One of the things that distinguishes the retired Anguillian Anglican Priest, the Rev. Fr. Vanier Menes Hodge MBE, from many of his contemporaries in Anguilla, and the rest of the Caribbean, is that he hails from a household of well-known and respected “men of the cloth”.
His eldest brother, Irad, served for a number of years first as a Deacon, and then as a Priest in the Supplementary Ministry of the Anglican Church in neighbouring St. Maarten. His other brothers: Valentine Hodge, was a Canon at St. John’s Cathedral in Antigua and subsequently was appointed Archdeacon in the Diocese of the North Eastern Caribbean and Aruba and was based in St. Kitts; Stafford Hodge, is a Priest in the Episcopal/Anglican Church in the United States; the late Vernon Hodge was a Lay Reader in St. Maarten; and Roy, is a Deacon in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Menes himself became a Priest in the Supplementary Ministry having been trained at Codrington Theological College in Barbados after a long and distinguished public service career in Anguilla.
His early service was at the Department of Public Works, the Agricultural Department, and the Department of Customs and Excise. One of his last public service appointments was Director of Information and Broadcasting (Radio Anguilla). It was during that time that he was seconded to create and design the Vehicle Numbering and Licensing System which is still in existence today. Having successfully completed that assignment, he was transferred the post of Principal Assistant Secretary in to the Chief Minister’s Office.
It was when he retired from the public service that he entered the Ministry of the Anglican Church and became a Priest (after serving as a Deacon). Over the years he served in St. Kitts, Saba and Anguilla.
He spoke about his family connection and the service of his brothers in the church, as well as three sisters, otherwise engaged. “We were the offspring of people who were Christ-like, if I should put it that way,” he told The Anguillian newspaper. “Our father, Herbert Hodge, was, to some extent, raised in St. Kitts by his aunt who was married to a gentleman who was an educator. It was there that he got a lot of academic knowledge. They were Christian people and he followed that trend. Our mother, Esther Hodge, served at St. Mary’s Anglican Church and was in everything. She was a Sunday school teacher, choir member and assisted the priest in giving communion to persons in the community. And so we came from a family of Christian people. Our church attendance, at Sunday School, regular and extra services, was part of our upbringing. There were six males and three females – Joycelyn and Carmen are in the UK and Elowise is in St. Thomas.”
In addition to having been a dutiful and caring father of five children, Menes was also a dedicated husband of the late Britania Hodge, formerly of Rey Hill. “She was the pride of my life and a delight to be my partner,” he related. “Then the Lord called her to rest some 20 years ago, and I had to say: ‘the will of the Lord be done.”’
Known for his love for humour, he recalled: “My son, Ash (Arnie S. Hodge), said to me: ‘Daddy, I understand from certain literature from America that when a wife dies and leaves her husband, he does not last more than a year or two.’ I told him that I would prove that statistic to be wrong; and, as I said, it is some 20-odd years since Britania passed away. She was a fine lady, and people knew her as a very pleasant person working at The Galaxy in The Valley at one time, then at Albert Lake, and earlier at Sydney Gumbs’ business place in the area of the building which recently housed FirstCaribbean International Bank. Thank God, I am still alive and mobile, but have slowed down. I was about 65 or thereabout when she passed away; and now, thank God, I am 81. You can work out the maths.”
About his early life and onwards he stated: “I began my schooling at The Valley Boys’ School in 1944. Later on I went to The Valley Secondary School which opened on the 21st of September 1953 and I was 14 years at the time. From my first year, I came first in the class of boys and girls. I took an interest in education and when the required years of learning had passed, and we had final examinations, I, of all students was the first to receive a Modern Secondary School Certificate, Grade A. The second person to get a Grade A Certificate was Albertus Richardson who works at Richardson’s Furniture in the Water Swamp. So what I am saying is that I managed to have a grip on learning from secondary education. If the Secondary School had started a year before, I am pretty sure that I would have missed out on that education.”
Menes was a noted athlete in the cross-country running races from The Valley to the Forest Bay held by the school as part of its sport day events. “I had developed the skills of running barefoot to Shoal Bay in the mornings to look at animals, and then go back home to prepare for school,” he recalled.
