Gallery Montserrat: Some Prominent People in Our History

GALLERY MtNTSERRAT SOME PROMINENT PEOPtE IN OUR HISTORY

HOWARD A. FERGUS

UAfvoe Pi*44 University of the West Indies Barbados • Jamaica • Trinidad and Tobago

Canoe Press University of the West Indies 1A Aqueduct Flats Mona Kingston 7 Jamaica W I

© 1996 by Howard A. Fergus All rights reserved. Published 1996 Printed in Canada ISBN 976-8125-25-X

00 99 98 97 96

5 4 3 2 1

CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA Fergus, Howard A. Gallery Montserrat: some prominent people in our history / Howard A. Fergus

p. cm. ISBN 976-8125-25-X 1. Montserrat -Biography. 2. Montserrat -History. I.Title

F2082.F463 1996

972.97'5'0202 dc-20

Text set in 10.5/14 Libre Sans Serif x 27 Cover and book design by Robert Harris

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements /vi List of Photographs fvii List of Acronyms I viii Introduction / 7 ADMINISTRATION Edward Dacres Baynes / 5 Anthony Brisket / 8 William Stapleton / 10 AGRICULTURE Juliette Greenaway / 73 Ellen Jane Lindsey / 74 ARTS AND CULTURE Samuel Aymer / 77 Alphonsus (Arrow) Cassell / 20 Annie Cummings Greenaway / 23 James Alfred George Irish / 26 Ernest Archibald Markham / 32 Matthew Phipps Shiel / 37 Edgar Nkosi White / 39

iii

iv

Contents

EDUCA TION Vincent Bennett Browne (Major) / 43 Thomas Noel Kirnon / 48 Frederic Evered Peters / 52 Edwin Rowland White / 56

MERCHANTS AND PLANTERS Michael Symmons Osborne / 62 Joseph Sturge / 65 Samuel Waad / 68 Walter Edston Wade / 69 John Clifford Llewellyn Wall / 72

RELIGION Thomas O'Garra / 77 Quamina Williams / 79

SLAVERY The St Patrick's Day Martyrs / 83 Olaudah Equiano / 86

SOCIAL SERVICES AND COMMUNITY ACTION Catherine Barzey / 89 Charles Norman Griffin I 91 Patricia Griffin 193 Hodge Kirnon / 96 Noel James Linnington Margetson / 98 James Menzies / 700 Richard Piper and James T. Allen / 703 John Haynes Skerritt / 705 Elizabeth Wyke / 707 George Wyke and Edward Parson / 709

Contents

SPORTS Charles Henry (Jim) Allen / 772 Theodore Theophilus Bramble / 778 Fred Sylvester Davis / 727 TRADE UNIONS AND POLITICS Percival Austin Bramble / 724 William Henry Bramble / 729 Robert William Griffith / 736 Margaret Mary (Annie) Dyer-Howe / 742 John Alfred Osborne / 747 Ellen Peters / 752 Mary Rose Tuitt / 754 Michael Edward Walkinshaw / 758 Lindona Vereen Thomas-Woolcock / 767 Select Bibliography I 764 The Author / 766

v

Acknowledgements

I

he author wishes to thank Olga Allen for typing the first draft of the manuscript, Oelena Lynch for typesetting it and Barbara O'Leary for proofreading services. We wish also to thank the personnel of the Public Libray in Plymouth for making resource materials available, and for general assistance. A number of persons mainly family members of some of the people profiled in the book supplied information for which we are grateful and in some cases lent valuable photographs. The photograph of M.P, Shiel was reprinted from The Kingdom of Redonda: 1865-1900 (Aylesford Press, 1991), with the acquiescence of Jon Wynne-Tyson. Thanks are due also to the University of the West Indies (Montserrat) whose general resources assisted greatly, and to H.O. Woolcock for photographic services.

T

vi

List of

Photographs Ellen Jane Lindsey / 14 Samuel Aymer / 17 Alphonsus (Arrow) Cassell / 20 Annie Cummings Greenaway / 23 James Alfred George Irish / 26 Ernest Archibald Markham / 32 Matthew Phipps Shiel I 37 Vincent Bennett Browne (Major) / 43 Thomas Noel Kirnon / 48 Edwin Rowland White / 56 Michael Symmons Osborne / 62 Walter Edston Wade / 69 John Clifford Llewellyn Wall / 72 Charles Norman Griffin / 97 Patricia Griffin / 93 Noel James Linnington Margetson / 98 Elizabeth Wyke / 707 Charles Henry (Jim) Allen / 772 Theodore Theophilus Bramble / 778 Fred Sylvester Davis / 727 Percival Austin Bramble / 724 William Henry Bramble / 729 Robert William Griffith / 736 Montserrat Legislative Council 1952 / 747 Margaret Mary (Annie) Dyer-Howe / 742 John Alfred Osborne / 747 Ellen Peters / 752 Mary Rose Tuitt / 754 Lindona Vereen Thomas-Woolcock / 767 vii

