Nass­er Khan

At 82 years old and one of T&T's most avid and pro­lif­ic his­to­ri­ans, Fr Michael An­tho­ny de Ver­teuil CSSp, for­mer prin­ci­pal (1978-1992) of his al­ma mater of St Mary's Col­lege in Port-of-Spain, still teach­es at the col­lege, con­ducts tele­vised mass­es at Trin­i­ty TV, and of course, he re­search­es, writes and pro­duces his­tor­i­cal pub­li­ca­tions.

In fact, Fr de Ver­teuil ex­cit­ed­ly talks about his lat­est work (his 38th book, 32 of which are on Trinidad's his­to­ry), ti­tled The Great Eight, about the mag­nif­i­cent hous­es around the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, to be re­leased in May, around his 83rd birth­day.

As I caught up with my for­mer A-lev­el ge­og­ra­phy teacher at Spir­i­tan House on Ox­ford Street, Port-of-Spain (which ad­joins the col­lege), Fr de Ver­teuil showed no signs of let­ting up.

Or­dained as a Ro­man Catholic priest in 1962, he has taught at CIC since re­turn­ing to T&T in 1963. His term at St Mary's was in­ter­rupt­ed briefly from 1966-68 when he served as vice-prin­ci­pal at Fa­ti­ma Col­lege. He re­ceived the T&T na­tion­al award, Hum­ming Bird Gold medal in 1993, and an Hon­orary LLD de­gree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in 2004...both for his work as an ed­u­ca­tor, au­thor/his­to­ri­an and his com­mit­ment to the church and ser­vice to his fel­low hu­man be­ings.

His pub­li­ca­tions in­clude: The Liv­ing Rosary 1968; O-Lev­el French for West In­di­an Stu­dents/1971; Field Stud­ies for O-Lev­el Ge­og­ra­phy Stu­dents/1972; Life Lines�Po­em for Ju­nior Sec­ondary Stu­dents/1972; Chang­ing Re­al­i­ty�A Cat­e­chet­i­cal Book for Form 5/1973; Fac­ing Re­al­i­ty�A Cat­e­chet­i­cal Book for Form 4/1973; Sir Louis de Ver­teuil, his Life and Times/1973; And Then There Were None, a his­to­ry of the Le Cadre Fam­i­ly/ 1974; Trinidad's French Verse 1850-1900/1978; The Years Be­fore, Trinidad 1829-1833/1981; The Sto­ry of Gene Smile and the Gas Sta­tion Rack­et/1981; The Years of Re­volt, Trinidad 1881�1888/1984; Sylvester De­venish and the Irish in 190 cen­tu­ry Trinidad/1986; A His­to­ry of Diego Mar­tin�Be­gor­rat and Brun­ton 1784-1884/1987; Eight East In­di­an Im­mi­grants/1989; Sev­en Slaves and Slav­ery, Trinidad 1777-1838/1992; Sci­en­tif­ic Sor­ties/1993; The Ger­mans in Trinidad/1994; Mar­tyrs and Mur­der­ers/1995; His­to­ry of Surgery in Trinidad/1996; Holy Ghost Fa­thers of Trinidad/1996; The de Ver­teuils of Trinidad/1997; To Find Free­dom/1998; Great Es­tates of Trinidad/2000; Shep­herds of God/2001; West­ern Isles of Trinidad/2002; Tem­ples of Trinidad/2004; The Cor­si­cans in Trinidad/2005; The Mc­Shines of Trinidad/2006; Sylvester De­venish, Trinidad's Po­et/2007; Leon de Gannes, Trinidad's Racon­teur/2008; The Black Earth of South Na­pari­ma/2009; Trinidad's French Lega­cy/2010; Gov­er­nor Grant/2011; Charles Le Cadre/2012; Mur­der Most Foul/2013.

He of­fered some Lenten per­spec­tives for re­flec­tion dur­ing our in­ter­view.

Q: At this post-Car­ni­val Lenten time what mes­sage would you like to give to T&T? What does East­er mean to you?

A: En­joy Lent–ex­pe­ri­ence the hap­pi­ness of get­ting clos­er to God. East­er means "res­ur­rec­tion," putting aside my sins and fail­ures of the past and with the help of Je­sus, be­gin­ning a new life of gen­eros­i­ty, com­pas­sion and joy.

Who were the peo­ple who have in­flu­enced you the most?

My par­ents and my old­er twin broth­er, Er­ic, who all pro­vid­ed in their own spe­cial ways a con­stant in­cen­tive as well as a sense of to­geth­er­ness.

What does it mean to be Catholic?

