Cricket/A Gentleman’s game/Massa’s [Master’s] game, historically, is a sport of significant cultural and political value to the people of the Caribbean.
For Jamaicans, it is believed that a duppy will frequently visit their home or the location at which they passed. As a former slave estate and refugee camp, some residents of the Mona Campus consider the site haunted.
In 1957 Duke Pollard submitted a riveting piece to the Pelican Annual in which he heavily criticised the beards of lecturers and undergraduates of the University College of the West Indies. In a grossly disgusted tone, he questions the necessity of a beard and sought to dissuade the practice. Pollard paints pictures of lecturers’ beards resembling the wild – a habitat for animals. His imagination even led him to consider the obtrusiveness of the beard in an intimate setting.
Central to this post is Cliff Lashley’s well detailed criticism of undergraduate females’ dress in 1957. However, his article received a scathing response from a female Irvinite. Many U(C)WI alumni who have participated in the UWI Museum Oral History Legacy Project recall that the red academic gown had many functions, including concealing inappropriate clothing when they had to attend formal dinner, lectures and other public gatherings. Both men and women participated in this practice, especially when they were running late.