Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Professor Mervyn Morris surveys one of the bookshelves in his home. - PhotoS by Mel Cooke

WE CLOSE our 'Honourable Homes' series with Professor Mervyn Morris, OM. We began in December with Louise Bennett-Coverley's former home in Gordon Town, St Andrew, and have been into the Blue Mountains (Norman Manley), swung by Tucker Avenue, St Andrew (Alexander Bustamante), went east to Stony Gut, St Thomas (Paul Bogle), visited St Ann's Bay (Marcus Garvey) and Nine Miles, St Ann (Bob Marley). We close in St Andrew, where we take a look at three places where Professor Morris has lived, Munro College in St Elizabeth, on Chancellor Hall at the then UCWI, Mona, and Oxford, England, through the books he read at those stages of his life.

Mervyn Morris attended boarding school Munro College, the 'city set upon a hill' in St Elizabeth. Naturally, he had started reading extensively before, accessing books at the Junior Centre of Half-Way Tree Road, St Andrew, while he was a student at what is now Half-Way Tree Primary School (Then Half-Way Tree Elementary).

"At Munro and the University College of the West Indies (UCWI) I read a lot of short stories," Morris told The Sunday Gleaner. One of those writers was O. Henry, who Morris says is "not one I am particularly fond of now".

drawn to wit

"I am drawn to wit - wit and humour and at Munro we had, by Jamaican standards, an outstanding library, which included British weekend magazines," Morris said. Those included Punch and the New Statesman. Morris found writers to be "sorts of masters of plain style and satire with wit - but wit of a kind that did not keep nudging you and saying 'look at me, look at me'. The kind of wit you would read and not realise the implication of what I was saying".

Morris says that "about the same time, I was reading a lot of light verse, which I enjoyed". He rolls out a line from Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat, following with Lewis Carroll, best known for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. It was the verse within the books which enthralled Morris, who memorised some of the pieces, and he reels out a part of You are old, Father William:

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak

For anything tougher than suet;

Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -

Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,

And argued each case with my wife;

And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,

Has lasted the rest of my life."

Morris said he read a lot of non-fiction writing, as much for style and personality as information.

standing essayist

So he says J.B. Priestley, then on the verge of going out of fashion, was a playwright, but also an outstanding essayist. His writing was "very much plain style", Morris said, adding that he read a lot from a Penguin collection of Priestley's selected essays. "I always remember an essay of his called Too Simple?" Morris said. In that essay, Priestley was speaking to a younger man who questioned the simplicity of the writing. Priestley replied that he had spent a great many hours trying to make sure that it was not too difficult.

At Munro, Morris also read 'The Saint' books by Leslie Charteris and Norman Conquest thrillers. The Junior Centre period, where "I read whatever I could get there", saw Morris delving into the Hardy Boys series.

Morris was in Farquaharson house when he boarded at Munro, returning to be housemaster of Calder. When The Sunday Gleaner asks if he enjoyed his time at Munro Morris said "yes - but I am ambivalent about it. I survived. I was good at games and this helped. But I still have some quite vivid memories of things that were really quite horrible".

That included bullying and Morris says "there were some really awful people. I observed some of this. Suffered it a little at one stage when there was one boy, older than me, in the same house, who took a set on me at one stage - awful fellow. Not really good at anything, but rich. I think he had a big tuck box".

However, Morris, who played field hockey and tennis, says that because he was good at games he was not physically bullied at any point. There is, however, "an ugly sixth form memory - a somewhat weak sixth former being persecuted by another sixth former. It was particularly difficult to watch this. I was not big enough and strong enough to punch him out".

Morris says his short answer is, "I enjoyed Munro. My memories are good memories of staff - even ones I did not think were good teachers".