Welcome
to St. Stanislaus College
Awarded in Memory of a
distinguished Alumnus
Dr. Frederick Ignatius Campayne,
1939 – 2012
Dr. Frederick
Campayne, known to all as Freddie, was born in Georgetown, British Guiana on
Wednesday, October 4, 1939, being the second son of James and Ora Campayne.
Frederick went unexpectedly to the Lord on Monday,
October 8, 2012 in Trinidad.
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A tale of two (or a few) Saints
Alumni
By John Sparrock
1951-1958:
St.Stanislaus College
In
1951, Freddie entered St. Stanislaus College Form 2A on a Government
Scholarship while I was languishing comfortably in Form 3A where Gary Blank and
Cosmas Searwar were blazing a hot academic trail. Sometime between ’53 and ’55,
word got around of a fierce academic rivalry between Freddie and Leyland Grant
who were battling neck and neck for the top academic spot in their class.
Freddie’s performance in the Quiz Kids quickly earned him the
title of “Black Diamond”, and in the 1953 Saints Magazine, Freddie wrote a
piece entitled “A Year with the Quiz Kids” where he said: “It is a year in which I was made to be more conscious of what was
happening in the world, and to be more interested in what I read”.
What was happening in our corner of the world was that Saints
was competing with QC for Guiana Scholarships. In 1955, Jerome DeFreitas won,
with Carlyle Moore and Kenneth Khan tied as runners-up. All three did A-level
Latin, Pure Maths, Applied Maths, with “JC” DeFreitas securing a distinction in
Applied Maths and Carlyle and Ken in Pure Maths. Prior to that, Vibert Lampkin,
while on the teaching staff, came close to winning the 1952 Guiana Scholarship
securing top marks in Latin, and was only 1 mark behind the winner in Pure
Maths.
Clearly, the teaching staff at Saints was aware of another pair
of Guiana scholars in Freddie and Leyland. Meanwhile, I was beginning to find
my feet in football (soccer).
When I started 6th Form in 1955, Saints began
offering A-Level Physics. Included in this pioneering group were Michael
Camacho, John Choy, Steve DeCastro, Leonard Khan, Cosmas Searwar and myself. An
English ex-pat (Mr. Bowron?) joined the staff to handle the 6th form
Physics, but left abruptly thus forcing Fr. Feeny to take over. To his credit,
Fr. Feeney was able to keep one step ahead of the class, and I remember a
number of occasions when he asked me to go to the board to work out Physics
problems. Between Fr. Feeney (Physics) and Fr. Lynch (Pure Maths and Applied
Maths) I finally found my stride.
At the end of my 1st year in 6th Form, I
sat A-Levels Maths and secured a distinction in Pure Maths. One year later
(1957), Freddie did likewise and secured distinctions in both Pure and Applied
Maths.
Freddie’s record-breaking run is best
summed up in the 1959 Saints Magazine under - Highlights of 1958:
Academically the chief high
lights were the winning of the U.C.W.I. Federation Open Scholarship by F. I.
Campayne, to be followed by a Guiana Scholarship. This Guiana Scholarship is
the third in four years. In 1957, J. Sparrock had three distinctions with an
average of 87%. In 1958 F. I. Campayne beat that record by 1/3%. We
congratulate Frederick Campayne on his honours, his proved ability, and
exemplary industry; and the college staff on the excellence of their teaching.
1958-1961:
Dept. of Physics, UCWI, Mona, J’ca
History changed on October 4, 1957, when
the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I (on the very day that Freddie
was celebrating his 18th birthday). The surprise success
precipitated the American Sputnik crisis, began the Space Age and triggered the
Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War. The launch ushered in new
technological and scientific developments.
In Jamaica, the head of the Physics Dept.,
perhaps inspired by world events,
decided to launch a BSc Special Honors program in Physics, beginning in
academic year 1958. The attraction of this program is that if one secures a
good degree, one can go straight into a PhD program, bypassing the Master’s
degree.
I wrote off my 1st year at UCWI
and signed up for this program along with Jamaica Scholar, Vernon Wong, who
actually switched from Medicine to Physics – a clear indication that in the
50’s and 60’s Physics was hot. Freddie came into the program directly from
Saints and this pioneering class consisted of 6 students, including Teddy
Beckles (T’dad), Harry Ragbir (T’dad) and Algy Wharton (QC, Guiana).
By coincidence, Freddie, Vernon and I were
in Block B, Taylor Hall (along with John Choy – another Saints grad - who had
won the Jesuit Centenary Scholarship and had come up to UCWI with me in 1957).
One may think of it as the 3 gladiators in the ring, with John Choy as the
referee.
It didn’t take long to identify the
differences. Vernon was into sports, both football and cricket, and being
Jamaican had an active social life. He also had a fantastic ability to
concentrate, and was able to handle tests with what seemed like minimal effort.
