakespeare as well, but "actually Shakespeare was not well taught on campus".

Through his courses, Morris got interested in reading essays for fun and got into Charles Lamb's Essays of Elia. He also ventured into English letter writers, especially from the 18th century, saying they were full of gossip and wit. He was also reading books about essays and writing, one making it clear that 'easy reading is difficult writing'. Morris points out that what seems easy is often the result of an effort to make sure that the writing is not more difficult than necessary.

West Indian novel

It was at UCWI that Morris made his first contact with the West Indian novel, through John Hearne's Voices Under the Window, which he read for pleasure. It was originally published in 1955 and Morris retrieved his hardcover edition from his bookshelf.

He had been exposed to West Indian and, specifically, Jamaican writing previously, with Louise Bennett's work being read at home.

Mervyn Morris was an undergraduate at the UCWI from 1954 - 1957 and says "yes!" emphatically when The Sunday Gleaner asked if he had enjoyed his time there. In later years, he presented a paper titled 'The Good Undergraduate Life', in which he said something he knew would be unpopular.

"I think it was certainly more civilised," Morris said. "Ragging did not exist when I was there. People simply wanted to know what you were interested in and could do. It was a different time." The university population was much smaller and "nobody was likely to be working hard and failing. You failed only if you were very, very idle".

middle class

"The whole ethos was very middle class. We had formal dinner and that sort of thing," Morris said, the undergraduates taking turns at serving. The whole place was very friendly. Everybody knew everybody." At that time, Professor Edward Baugh was on Taylor Hall.

Morris played lawn tennis for Jamaica in 1956 and was part of the Brandon Trophy-winning team with Andrew Schofield and Peter Phillips. From the UCWI, he went to Oxford, England.

He was back at UWI in a different capacity in October 1968 and, as warden of Taylor Hall, has a particular take on what became known as the Walter Rodney riots of October 1968. "At that time, I was quite close to student life, as an observer of what was going on. I am quite convinced that the government and the security forces thought they had good reason to believe that that there would be an attempt to take over the peaceful protests of the students. That is why they acted as firmly as they did," Morris said.

"When they came back and I spoke with some people, there were reports of people breaking glass storefronts and not stopping to loot. And there were also stories of red gowns in parts of Kingston that did not have anything to do with students."