The General Wingate Secondary School, a prestigious high school (now a technical and vocational school) was named after British Field Commander, Colonel Ordre Wingate. The school, located in Kolfe- Keranyo district of Addis Ababa, represented a beacon of tradition and excellence in the early history of the Ethiopian education. The school has such an impact on generation of students and one of the alumni, veteran journalist Mairegu Bezabih reminiscences about his time there.
They say family and school are the two most important milieu in which a person’s individuality, personality and character are formed, shaped and even developed. The family teaches us the secrets of love and attachment, fraternisation, companionship and human interdependence. We build on these tenets and social values and add our new and formally acquired knowledge to achieve what is called formal education at school. In other words schools give us formalised and disciplined education while life extends its generous and infinite source of wisdom informally throughout our tenure of existence.
But some schools are more than just educational institutions. They teach their pupils a lot more than is generally expected of them. The General Wingate Secondary School, in my days (1954-1957), was one such institution. Academically, Wingate in those days was rather elitist-a kind of Easton of Ethiopia. Only the best and the youngest of the country’s elementary school-leavers (boys only of course) were accepted into that institution. The teachers were selected in the United Kingdom and here in Ethiopia from among those who were the best in their respective areas of specialization. The headmasters were chosen from the most experienced school administrators in England and elsewhere in UK. We had to study such well-structured and planned subjects that were given in the few secondary schools in Ethiopia those days-namely history, geography, biology, chemistry, physics, arithmetic, algebra and geometry. As far as languages concerned, we were trained in Amharic, English, and French. We also learnt with the seriousness, physical education and moral or what was then known as gibregebnet.
We knew very well then that our business of being at school was primarily and solely to learn, study and achieve. We knew, as early as then, that the key to success was to be second to none in this competitive world.
Schools in Ethiopia those days were well planned, very well organised, well financed and well administrated. Of course they were very few in number and student enrolment both at the secondary and even elementary level was very low compared to what they are now for obvious reasons. But the standard of education of those privileged few was by any international standard quite high and sound, I would think.
When I joined Wingate in September of 1954, a change had already been introduced in that school. It was not to the liking of everybody except us the new comers. The duration of study at the school, which was five years before, had been reduced to four and we the lucky, or unlucky (I still do not know which) ones had joined our one year seniors in the 9th grade. Those who were at school one year ahead of us had done their prep-one year preparatory coaching for secondary education. And obviously they were “more Wingate” than we were as Mr. Heyring the headmaster of the school, would have put it. One must frankly say that we, the fresh entries, were not at ease with our one year senior class-mates for some time at least. Slowly but surely the gap began to narrow from the 10th grade onwards. In the subsequent grades one almost forgot that the difference existed.
Many of us from Wingate cherish many different memories about the school, the teachers, the staff, the important and interesting personalities that visited the school during our sojourn. We also cherish the amicable and sometimes unfriendly relations, we experienced with each other. These memories whether happy or sad are experiences we commonly shared. Those of us who were in the school during my days in Wingate recall the tragic week when the school was hit by a meningitis epidemic which killed one of our beloved school mate, Desalegne Angelo and left our institution In utter fear and terror.
The Wingate School for me was more than just an educational institution. My years in Wingate were the most formative years in my life. It was in Wingate that I learnt about the history of this great country, Ethiopia, about our great emperors such as Tewdros, Yohannes, Menelik and Haile Selassie. These are the heroes who have kept this nation united and independent in the face of all the internal and external dangers that threatened its existence for ages. It was also in that school that I learnt about peoples, countries, civilizations, and other major international, historical events which in some way or another had influence on my life and career. It was in the General Wingate School that I, for the first time, met the English man (traditionally thought of in Ethiopia as shrewd and cunning) and spoke to him in his own language. And it was in that school that I thought I proved to myself that I can talk to the English man in his own language and that he can understand me like he would understand his fellow Englishman. Long live naivety! I say now when I look back on my early days in Wingate.