Freddie and I held similar views on studying based on: “What you get out is driven
by what you put in”, and it wasn’t hard to determine who was putting in the
most.
Taylor Hall had a healthy contingent of
Saints students, including Ron Camacho (Chief), Pat Derrell, Michael Heydon,
Bunty Phillips and Terry DaSilva. We all sat together for dinner, with Terry
generally steering the conversation towards intellectual topics. Freddie had signed up to serve dinner, no
doubt taking advantage of the fact that servers get the best choice of dinners,
but also knowing that he would be keeping his Saints colleagues happy and well
fed.
Part of our Social lives centered around
the Catholic Club in which Hazel Campayne played a prominent part. I remember
one Christmas holiday when we went to a Catholic facility in Annotto Bay. Hazel
was in charge of creating a choir to perform Christmas carols. It wasn’t long
before a panic alarm was raised. Hazel was desperate to find a male voice – I
think it was a tenor. After some practicing, the word went out that the problem
was solved. It was Freddie to the rescue. Hazel no doubt was in amazement at
the power of prayer. My attempts at shouting louder didn’t cut it, so I was
left telling jokes to all the guys who were trying to get some sleep. Of
course, well out of earshot of Hazel, since there was no need to trigger
another prayer attack.
By about our final year, the Physics
department launched an essay competition which Freddie won hands down with a
paper on the Neutrino. To appreciate the significance of this, keep in mind
that the neutrino was postulated first by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930 to explain how
beta decay could conserve energy, momentum, and angular momentum (spin).
However, it was not until July 20, 1956 that scientists published confirmation
that they had detected the neutrino, a result that was rewarded almost forty
years later with the 1995 Nobel Prize.
As far as I can remember, none of the
Physics textbooks that we were using in 1960 had covered the Neutrino, so
Freddie must have gone to the library and researched this topic. Freddie was
clearly into Physics, and in a big way.
It may well be that this essay led Freddie
to Imperial College, London where Theoretical Physicist Abdus Salam, was
working on the theory of the neutrino. Prof. Salam was a brilliant Pakistani theoretical
physicist who won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics. During his career, he held
many top positions around the world, but was always striving to establish a
Theoretical Physics group in his beloved country, Pakistan. My instincts tell
me that Freddie may well have been trying to emulate Prof. Salam when he chose
to return to Guyana.
In 1961, when the results of our final
exams were initially published, Freddie, Vernon and I secured 1st
Class Honors, so I was happy to declare the race a draw. This however, was
short-lived as the Saints magazines of 1961 and 1962 removed all doubt.
Frederick
Campayne
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Saints
Magazine 1961 - News of Old Boys:
Frederick Campayne gained a 1st Class
Honours Degree in Physics at the U.C.W.I. He is now at the Imperial College
of Science and Technology, London, doing research on High Energy Nuclear
Physics. He won the Physics Prize at the U.C.W.I.
Saints Magazine
1962 - News of Old Boys:
Frederick
Campayne shared the Joseph Luckhoo Memorial Prize
for the best performance in finals at the U.W.I.
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1961-1966:
Imperial College of Science and Technology, London
In 1961, Freddie went to Imperial College
on his Guiana Scholarship to work on High Energy Nuclear Physics, Vernon Wong
went to Wadham College, Oxford on a Fulbright Scholarship to study Theoretical
Physics (Plasma Physics) and I went to Kings College, Cambridge on a Guiana
Scholarship to study BioPhysics.
Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the
Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures
and now has 20 Member States.
Also of interest, the World Wide Web
was developed at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 to facilitate the sharing of
scientific information around the world. More recently, CERN was in the news
when their Physicists confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson,
or “God particle” on July 4, 2012.
Thus Freddie’s post-graduate work was being
done with teams consisting of the best and the brightest Physicists on the
planet dealing with problems that were too complex for any single human being
to tackle. It is safe to say that Freddie had outgrown the Caribbean. Freddie,
the genius, was approaching the pinnacle of his career.
During these years, Freddie, Vernon and I
did keep in touch, with occasional visits to London, Oxford or Cambridge,
mostly for socializing. I remember going to a party in Oxford arranged by
Vernon, and for the first time in my life noticed how the ladies would send
signals to each other to identify the guys they were interested in. Freddie,
however, was in no danger since his devotion to his studies and to his religion
almost certainly harked back to his time at Saints when Fr. Scannell described
the 3 tiers of human life, with the top being the Priesthood; the 2nd
being a single life dedicated to doing good works; and the 3rd being
the married life.
At no time however did his choice of a
single life impact Freddie’s cheerful disposition. He knew how to enjoy himself
in a social setting, but was always in control.
Our
post-graduate years were not without its challenges. The early days in the UK were
not particularly pleasant. In addition to the feeling that the Brits would
rather not have any foreigners on their soil, we were anxiously trying to find
original topics on which to base our PhD theses. I will never forget the
comment of one of my supervisors: “All the easy problems have already been
solved”. That certainly focused one’s mind.
