Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others—Jonathan Swift
IT took me seven years before I was ready to write this. I first wrote briefly about my junior college teacher Keith Vivian Wiltshire in early 2017 soon after his passing at age 83. There was much more to say but it was too close to the event. There is sufficient distance now to make a clear statement. This was also partly prompted by the passing of classmate Father Aloysious Mowe, SJ (Society of Jesus) earlier this year (see In Memoriam). I first met Keith as a first-year junior college student in 1981 when still sixteen, and never would have thought that we would be friends and share ideas for most of the rest of his life.
There has been a misunderstanding about Keith by some in that he was too idealistic and just another do-gooder in a harsh world : but that is a completely distorted perspective. He came across as idealistic because he set a high benchmark for his ideals (sometimes a seemingly impossible one) which ensured he kept his fervour in attempting to reach them. And should anyone be faulted for wanting the world to be at peace; the environment vibrant and healthy; for people to live freely and justly; and for youth to have the chance to fulfil their potential for the highest good of all? Anyone who disagrees with that should never be allowed to teach young people. Every ‘realist’ I have come across claims it is best to abandon ethics or morality, in some form, to fight those who do the same. To so-called realists who had cast Keith as a ‘liberal’ as it is understood today (which he was certainly not) my response had been: you cannot insist on using immorality to fight immorality for that is precisely the mindset that has led to the current state of affairs.
Keith was one of a team of Humanities tutors tasked by the government (Ministry of Education) to prepare two scholarship classes within the arts faculty for entry to Oxford and Cambridge; it was hoped from that pool top civil servants would emerge, and some did. Keith and two others worked closely with my class at then Hwa Chong Junior College to also prepare some of us as potential teachers of English who could be sent to Oxbridge as well.
Notwithstanding, I must state that my father (in broadcast media) reminded me a few times, when he realised how well I got along with some of my classmates like Aloysious and teachers like Keith even years later: it was my mother (a teacher) who insisted (with my father’s support) I go to Hwa Chong Junior College which I resisted, initially, as none of my friends from secondary school went there. But upon qualifying for the Humanities programme after an entrance test, I agreed reluctantly to go to a place where, though in Singapore, I knew no one: it became the best decision made under parental guidance.
The scheme as I understood it was a brainchild of Dr. Goh Keng Swee, the architect of Singapore’s economic success and who, among other posts, was Minister of Education and then Deputy Prime Minister. I mention this for we would not have met Keith if not for Dr. Goh’s foresight, though Keith did become a critic of the Singapore government. That sense of being constructively critical at all levels including of your society was the most striking lesson taught by Keith while he officially taught us English Literature and the General Paper (a compulsory subject that involved essay writing etc., a forerunner of what is now termed ‘critical thinking’).
If there ever was a teacher who made the greatest impact on me, it'd have been Mr Wiltshire... Always pushing us to question and challenge, nothing was sacrosanct in the pursuit of a richer and deeper understanding of what we believe in. He was a critic of the Government, he made classes fun and funny, he kicked me in the butt for asking silly questions.—Tan Chuan-Jin, former government minister, and Speaker of Parliament.[1]
In our first year, he started—to the surprise of generally disciplined students respectful of authority (for the most) like us—to criticise Singapore. Once, after what seemed like a harangue, I stood up to say something in defence. To my surprise some of my classmates applauded, to my greater surprise Keith said, “Finally, someone stood up to disagree and say something.” That was a new experience. He made us sit in a circle in his class and do occasional exercises to build camaraderie among us in addition to the subjects he had to deliver.[2]
He was the first of my teachers who insisted his former students call him by his first name which Aloysious and I found awkward but adapted to. It was not mere unconventionality. He wanted to build a friendship which he did with many students from all over.
