Bertram Bromfield. - Dennis CokeERTRAM BROMFIELD'S life hit rock bottom in 1988.
He was 17, without a job and forced to drop out of school. The teenager's dream of pursuing a business career laid in tatters.
Despite good behaviour and passing seven of the eight CXC subjects he had taken as a fifth-former he had to give up his chance to enter sixth form so his older sister Joylyn could go to university.
The modest means of the rural south St. Elizabeth family meant Joylyn entered the medical programme at the University of the West Indies (UWI), while he stayed at home.
"...it was the darkest, most difficult, lowest point of my life," he recalled recently.
Twelve years later, at the November, 2000 UWI graduation ceremony where Chancellor Sir Shridath Ramphal bemoaned the continued marginalisation of Jamaican men, Bromfield was one of the few men in the graduating class. His Bachelor's degree in education, financed largely from his own savings, was an ultimate triumph over adversity and indicative of the never-say-die attitude of the Munro College old boy.
The devil did not find work for his hands when they were forced to be idle said Bromfield, who hopes that his story will inspire others.
He recalled that after a year at home, he regrouped and decided to enter the nearby Bethlehem Teachers' College, which was then the most inexpensive path to further study of any kind.
He did well and was offered a job at Munro because he made an impression in his third-year teaching internship at the school. He has been there since 1992 teaching mathematics to students in forms 1 through 5.
"For the time being, I've grown to love the classroom and I'm dedicated to being a teacher, so I'll give it at least a few more years. But now that I am armed with a degree, I am not ruling out branching out to do something else eventually," he said following his recent graduation.
That something else could be in the growing information technology field where his background in mathematics, a few relevant courses, and a short stint in teaching physics has prepared him for such a move.
He credited, among his inspirations, the strong work ethic, ambition and caring of the people with whom he grew up in St. Elizabeth. Persons from the community, he said, had always encouraged him to hold onto to his dreams, to never give up.
"People from this parish are independent and believe in working for what they want...you don't see young boys on the street here as much as in other areas of Jamaica," he said.
He also credited his parents, Basil and Ermine, for never allowing him to throw in the towel and for instilling in him a belief in education, although they never had the opportunity for formal schooling.
His sister, now a doctor living in the USA, has also been a source of inspiration, he added. She did not dishonour the struggles of their parents or his own sacrifice and did well at school despite financial difficulties.
Bromfield noted that because she succeeded, there was "positive pressure" on him to also realise his potential.
Coming in for special praise is his wife of four years, the former Annette Fox, a teacher whom he married in December, 1996 after a whirlwind romance.
"She's very proud of me," he said, recalling her encouragement for him to take study leave to pursue a university degree.
His other source of motivation is his daughter Ruth-Ann who turns two this month. Her birth has been one of the high points of his life.
Tony Morrison