As early as 1963 – just two years into his post-graduate program
- Freddie was publishing (joint) papers in Nuclear Physics. It
was quite clear that Freddie was operating in a totally different world from
normal human beings. No wonder we did not “talk shop” when we met during these
years. For all intents and purposes, our academic race was over.
In 1966, Freddie - with about a dozen publications under
his belt - received his PhD degree. This milestone was recorded in Saints
Magazine 1967- News of Old Boys:
FREDERICK CAMPAYNE
has obtained his PhD. in Nuclear Physics. He won the Guyana Scholarship in
1958. After graduating at the University of the West Indies, he went to London
University (Imperial College) to study Nuclear Physics.
He is now
lecturing at the University of Guyana.
1967 - 1981: Dept.
of Physics, University of Guyana
During our undergraduate years at UCWI, the head of the Physics
Dept., Dr Francis Bowen (aka Bobo) continually reminded us that his wish was
for us to return to UCWI and join the Physics Dept.. Indeed, Vernon recently
disclosed to me that Bobo visited him in Oxford to interest him in returning.
Unfortunately for Bobo, the University of Texas at Austin made him an offer he
couldn’t refuse.
With a growing
family and a civil service salary, I felt unable to survive in London. As an
aside, I was then working at the National Physical Laboratory, and one day
Leyland Grant showed up from nowhere. He had taken a position in the Optics
Laboratory working on Lasers, which I
considered to be a lucky break for him.
During our
post-graduate years, the situation in British Guiana had changed. Independence
was achieved in 1966 and it was renamed Guyana. Even before that, Cheddi Jagan,
then Premier of British Guiana, considered that the University College of the
West Indies, to which his government had contributed since 1948, was not
meeting the demand of his countrymen for higher education. Thus the University
of Guyana opened on the grounds of
Queen's College in late 1963.
Although we did
not collaborate on our next career move, Freddie and I seemed to have hit upon
the idea of returning “home”. I had written off Guyana on hearing of its
breakaway from UCWI (which also became autonomous from the University of London
in 1962 to become UWI).
I accepted a
position at UWI and departed London in January, 1967 to spend two years at the
St. Augustine, T’dad campus before transferring to the Mona campus in 1969
where I stayed until 1976. Freddie accepted a position at UG, I believe later
in 1967, and stayed there until 1981, during which time he served as Head of
the Physics Dept. on and off for 6 years. Incredibly, he was not awarded a
Professorship, even though in my opinion he easily qualified for that position.
And this brings me to a point that fills me
with sadness. Both Freddie and I were attracted to Physics at the start of the
Space Race when the US was importing scientists at a frantic rate. By the time
we had secured our higher degrees, the Space Race was winding down, but we did not quite see it coming. It
officially ended in 1975. We chose to “give back” early in our careers, and
when we could in good conscience move on, the door to the US (or abroad) was
almost shut.
I was fortunate to escape (initially to
Canada), but in the end I believe Freddie found himself trapped - a Genius in a
Bottle. In 1967, Guyana was presented with an Intellectual Diamond, and failed
miserably to recognize it as such.
1981 – 2012:
Dept. of Physics, UWI, St. Augustine, T’dad
In the early ‘80s, the political situation in Guyana triggered
an exodus of talented Guyanese. Ken Khan, while Principal of Saints, abruptly
departed for B’dos in 1980. Pat Derrell, deputy Headmaster at Saints also left
for B’dos in 1980, Sister Hazel Campayne, Headmistress of Ursuline Convent left
for Canada in 1980(?), and in 1981, Freddie accepted a position as Lecturer in
Physics at the St. Augustine Campus, UWI, T’dad where he worked either
full-time or part-time until his death.
The
Freddie Campayne Welcome Award is presented with the hope that
to
make their parents and their teachers proud and in so doing
help
Saints to re-establish its reputation as
one of
the best Secondary Schools in Guyana.
John Sparrock
St Stanislaus College
(1950 – 1957)
Related
http://www.stabroeknews.com/2012/memoriams/11/18/campayne-dr-frederick-ignatious/
http://stanislauscollege.blogspot.ca/2012/11/tributes-to-dr-fred-campayne.html
On October 14th, 84 Grade 7 students and 57 Grade 12 students received gift vouchers redeemable fron Austin's Bookstore as part of the Welcome to Saints Award Ceremony in memory of Dr. Campayne.
http://stanislauscollege.blogspot.ca/2012/11/tributes-to-dr-fred-campayne.html
On October 14th, 84 Grade 7 students and 57 Grade 12 students received gift vouchers redeemable fron Austin's Bookstore as part of the Welcome to Saints Award Ceremony in memory of Dr. Campayne.
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