They say a school is where a student develops the appetite for insatiable knowledge. Indeed that is what happened to me then. It was in Wingate I learnt that the basis of all knowledge and education is reading. It was there that I opened up myself to books, to literature, to poetry, to drama, to history- branches of knowledge which to this day I cherish every dearly because they help me understand my raison d’être in this world and brighten up my life.
My most vivid memories of my days in Wingate relate to people and ideas-people who influenced my life and ideas that became part of me in life to this day. I could not forget, for instance, how Mr. Michael Halsted, our English literature teacher, reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, used to make us feel and live as contemporaries of ancient Romans. As he made me recite the words of Caesar in class, I remember how I felt being a Caesar myself. I remember too how sentimentality we all talked about the other works of Shakespeare-Twelfth Night, Mid-Summer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, As You It, The Tempest, etc and how we used to share our admiration for the greatest classical writers of all the times. Halsted was a highly disciplined and very kind Scotsman who wanted to teach us be wholesome persons-good in education, and rich on goodness, ethics, human culture and morality. He would spend hours talking to us about the universal philosophy of education, about the history of human civilization and the contribution of literature to international understanding and human communication. He would take us to his home to demonstrate us the essence of modern living such as table manners by inviting us to dine with him and his kind and gentle wife. He would strike an interesting topic for a conversation over tea or coffee and most of us would order coffee with milk- a kind of homemade “café latte”.
Another equally illustrious teacher who had left a great impact and influence on my life is Kifle Worku, one of our Amharic language teachers. Gash Kifle, as I always called him until he was shot dead by unidentified gunman during the Derg days (when he was himself a vice-minister of that regime,) came to Wingate himself a young graduate of a teacher’s training school. His love for Amharic literature and language was so immense that his lectures were simply fascinating and had hypnotising effect. His teaching periods flew like pleasurable dreams. Kifle Worku, to me, was the great teacher who convinced me of the great power of the Amharic language and who instilled in me tremendous love for Amharic literature, poetry, prose and drama. It is the influence of teachers like Kifle Worku who have made us embark on a search pf self-identity into what is an Ethiopian. I only wish today that energetic and balanced scholars and intellectuals like the late Kifle Worku would emerge in the scene to study and teach us about the beauty and literary power of all the different languages that make up this wonderful country, instead of preaching malice and hatred among the various ethnic groups.
My memories of incidents, events, and indeed of people are too many that only a sizable book would have done them justice. Because of the time and space constraint, I shall limit myself to this brief note. But I shall terribly remiss in my reminiscence if I were not to say something about Mr. Heyring and Mr. Marshall both of whom, I am more than sad to say, have passed away. Heyring and Marshal were two personalities, at least outwardly, of completely different temperament and disposition. The former was disciplined, quiet and authoritarian as should be a man of his military background while the latter was extremely sociable, courteous, affable and even friendly not only to his colleagues but even to his students. But what is worth nothing is that the two together symbolised in the school what life was all about-a combination of suavity and discipline.
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A BIG thanks and well done (as the “Englishman” would say 🙂 ) Ato M. Bezabih. You will not know me as I joined Wingate 14 yrs. later after you. Reading your article memories of the past, indeed at Wingate and elsewhere in my beloved country, as any young ambitious and open-minded person at the time, overwhelm me and I must add joyfully.
We were the few luckiest ones, we had the best of education the fun and adventure our Alma Mater could offer. During the long 4 yrs. we grew and matured made friends and enemies in ideas and in person, inside and outside, there was no way to escape that,…we had not just to debate but to fight out our ways developing into what became of us at I would say the most critical moments of Ethiopian history – the mid-70s.
There was no way to escape and WINGATE had the lion’s share why. I can live it through at this moment as I sit at my desk and write these words. I can only say together with Pushkin “Welcome bad memories, after all you are my lost youth.”