List of

Acronyms ACP Associateship of the College of Preceptors ARC Antilles Radio Corporation ASP Assistant Superintendent of Police AUC American University of the Caribbean BEM British Empire Medal BWIA British West Indian Airways CARICOM Caribbean Community CBE Commander of the Order of the British Empire CCL Caribbean Congress of Labour CM Chief Minister CTO Caribbean Tourism Organization CUT Caribbean Union of Teachers ECS Emerald Community Singers FRCS Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons GCE General Certificate of Education ICFTU International Confederation of Free Trade Unions LIAT Leeward Island Air Transport MAAS Minority Arts Advisory Services MADS Montserrat Amateur Dramatic Society MAWU Montserrat Allied Workers' Union MBE Member of the Order of the British Empire MDF Montserrat Defence Force MDP Montserrat Democratic Party MORECO Montserrat Real Estate Company MSS Montserrat Secondary School MTLU Montserrat Trades and Labour Union NDP National Development Party NPP National Progressive Party NGO Non-governmental organization NOW National Organization of Women QBE Officer of the Order of the British Empire DECS Organization of Eastern Caribbean States OPWA Old People's Welfare Association POP Progressive Democratic Party PLM People's Liberation Movement RSA Royal Society of Arts SMO Senior Medical Officer UCWI University College of the West Indies UWI University of the West Indies UNF United National Front YWCA Young Women's Christian Association viii

INTRODUCTION

History is fashioned in the dialectical interaction between culture and economics: but it is illumined by its personalities. It is the great figures who shed the light and cast the shadows through which we understand. Michael Manley

I

n the 1967-68 edition of Personalities Caribbean,

Montserrat earned only three listings, two of whom were educators working temporarily in the island for the University of the West Indies (UWI); the third was Chief Minister W.H. Bramble. As a result of this kind of superficial and cavalier treatment, a small island colony like Montserrat had little or no literature to promote national pride and a positive collective self-image. There is no logical reason why a Montserratian headmaster could not have been listed instead of a UWI resident tutor born in Barbados. To make matters worse, such history as was taught was Eurocentric, glorifying Europeans as the key players in our development and underdevelopment. The heroes were Warner, Rodney, Nelson, Napoleon, Cromwell and George the Third, not Equiano, Richard Piper, Quamina Williams and Robert Griffith. Successive generations of Montserratians have been deprived of historical role models. It is no wonder therefore that in 1978, Owen C. Mathurin asserted that Montserrat was likely to be Britain's last colony after all the others were shed. An incipient sense of nationhood is nevertheless discernible in recent years. This is due in a large measure to the emergence of fragments of island history, and cultural and creative programmes rooted in that history. The present work takes forward the process of historical research and publication intended to illumine the past and provide guidelines and inspiration for the future.

1

2

GALLE RY M ONTSERRAT

This particular list of persons is not confined to politicians, planters and entrepreneurs; it includes educators, emancipators, humanitarians, writers and artists who are all mediators of development broadly conceived. Our writers and artists are critical to the process of cultural definition which is so important to wholesome and holistic development. In making the selection I am naturally exercising my own judgement so the list is not beyond debate. What I am suggesting is that generally this cast of persons contributed significantly to the evolution of our society in its journey from slavery to semi self-government; some lit the flambeau of hope in our dark valleys of oppression, exploitation and poverty and led us to a new plateau of dignity and self-confidence. 'Prominent' in this context is sometimes taken as an approval word, but it is not necessarily so here. Persons can be outstanding in a negative way and some may have elements of both stars and crooks, heroes and villains. Most of the persons in this study are models in some way, but I am neither building a hall of fame nor writing eulogies. There is some analysis which reveals vanity and venality alongside heroism and magnanimity. The readers must judge for themselves where to place rioters like the Menzies of St Patrick's (1946) on the character continuum which ranges from the virtuous to the vicious. Our canvass includes the island's second governor, Roger Osborne, who did not stop at judicial murder to satisfy his greed. It also includes Commissioner Edward Baynes, an immediate post-emancipation leader who made commendable efforts with overall disappointing results. Although one has used the term character continuum, it is worth emphasizing that these persons are associated with particular aspects of the island's life. Stories of J.T. Allen's love life exist—and there are oral sources with salacious versions—but our focus is his work as a champion of the oppressed and his use of journalism in the process. I will admit to significant omissions. Apart from the obvious fact that space is a limitation and one had to stop somewhere, there was a problem of information. William Trant of the Montserrat Overseas People's Progressive Alliance, for instance, merits an entry, but efforts to source the necessary data proved futile. This is also true of Frank Delisle who made aviation history in Montserrat and LIAT; and who also laid the foundation of Radio Montserrat when he started broadcasting from a basement in his Olveston home in 1952. I would also like to have included someone connected with printing on the island. In this connection, the Humphrey family of Kinsale is worth investigating for the second edition. A more exhaustive search might have produced more women and given a happier gender balance, but the scantiness of information

