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MISS CUTLER SHAPED MY FAITH
I
arrived at Gayaza High School with a lot of expectation because I had longed to cross the path between Gayaza Junior and High Schools. Thank God I passed highly and was admitted to the secondary section. The following morning I went to the stream to which I had been assigned, to find a composed and meditative lady whose dog followed her everywhere. She welcomed us and requested that each one state their name. When we got to the end of the class she then started from the beginning repeating our names. Out of 30 names she remembered at least 25! Later I met the same teacher at the sewing room allocating uniform colours. She shouted “brown” when I got to the end of the queue, a colour I didn’t like much! During my stay at Gayaza I enjoyed her lessons though some of them were held at 6:30am! She became a great confidant the higher I got in class, attending Bible study at her house and seeking guidance when ever I needed it. When l joined the chapel committee I thoroughly enjoyed working under her supervision; planning the worship sessions and organising the visiting club where we spent the chapel collections. She was instrumental in starting me off my Christian journey... willing to guide and answer any questions I had. I remember her very warmly and hope that there are still teachers who go beyond the call of duty to guide and support students in their social and spiritual development. This is Miss Anne Cutler. Thanks to you; you are partly the reason I am still a Christian!
Florence Kanyike, 1972-77
Miss Cutler (left) and Miss Warren earlier this year. Right, Miss Cutler does some coaching
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She made it a point to learn every girl’s name
ANNE CUTLER – THE
F
resh out of primary school, I and about 100 other girls with suitcases, blankets and grub arrived at Gayaza High School in February 1969 on our first day at the school. Those days, we did not need to carry buckets, basins, jerry cans, mattresses and boxes of water that make today’s school children look like they are moving house every beginning and end of the holiday. When I look back, I must say that we were brave little girls, venturing out into the unknown and not knowing what to expect. At the same time, our world was a much calmer one with no computers, no Internet very limited telephones (of the land line type), no mobile phones and if you wanted to communicate, good old ‘snail mail’ was your answer. More than forty years on, my memory of those first days at school is rather hazy, but one thing that I recall as if it happened just yesterday, is the presence of the Games Teacher, Miss Ann Cutler. By the end of the first day, she had made that presence felt by most of us. Uniforms, including PE uniform,s were handed out. She had also already scheduled sports classes for everyone. At that time, there were three streams of about 35 girls each in Senior One to Senior Four and then two streams each in Seniors Five and Six. There were also a variety of sports on offer and these included, hockey, lawn tennis, table tennis, netball, badminton, athletics and country dancing. Each stream was accordingly time tabled. There was also the sports equipment that had to be organised and given out whenever any sports activity took place. This equipment included tennis rackets and balls, hockey sticks, badminton rackets, bands for netball and country dancing, table tennis bats and balls and a variety of other things. Sports used to take place early in the morning and in the evenings after school as well as on Saturday morning. The girls, the equipment, the time and the space where
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