Were we worth of Wingate? A biting question perhaps, some of us may say, for me sure.
Sincerely I salute you Gashe!
One gets an unwarranted impression routinely this days that Winget was an elite school like Dulwich, Eton, St. Paul and Westminster, as some non-paying students foremost the late Legasse Zenawi boisterously claim. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t essential to enter this citadel to have a high order of the mind, per se. While it was true the British instructors almost all were products of Cambridge/Oxford University since the earliest days dating in the zesty 1940s from Professor Victor Louis Minage to Mr. Stephen Graham Wright. Far from it, Winget was just like Medhane Alem and Menelik secondary schools where the headmasters and the teachers were the same nationality until the late1960s. Name like G.C. Last and his wife, Margret, and Graham Tayer were names associated to Medhane Alem. By the same token, the late Robby Raven Roberts as Headmaster was almost synonymous with both MenelikII secondary school (where also Martin Ainley, the son of Sir John Ainley, Chief Justice of Kenya thought Shakespeare) and Prince Makonnen school in that old malodorous Merkato.
Sadly, following the Neway brothers’ coup of 1960, all boarding schools were abolished except Winget and Kotebe. Boarding Students from Tefferi Makonnen and some other schools where carted off to Winget and Haile Selassie II (Kotebe). In his book, Mr. Peter G. Lloyd of Balliol, Oxford stated that Winget became subsidized by British Council to defray some of the expenses for non-fee paying scholars where he arranged with the late Mr. John Royds, who was one of the most popular and respected headmaster. It was also at this point that Winget became a de facto crammer school for Haile Selassie I university entrance exam (ESLC) until it was closed by the Derg for the good of the country. There was an episode some times in 1968 where in Ian Smith of Rhodesia hanged three black political prisoners unjustifiably. There was a frisson of outrage by high school students all over Addis Ababa except some timid Winget scholars who barracked in the cavernous hall until they were forced by the courageous history teacher Patrick Gilkes. Such was the life of General Winget school that produced people at one time like: dejeazmatch Kassa Woldemariam, Dr. Kassi Tesfai, Bealu Girma, Eshetu Chole, Adnew Cairo, Tadesse and his brother Belete Mullenehe, Alemu Haile (the linguist genius) people with first-class mind who played a crucial role in various waysfor their beloved country, Ethiopia. Cheers.
Thanks to Tplf/Meles, Patrick Gilkes ended up becoming Adviser, Strategic Planning at our country’s Foreign Ministry making obscene salary and benefits.
This reminds one that colonel Mengestou Hailemariam, how he deeply resented the stratospheric salaries and college degree bonus that was being paid to the graduates of Haile Selassie I Military Academy officers after years of rigorous military training and education. In his inferiority-minded polemic Mengestou as an officer with barly elementary school education and on what seemed to be based on crash training for less than a year from Holetta military Barrack, he demanded unashamedly General Haile Baikdagene (whom became shortly a casualty during Mengestou’s killing sprees) to adjust this ‘unequal” payment between officers of different caliber and range of mind. Well the thing is Ethiopia has been using expatriates dating back from Atse Menelik II times- a renaissance man to be envied timelessly for his belief and large vision. Emperor Haile Selassie like Menileik II, also used Mr. John Spencer as adviser before and after the Italian invasion. And Meles whose leadership was sponsored from the height of Washington DC used Mr. Gilkes as an advisor like the previous kings before him.
Now the salient question here is this: are there Ethiopians who are well qualified to be an adviser as Mr. Patrick Gilkes? The answer is of course the resounding “No” One shouldn’t be too small minded to give credit where it is due to people with whom one has political differences. As a young man from Balliol college, Oxford, Gilkes came to teach Winget high school for a while before he joined Haile Selassie I University until he was deported for vile political reasons in the early 1970s. He was a popular, well respected teacher for his voracious intellect and constantly in demand by colleagues and students at large.