Keith excelled in history at Corpus Christi College, Oxford; and took a degree in theology from Bristol University. Born in Devizes, Wiltshire he served his National Service in the Royal West Kent Regiment, was transferred to the Royal Army Education Corps and attained the rank of Sergeant. He subsequently joined the Wiltshire Yeomanry for a few years. He trained as a Methodist minister and went to Sarawak in Malaysia with his young family to teach. With the rise of communist insurgencies and the British preparing Malaysia for Independence, Keith’s school had an influx of crowds which became restless at some point. In accordance to government policy he had to guide the school into changing the medium of instruction from Chinese to English. He told me when I visited him years later in Bristol that for the first time he thought, when he had to pacify a potential mob, that his life and that of Pauline and their daughter could be in danger.[3]
This was a man who somehow found the right balance between ideals and realism to have survived those turbulent days.
[Keith taught us to] love the humanities, to understand literature and poetry, to think for ourselves, to be polite and gentlemanly yet robust in our thinking and arguments. And just as he has trained some of us who joined the ruling political party, he also trained others of us like me who joined the Opposition camp. And also those of us who went on to become political journalists and diplomats, as well as lawyers and bankers. Mr Wiltshire, we all owe you a huge debt, and for showing us what 'just' being a high school teacher can do.—Benjamin Pwee, member of an opposition party.[4]
There are letters from Keith which I wanted to excerpt from but will wait till another time. The reason is that there is quite a bit of political content and as a critic of Singapore (which he respected) needs further distance from his passing before it appears. He was once turned back from Singapore at Changi airport, and gave me a detailed account of it. His activism led him to meet with Chia Thye Poh who was detained in Singapore for some of his activities which resulted in his becoming one of the world’s longest serving political prisoners (he has since been released). To work around his inability to re-enter Singapore Keith met with ex-students from Singapore in Johore, Malaysia: connected by the causeway to Singapore. Though the ban on him was lifted he no longer desired to visit the country and asked us to visit him in Bristol, and some of us did.
He was a staunch Labour supporter and once in the canteen had a disagreement with our other Humanities tutor Mrs Ernestine (Molly) Goriely. Keith was returning during the long holidays to campaign for his former Oxonian classmate who was running for parliament. Mrs G. (as we referred to her) was inclined towards the Conservatives though Aloysious informed me in a letter much later that subsequently when she visited England she began to campaign for the Liberal Democrats. It was the first time we heard a civil if slightly barbed political contretemps between teachers. Keith, when I first stayed briefly with him and Pauline in Bristol in the late 1990s, left Labour because of Tony Blair whom he despised (especially for British military action in Iraq). With Pauline, he became a member of the Greens, and in later years even stood as a candidate in local elections.
The lesson from Keith was that it was alright to be critical of your government and country as part of being a responsible and active citizen; that in many instances it was necessary for a democracy to work: and to always distrust power. But during my second stay with him and Pauline (in 2008) he discussed politics less and reminisced more about Sarawak, Singapore and teaching at Hwa Chong and later, Raffles Junior College. He once took me to have a look (part of museum exhibition) at what a Bristol sugar plantation and slave owner’s home looked like, and where slaves prepared meals for the master and his family; but he would have been appalled at the toppling and disfigurement of Edward Colson’s statue which was dumped into Bristol Harbour (it was recovered and displayed in a museum). Colson was a slave-trader before Britain abolished the slave trade, but was an active philanthropist. Keith was against violence including that emerging from woke protests, and which led to destruction of property; nor was he a fan of political correctness.
His actions stemmed from a moral centre within: but he would deny it was based on his faith as he claimed to be less religious in his later years. We were not always in agreement but that we connected and had a friendship which lasted many years may have surprised him as it did me. Keith’s bracing comments, his directness, at times were strong medicine for some but he was perhaps the most open and straightforward person I have ever known. You knew where you stood with him and could reciprocate with honesty. He was concise and analytical in a manner not usually associated with those from the Humanities. He never tried to inveigle anyone into being critical of any government or individual when he freely shared his political or personal views; he had no hidden agenda; he did not represent anyone else’s interests when he spoke to you; he only answered to his conscience.
