Kevin’s Tribute to Steadfast Supporters
‘Learning from Each Other’ – since 1994
Two of our founding parents, Stephen McClelland and Paul O’Connor, were postal workers and members of the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU). On the morning of 10 November 1994 one of their colleagues and fellow trade unionist, Frank Kerr, was murdered in the Newry postal sorting office allegedly by rogue paramilitaries.
By all accounts, Frank was a shy, self-effacing man who died that day because he refused to hand over the hard earned cash of others. The shock of Frank Kerr’s death was all the greater because of the IRA ceasefire on 1st September that very year, the same day Shimna opened, and the Loyalist ceasefire a few week’s later.
Following Frank’s death his CWU colleagues organised a collection among members. The union made a donation to Frank’s nearest relatives and gave money to Frank’s church to buy vestments, Frank having been a religious man. With the remaining amount the union wanted to fund a lasting tribute to Frank so that his name might be remembered. So it was that Stephen McClelland rang me one morning to ask if we in Shimna might have some ideas as to how we might commemorate Frank’s sacrifice and, in so doing, remember all the other postal workers who had perished in, or been casualties of, what we euphemistically call The Troubles. Out of that phone call from Stephen came Shimna’s Frank Kerr Collection and The Frank Kerr Award.
The Frank Kerr Award was to be an occasional award to people who had made a significant contribution to peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. The first recipients of the award were the founders of Shimna Integrated College itself, for their vision and determination in ensuring Integrated, academically excellent, all-ability, student-centred and parent friendly post-primary education for Newcastle and the extended surrounding area. Subsequent recipients were Mo Mowlam MP, Senator George Mitchell and Baroness May Blood.
Our links with the CWU endured for the whole of the twenty-seven years of my time as principal and many enduring friendships were established. Almost as soon as we decided on our way to remember Frank Kerr, union members bought in to our thinking and our ethos. Initially CWU members throughout the UK contributed to the Frank Kerr fund. The union successfully gained the support of Royal Mail and three trustees were appointed to the fund: Newry representative Mickey McAlinden, Royal Mail’s Alan Henry and Ray Durkin from CWU’s London headquarters.
There began an enduring and mutually enriching relationship which brought understanding, benefit to our students and staff and just as importantly friendship and laughter over the years. Royal Mail was persuaded to renovate and donate a the Royal Mail Orkney minibus at the end of its service, which, while painted Shimna blue on the outside, remained Royal Mail red on the inside. It was to be the first of two such minibuses which served our students so well over the years.
One influential and important supporter introduced to us in the early days of our relationship with the CWU was Alan Johnson, then general secretary of the CWU. Alan’s first visit was to mark Mo Mowlam’s receiving of the Frank Kerr award for peace and reconciliation. We organised the cutting of the first sod for Phase Two of our building to coincide with the Award ceremony. The event is captured in a black and white photograph where we see Tina Mowlam, Mo’s mother, standing in for her daughter who was busy knocking heads together in Stormont in her relentless pursuit of peace. When, in December 2006, we invited Alan back as guest of honour at our Presentation Evening, we invited him as a good friend of Shimna but by the time he got there he had become Secretary of State for Education and Skills and prospective deputy prime minister.
The first person assigned by CWU London headquarters to liaise with Shimna was Ray Durkin. Ray was a great, burly, moustachioed man who immediately took to what he saw and heard in Shimna. He became an instant and fervent supporter right up until his retirement from union duties and his move to Spain from where he continued to correspond with me. I have little doubt that he and Alan remembered their first visit to Shimna and the craic in Brooke Cottage for a long time afterwards. Before his retirement, Ray laid the foundations to ensure that our links with the union would endure.
We were slightly worried that any new CWU person would not want or be able to prioritise Shimna in the way that Ray had done. We need not have worried. John Baldwin, first Head of International Affairs at the CWU, was assigned to link up with Shimna and he did so assiduously and with great effect right up until his sudden death in July 2014 when the CWU lost a valued leader and Shimna lost a great friend. I was very proud to be asked to speak at a memorial event in CWU London headquarters. John had become a great and valued supporter of the college but also a dear personal friend whom I miss to this day. John’s colleagues vowed to continue his work with Shimna and the culmination of that work along with Royal Mail was the naming of the new computer suite the Royal Mail/John Baldwin Communications Suite.
No account of our enduring links with the CWU would be complete without mention of three special friends of the college: Stevie Gribben, Billy Hannaway and Norrie Watson. Stevie and Billy were senior NI reps of the union, coming respectively from Portadown and Derry. Stevie came from a Protestant background and Billy from a Catholic one and they were a perfect example of the positivity, joy and achievement which comes from working with and learning from each other. Stevie and Billy simply got what Shimna was doing and they lived it too.
Norrie was CWU’s senior trade union representative for Scotland and Northern Ireland who, every time he possibly could, visited Northern Ireland and, when he did so, he frequently visited Shimna bearing generous donations from his fellow union members. Norrie often appeared with his wife, Jean, with whom he shared a long standing love for the Mournes. Norrie was a fervent fan of Glasgow Rangers and he definitely understood that the Old Firm games were the highlight of every season. Like Stevie and Billy he instantly recognised what we were doing in Shimna and for the whole of his time in the union he was an enthusiastic supporter of our school.
It became a bit of a tradition that I would be invited to the annual CWU conference, often held in Bournemouth. I would attend the Celtic (that’s a hard C!) night and was always invited to speak to members about our school and to remember Frank Kerr. The members were always superbly generous and Shimna was gifted many thousands of pounds by those committed trade unionists.
At one such occasion, in 2006, I was introduced to Bull Burrus who was an honoured guest of the CWU at the conference. Bill was the first black President of the American Postal Workers Union, whose headquarters were in Washington DC. Bill showed a keen interest in what we were doing in Shimna and he told me to contact him if I felt his members could help. I needed little encouragement and in August 2006 I wrote to Bill, telling him about Shimna having successfully bid to become NI’s first and only specialist languages school, with an emphasis on the international dimension. As such we needed to raise £25,000 in order to trigger a grant for £100,00 and we were still some £10,000 short. Bill was as good as his word and by return sent a generous donation which went a long way towards achieving our target.
Our link with the CWU was profound and long lasting and helped commemorate Frank Kerr and his fellow postal workers who died or were injured in our Troubles. Integration is at heart about communication and our collaboration was a wonderful fit. Peace and love to our great friends in the CWU and Royal Mail.
Stephen McClelland made another inspired contribution to Shimna when he nominated Kevin as Northern Ireland Teacher of the Year. The citation identified everything that Kevin had achieved in those early days of establishing the school, managing a temporary site while building on a permanent one, working with parents, teaching Spanish, building collaborative staff relationships where everyone’s contribution would be valued equally. And most of all, generating integration among students, staff, parents and governors, leading the difficult conversations, owning and sharing his own background and identity, learning from others, leading by example. The day of Kevin’s presentation by the then sponsors of Teacher of the year, the Disney Foundation, was a day of huge celebration.