Back in UK, he did advanced degree in St. Johns College, Cambridge; the rest as they say is history. He became an expert, par excellence on the Horn of Africa, which eventually landed him a plush job in BBC World Service. It was against this back drop, where Gilkes mesmerized the listeners with his accurate nuanced political analysis and sound knowledge of East African countries with endless political squabbles and wars. Most Ethiopians are also annoyingly wrongheaded that Gilkes never thought Meles in Winget. As a matter of fact, by the time Meles was admitted in 1968, Gilkes resumed his teaching position in the University. Meles, who had a sense of power structure unlike his political oppents could not simply relied on his kinsman Seyoum nor the Gurage intellectual Dr. Tekeda Alemu to advise him on a convoluted international affairs and diplomacy. That is why Meles chosed this English distinguished scholar with unimpeachable integrity as his advisor in the same way he dealt with Professor Andreas Eshete, a man of great intellectual power
Dear Mr. Paulos,
You may be mixed up on the issue of hiring expert advise(r) v. utilizing local trained manpower. Americans hire experts from other nations as do Ethiopians. Nothing new there. John Spencer advised until the late 1940s. Italian Fascists had massacred Ethiopian intellectuals creating shortages for area specialists. A new crop of Ethiopians such as Ketema Yifru, Aklilu Habtewold, etc led the way in ably guiding Ethiopia following WWII.
Your statement that a/ “Mengestou as an officer with barly (sic) elementary school education” is misinformed. Comparing “unequal pay” locally (which was real, incidentally) with those for expat Gilkes is like comparing apples with oranges. Your conclusion that “there are (sic) no Ethiopians who are (sic) well qualified to be an adviser as Mr. Patrick Gilkes” is uninformed and wrong. It is true Meles was a clever fellow with “a sense of power structure” (whatever that means). What you skipped to note is that Meles looked for compliance/loyalty and was eternally suspicious of non-Tigrayans and independent minded individuals (hence why Tigrayans held key appointments). Meles would not bring in competent Ethiopians to handle/argue Ethio-Eritrea border case at The Hague. And you know what the outcome was.
Action speaks louder than words. Meles also utilized a Mercer from Open University (operating out of British Embassy in Addis) to award himself and his comrades much needed diplomas. The result was of course enormous cost to the country for failing to utilize native manpower on political/ethnic grounds. When you get time please browse Ethiopians running international organizations, think-tanks, and businesses.
Obbo Alem
Dear Mr. Alem
Your purple prose reads like a tabloid hit piece. More seriously I resent your assumption of authority over my opinion I am shatteringly “uninformed and wrong”. This in and by itself does not surprise me since it is not impelled by scholarly determination. Well, it is understandable that for some people reaching an instant conclusion is a mental exercise they have ever done. What I cannot stand is the constant chronic name-dropping, the intellectual pretension and national chauvinism of Ethiopians. One should always take pain to be accurate before expressing one’s inane opinion in any subject. You just don’t have a frame of reference – you simply flailing in the dark without logic what so ever. For example, what does Rodolfo Graziani’s have to do with what is going with current “intellectual” foray of Ethiopians? Here, I think context matters.
As for the Mr. John Spencer, one doesn’t talk about what one does not read. I am well acquainted with his book; Ethiopia At Bay: A Personal Account of The Haile Selassie Years as I am with The Dying Lion by Gilkes. Both are excellent books. I Spencer off-handedly decades ago (a great fan of Virgil himself) personally whom he admired among the Ethiopians he worked closely in Ethiopia. To my inquiry, he answered tersely, “Tseafe Tezaze Wolde Georgis Wold-Yohanes and Colonel Goshue Wolde whose expansive mind, intellectual power and strength of character he revered most. I hope the patricians should not strangle me for saying this. I wish people give credit where it is due rather than condemned out of malice and jealousy based on their ethnicity. I think this what envenomed the atmosphere in Ethiopia.