During my final visit to see him, Keith took me to other sights in Bristol; one of them was a bronze life-size statue of Archiebald Leach—better known as Cary Grant—the city’s most famous figure. Keith also volunteered to do part-time tour guide work for the city and was clearly good at it. Once, when we were leaving his house and Pauline reminded him of something, he did not reply. She came to where he was tying his shoelaces as I awaited him and repeated what she said, he nodded, smiled, and we left. Outside the house he said: “A key to a successful marriage is to also have a deaf ear, and not listen to what’s always said. That way you avoid a lot of irritation.” Pauline, always warm and pleasant, had a strong personality. When they lived in Singapore, she did social work when Keith was teaching us.
Once, he showed me where the shop she worked in as an assistant used to be; it was near Bristol University where he was a student. He first saw her doing window dressing, got her attention, and asked her for tea after work. On that visit, when I asked him what he was reading, as he was a great reader, he said it was difficult then as whenever she saw him reading, she would ask: “Isn’t there something you should be doing?” He would then run errands into town and would find a spot to read or go to the library to return books and read there. I wish he had written down all this in a booklet of domestic strategies.
After his stroke, it was Pauline who read his emails for him and replied to some. Not wanting to be an additional burden to both of them I soon stopped writing. She was a cancer survivor, and I recall how Keith was immensely grateful to be still with her, and served her meals as he promised he would if she pulled through—which I saw him do; and she was devoted to him. His loss must have been quite hard indeed, she followed him two years later.
He went on to theology school and became a Methodist minister in the 1950s. He later left the church and became a teacher of the secular humanities. I once remarked that he was no longer a Christian; but he corrected me, saying he continued to believe in Jesus - not the divine Christ worshipped by Christians, but the Jesus whose teachings he admired. For a fundamentalist Christian such as I was then, that distinction was an eye-opener.— Chua Mui Hoong, Senior Columnist, and former Straits Times Opinion editor.[5]
The most important academic exercise he gave us was when teaching Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The book was far more complex than what was presented to us as children from cartoons and films. It was a Juvenalian satire—above all not meant for children—which excoriated many aspects of human nature and activity, including scientific endeavour, and what people regard as progress. In 1982, he assigned us to write a fifth book of Gulliver’s Travels in which Lemuel Gulliver visits Singapore. Quite the idea. My project evolved into 11 sheets of foolscap paper bound together with string and vanguard sheet covers; that meant 22 pages, handwritten (the best version I could muster; see an example of my writing back then in its regular form, below); about 6,600 words (this piece is under 4,000 words). In an attempt at verisimilitude of Swift’s original text, I copied out my version of a title page and provided a map of Singapore’s location. The assignment was meant to be a pastiche of Swiftian satire. My endeavour had four chapters in it; unsurprisingly, Chapter 3 was the longest as it dealt with the education system which I had a lot to say about.
Our junior college years saw the introduction of the continual assessment system which meant quarterly tests (in addition to regular tests, assignments in between) as well as the mid and final year exams. A percentage of the grades from the quarterly assessments (including mid-year grades) went into final exam results: with exception of the final Cambridge A-Levels at the end of second year, which was an externally graded exam. It was an academic pressure cooker environment.
What surprised me looking at the project decades later before writing this, was that there was quite a bit of political satire in it; and it went on about venality, corruption and incompetence among politicians, and chicanery of the world in general: whether I gleaned that from my reading, Swift, Keith or a combination thereof—apart from some of my own observation—is unclear but I seemed to have had fairly developed views on justice and what was the right thing to do. Keith liked it but said it was much longer than he intended the project, and I can see now that I got carried away. But it is also clear that it was an outlet for nascent ideas circulating in the mind.
