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Carolyn Chan grew up knowing the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies as her backyard. She considers herself a ‘West Road-ian’, having literally been born at #2 West Road when her father, Wilfred Chan, was in the Chemistry Department of the UWI Mona Campus. But the family also lived for some years at College Common, the other major housing area on the campus, where the Vice-Chancellor, professors, lecturers and senior administrators lived and where their children remember the 1960s and early 1970s as a time of freedom to roam and grow.

Prof Ron Read was best known for his work in mathematics, at the fledgling University of the West Indies (UWI) and at the University of Waterloo in Canada. But the story his daughter Helen told her fellow UWI Mona Campus Kids, reuniting at the UWI Museum recently, was of the time when he spearheaded efforts to develop caving in Jamaica. These efforts led to the establishment of the Jamaica Caving Club and the linked University Caving Club, and to numerous muddy expeditions.
Check out Helen’s presentation, rooted in an unpublished memoir from her father: