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Former headmaster and past student of Queen’s College (QC) Clarence Trotz picked up the baton from alumnus Norman Cameron in continuing to record the history of his alma mater, and has written four volumes from 1940 to 2010.

Trotz, now 92, never stopped teaching, and even after he migrated and was officially long retired from the public service, he continued to teach online.

“I teach mainly to keep my brain as active as it can be. I am teaching online using Teams [Microsoft webinar],” he told Stabroek Weekend in a recent interview from his home in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

Trotz, who taught physics at QC now teaches the same subject to a student from Bartica, who is preparing for the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency (CAPE) Unit II examination in May/June 2026.

Having successfully completed several science subjects at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate, Trotz’s student, who wants to become a surgeon, must sit the CAPE exams to be considered for medical courses, but there was no one in Bartica to teach him physics and Trotz took on the challenge.

He has already successfully taken the student through CAPE Unit I physics.

“The history of Queen’s College was published in 1951 by Norman Cameron, an illustrious alumnus of Queen’s and a Cambridge University trained mathematician,” Trotz related.

Cameron, who taught mathematics at QC, wrote the first history of the school from the time it was founded in 1844 to 1951.

“I wanted to see a continuation of the history of the school. I always said to myself it is time someone wrote the history of Queen’s to continue Cameron’s work, never knowing that it would be me eventually,” he said.