Yet, what stands out are not Keith’s ticks of approval in the margins of Swiftian satire correctly applied in a contemporary setting, or positive comments, but criticisms for not using satire correctly: that I was “too direct” at times, and an elliptical approach was needed to deliver my point. He was spot on. That stayed with me, and would like to think practised in my subsequent attempts at fiction and non-fiction (i.e. essays, articles). Undoubtedly, the project allowed me to see that I could produce a sustained narrative, and develop an argument via fiction and see where it led to (a different skill set from prosecuting an argument in non-fiction). It opened a creative space that I returned to explore further years later.[6]
That project drove me to read Swift extensively, and read several times his “The Battle of the Books”, A Tale of a Tub, and the unforgettable A Modest Proposal: arguably the finest satire in the language (rivalled perhaps by Charles Lamb’s A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig). Importantly, Keith used Swift as a platform to introduce us to Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. Serendipitously, I studied Animal Farm in secondary school but Keith’s comment that “you cannot call yourself educated till you’ve read Nineteen Eighty-Four” made me read it not long after the A-Levels. Then I read not only more of Huxley but all major works by Orwell over the years. What is missed by many is that with Gulliver’s Travels, Swift was one of a handful who provided proto-examples of utopia and dystopia in fiction; that the attempt to create the former tended to result in the latter: though the notion of dystopia as we understand it from the 20the century onwards was only hinted at (primarily due to rapid technological growth in our time).
In that way, Keith introduced me to the notion of utopia and dystopia. And the latter best describes our world. He helped open a pathway along which I started seeing the world as it is, and continued on my own from there. This world which is now openly called Orwellian; galvanising towards the Totalitarian; under oligarchical control of Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Media, the Deep State, et al. honed towards censoring those who question the status quo, and supporting those who support it: as called out precisely in those terms by influential and rising political figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, and Tulsi Gabbard.[7] Finally, Britain has caught up with some in seeing that Starmer, though continuing a long tradition, is blatantly Orwellian. I cannot imagine having attempted dystopian writing as an analysis of our age all these years if it was not for Keith.
I began to see it then; I understand it now.
He was a teacher and friend who embodied and verified Seneca’s words: non scholæ sed vitæ discimus.[8]
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery—Jonathan Swift
End notes:
[1] See “The teacher who touched many lives”, The Straits Times, Jan. 8th 2017.
[2] This was a strategy he deployed in classes over the years:
"Confronted by our intellectual lethargy and moral turpitude, he would strive to provoke us into thinking and acting. I still remember how he would constantly inveigh against the uselessness of mathematics as a subject of study, an opinion I was secretly pleased to endorse, until a classmate...stood up to him in (defence) of math, and then he broke into a smile and said, 'Finally, someone contradicted me!' He did not want our agreement, but our growth, in having the courage of our convictions."—New York-based Singaporean poet Koh Jee Leong , “The teacher who touched many lives”.
[3] See Dictionary of Christian Biography in Asia, and “Remembering Keith Wiltshire: ‘The light has gone out of our lives’".
[4] See “The teacher who touched many lives”.
[5] See “The teacher who touched many lives”.
[6] “One of them, an elderly lady, who walked decisively, was an amazing woman. The moment I was in her presence, I felt diminutive and was at once deferential; the other woman was long and slender and seemed to float in her manner of walking…; the third was a man with blue eyes and blue clothes and I was struck by the very appearance of him…the ideal man to play King Lear.” From my Gulliver’s Travels: Book V class project describing with mild satire the Humanities tutors: Mrs Goriely, Ms Gillian Boughton, and Keith, respectively. Keith commented on the page on recommending him as Lear: “Because he is old, or because he is mad? Or both?”
It was also Keith who encouraged us to watch Chariots of Fire, see In Memoriam.
[7] In Orwell’s 1984, the banned book protagonist Winston Smith reads, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism (which gets him arrested), effectively delineates the control of society and the world by oligarchies. The now iconic slogans many are familiar with come from this fictional work within the fictional world of the novel: “Ignorance is Strength”; “War is Peace”; “Freedom is Slavery”—that prophetically encapsulates the actual world.
[8] “We learn not for school but for life.”
[Top picture: Peter Suart, Gulliver’s Travels, Folio Society edition.]
© 2024 Sanjay Perera. All rights reserved.