A fol­low­er of Christ, a mem­ber of a church com­mu­ni­ty which is open to all and fol­lows the suc­ces­sor of St Pe­ter.

What are your es­sen­tial du­ties as a priest?

My opin­ion of my es­sen­tial du­ties was re­flect­ed in the com­mem­o­ra­tive card I had print­ed for my priest­ly or­di­na­tion: At the back: 'Every priest tak­en from among men is or­dained to serve men in the things that ap­per­tain to God.'

At the front: A pic­ture of a priest cel­e­brat­ing mass–and be­low: 'Pu­ri­fy my heart and my lips O Lord that I may worthi­ly an­nounce the gospel.'

Tell us about your in­spi­ra­tion to join the priest­hood...at what age did you have your call­ing?

I stayed an ex­tra year at St Mary's to study A-Lev­el Sci­ence in view of en­ter­ing Ban­gor Uni­ver­si­ty, Wales, to do a de­gree in Forestry and dur­ing the course of that year, I be­came con­vinced–af­ter much prayer and de­lib­er­a­tion–that God want­ed me to be a priest in the Holy Ghost Fa­thers. I left the next year for the Novi­tiate in Que­bec, Cana­da. I was then 20 years old and work­ing with an ac­count­ing firm.

What ad­vice would you give to a young man who is won­der­ing about a vo­ca­tion such as yours?

Make sure that in your life you are serv­ing oth­ers and be­com­ing less self-cen­tred. Pray about it and con­sult a priest about it. Re­mem­ber that no one is re­al­ly wor­thy to be called to the priest­hood, so don't let your weak­ness hold you back.

Where were you born and where did you grow up?

From age ten months to 20 years I spent all my life in Trinidad. I was born in Lon­don where my fa­ther, a doc­tor, was do­ing a post­grad­u­ate de­gree. My moth­er was then aged 46 and in poor health and

was di­ag­nosed with a tu­mour of the womb, which lat­er turned out to be twins! (Two more not tu­mour, ac­cord­ing to my broth­er Er­ic). Thank God, as a good Catholic she re­fused the doc­tor's ad­vice to have an abor­tion!

What ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions did you at­tend?

I was home schooled and then spent 11 years at St Mary's Col­lege from prep to Up­per Six; Novi­tiate of the Holy Ghost Fa­thers, Lac-au-Saumon, Que­bec, Cana­da; Kim­mage Manor Scholas­ti­cate, Dublin, Ire­land; Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege, Dublin, Ire­land.

Teach­ing at St Mary's Col­lege...

I taught A-Lev­el Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture, his­to­ry, ge­og­ra­phy and re­li­gion. Still teach Up­per and Low­er Six re­li­gion. At St Mary's I was in­volved in play­ing and coach­ing hock­ey and ten­nis for the col­lege, or­gan­is­ing camps, field trips and re­treats, con­certs, wrote and pro­duced three 'Mod­i­fi­ca­tions' of Gilbert and Sul­li­van Op­erettas. At one time or an­oth­er was dean of Form Four, Five, Six, and games mas­ter. Oh, and prin­ci­pal from 1978-1992.

Re­search and writ­ing of books re­lat­ed to T&T's his­to­ry...which was the most chal­leng­ing and which was the most sat­is­fy­ing?

I have now com­plet­ed 32 books on Trinidad's his­to­ry. The most chal­leng­ing was Sev­en Slaves and Slav­ery, Trinidad–1777-1838, be­cause noth­ing sub­stan­tial had been writ­ten about slav­ery in Trinidad and there was a great deal of prej­u­dice and at­tribut­ing to Trinidad, the treat­ment that was met­ed out to slaves in the oth­er is­lands–and this even at uni­ver­si­ty lev­el. The most sat­is­fy­ing book (which will be pub­lished this May) was The Great Eight about the mag­nif­i­cent hous­es around the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah and the life and psy­chol­o­gy of their own­ers as re­flect­ed in these build­ings.

What is your great­est fear in life?

That some­thing I did or didn't do may cause dis­cour­age­ment to oth­ers or lead them astray.

What would you say is your great­est virtue?

Keep­ing cool.

What dai­ly mot­to do you live by?

God is good.

De­scribe your­self in two words–one be­gin­ning with A, the oth­er with D?

Ac­tu­al­ly, Nass­er, my twin broth­er, Er­ic, al­ways re­minds me that my full name is Michael An­tho­ny De Ver­teuil, so my ini­tials are re­al­ly MAD, which I'm sure he would say is the ap­pro­pri­ate an­swer (laugh­ing).