He continued: “I liked woodwork as a subject in school. There was a chap called Amos Carty, from Wattices, and we would always trumpet each other’s success in cutting out wood in certain shapes and making things. Then there was Rural Science or Agricultural Science and I was always interested in that as well. I also liked Mathematics and the teacher was Joseph Hennis who later became an Anglican Priest. He gave us a mathematical problem to work out and I got a certain answer. He worked it out a different way and got the same answer – and up to now I don’t know whether he understood how I got mine done.
“After I completed the secondary school programme, I began thinking about the world of work – but job opportunities in Anguilla were very scarce. I went to the Public Works Department to get something to do and, as I said, I liked woodwork. The foreman, Joe Brooks, put me to work as an apprentice with ‘Fredo’ from North Side. While working with Fredo, he asked me to cut a piece of wood. Just as I learnt in school, I made my measurements, drew my lines and started to cut. Being I was a new kid on the block, the foreman came to see how I was doing it. I will never forget this. After he had seen enough, he shook his head and said: ‘Sonny boy, you work too neat for me.’ When I did woodwork in school neatness was part of the requirement. I carried that practice to Public Works, but Joe Brooks, who was a carpenter, said I was working too neatly for him.
“Then, like a steppingstone, an opportunity came up at the Agricultural Department and I got a job there as secretarial assistant. Among my duties were to go on field trips to measure land that had been ploughed – and take the information back to the office to calculate the bills and send them out to the farmers for payment. I also used to assist Tommy Richardson, a foreman at the Agriculture Department. I recalled an area at Wallblake which was fenced in by Tommy and myself…but we did not have the sort of equipment used nowadays. That went on for some time, and then there came an opportunity for me to move to the Customs Department as I was trying to get a job that would be more lucrative. I was posted to Sandy Ground, Road Bay. On occasions I was at The Forest or at Blowing Point. That continued until I was moved from Customs to Radio Anguilla – and I tried to speak as well as I should so that people could understand what I had to say.”
Menes performed exceptionally well there. He was trained at the BBC on two occasions. He moved from an Announcer to Programme Controller and, when the foreign Director, the late Roy Dunlop, left the island, he became the first Anguillian to serve as the Director of Radio Anguilla and Telecommunications Officer. As mentioned earlier, was eventually appointed as Principal Secretary in the Chief Minister’s Office and served under the late Mr. Hubert Hughes. It was on his retirement that he went into the Anglican Ministry – as was also mentioned earlier – where he was a Lay Reader for a long time and was later ordained as a Deacon. He was therefore well prepared for the ministry when he entered Codrington Theological College in Barbados to quality as a Priest. He returned to Anguilla where he and his brother, Irad, a Deacon at the time, were ordained to the Priesthood on July 11, 1996 at St Mary’s.
The retirement age for a priest is 70, but the Rev. Fr. Menes Hodge continued to serve for several years more. “I was up to 80 when I had to retire after becoming ill and then having to be hospitalised,” he recalled. “I fell down in the churchyard but I did not realise that I had fallen down. When I was being discharged from the hospital, the doctor told me that I had to rest. She said, ‘I think, as a matter of fact, that you should retire because standing up too long is not too good for you’. And that is very true. If you sitting on a hard chair for a long time, that is not so good either. I retired in June 2019, just before COVID-19.”
So how does Menes function now that he has retired from the priesthood? “I do not do the visitations I used to do when I was more active,” he explained. “People send for me, from time to time, to bless a new house for them – and things like that; but I only do the things that are necessary. I make sure when it is convenient to have a swim. I do a little work around my house -and right now I am trying to cultivate trees so that when I have gone on, some of my family will be able to benefit from them. If there is anything that I can do, by special request, by people who know me, I will. If I can’t, I will apologise to them.”
There are two things the retired priest does. One is to drive some of his grandchildren to and from school in the nearby area – a pleasurable role for him to perform.
His other activity is attending the weekly Thursday meetings of the Rotary Club of Anguilla, at Roy’s Place, Sandy Ground, to which he is driven – and back to his residence. “I do so for the company, and as a long-serving member of the organisation,” he said. He holds a Paul Harris Fellow Pin Award, an honourary symbol of his work and service with the organisation in Anguilla.
For the Rev. Fr. Vanier Menes Hodge, MBE, it has been, and continues to be, a life well lived.
