THAT 1971 INTERVIEW

My earliest real thoughts about GCI started in 1971, when I was preparing to take the National Common Entrance Examination. I had assumed that my first choice of secondary school would be King’s College, Lagos. It was not to be. My mother, the actual form filler, filled in GCI. My father, it seems, had attended the school and this fact changed everything for me. If dad was an old boy (I doubt that I had actually ever heard the term “Old boy” at this time), then GCI was good enough for me. I did well enough in the entrance examination to be invited for a preliminary interview at the school.
The interview was a residential one, by which I mean that. The potential students were required to come to the school and stay on the premises for a period (three days and two nights in our case), attend lessons. (I particularly remember that we were taught Latin and it was ever a sadness to me that on our arrival in January 1972 there was no Latin on the curriculum! A case of 419 Early Edition, or something close). We ate school food in the dining hall, faced a battery of tests and interviews by academic masters as well as current students who acted as proctors for us would-be GCI boys. Oh, and we stayed in the school houses! As far as I can recall, this was only the third time that I’d stayed away from home without an older family member being with me and all connected with residential interviews in the pursuit of a secondary school education.
Well, when I say we stayed in the school houses it really wasn’t all of the houses, as I recall. My interview batch were housed in Grier House in the real region and Swanston House in the other region. What I recall most vividly though, about our stint in Grier House is that I met quite a number of future members of the greatest set that ever went through the corridors of the greatest school in the Republic. Amongst those gentlemen that I remember from our two nights’ stint in Grier House are Adegbola, Adesulure, Akinola, and Doherty.
All in all, the interview process I underwent gave me a prejudiced view, positively, about GCI, a prejudice I’m proud to say that I retain 50 years later. So when the letter finally came, it was with a light heart that I packed my stuff (actually my mother, God bless her, did all the packing at the time and throughout my secondary school years) and proceeded to Apata Ganga in January 1972.

Culled from: Our Story (1972 Anniversary book)
Submitted By: IMONIKHE AHIMIE (SN 2422, Field House)