Some Prominent People In Our History

3

on women in the earlier centuries will hardly ever be remedied. Without setting out to effect this, the book includes persons from all the major districts in the island. The hope is that this work will be continually updated; it can then capture a younger generation including playwright and drama director David Edgecomb whose work is flowering in the region. The sections of the book are based on themes, but these are not all mutually exclusive; and some persons can fit comfortably into more than one section. Vincent Browne, for instance, can fit into arts and culture and J.A. Irish into education, but the categorizations reflect what, in our view, is the dominant aspect of their work. Students as well as the general readers should find these pen portraits to be useful stimuli to further research, discussion and writing. And for all Montserratians they should prove to be a useful area of self-knowledge. Montserrat is not a nation in the constitutional sense, but Montserratians are a unique people who can benefit from identifying with the good and great in their history; they can also learn from them as well as from those who cast shadows. This is necessary to bolster confidence and cohesion. Many of these men and women were nation builders, laying foundations, placing stone upon stone with mortar of sacrifice. This is a historical work and not a Who's Who in Montserrat. Nevertheless, I have taken the risky step of discussing a number of contemporary figures including some whose work is far from finished. This is true of persons like Dr J. A. Irish, Archie Markham, Alphonsus Cassell and Vereen Thomas-Woolcock This is because their work already stands out and the social areas in which they feature help to give balance to the book.

ADMINISTRATION

EDWARD DACRES BAYNES

dward Dacres Baynes succeeded Henry Hamilton as President of Montserrat in 1841 and he served for over 10 years; this was a crucial period three years after emancipation. He was therefore a major architect of the establishment of a free society on the island. Bayne's administration was a mixture of progress and failure. In fact, he came very close to leaving in disgrace following an adverse report on his work written by five members of the Assembly including Francis Burke (an associate of the Sturges), James Meade and E.B, Dyett. E,D. Baynes, as a good representative should, identified himself closely with the local community and its development. In 1842, he expressed great delight in the fact that an ex-slave had been elected to the Assembly; and when Francis Burke experimented with a silk worm industry for Montserrat, he gave encouragement and support When it finally failed he was disappointed and expressed the view that it had not been given a fair trial. It is doubtful though whether a silk industry would have succeeded in the long term; it certainly did not in neighbouring Martinique which had inspired the Montserrat experiment Baynes did bring some humanitarian sensitivity to his work. He wrote officially against the unfair system of share-cropping by which landlords defrauded the ex-slaves of the just return of their labour and initiative. This angered his boss, Acting Governor Cunningham, who commented adversely both on Baynes and his view of metayage. In the end Baynes' evaluation was suppressed and did not reach the British parliament. It took another 120 years before metayage was abolished. Baynes humanity was also evident in his attitude to laws on capital punishment which persisted from the era of slavery. He thought the death sentence for larceny was too oppressive and commuted sentences while awaiting approval for its abolition.

E

5

6

GALLERYMONTSERR AT

Baynes1 lack of administrative sophistication led him into trouble and even scandal. His treasurer, Goodall, obviously his personal friend, was allowed to live 10 miles up country, whence he managed a friend's estate, while he virtually farmed out the transaction of treasury affairs to his merchant friend who himself operated from his country house. This is one of a number of episodes which betray poor judgement and a tendency to get personally involved in semi-private affairs. In another fiasco a number of persons lost their savings in a Friendly Society with

which Baynes was involved and £300 was never properly accounted for. As a result of these indiscretions he was at times forced to lie naively to protect himself and his friends. His behaviour certainly led to a petition against him and a near recall instead of voluntary retirement. He felt obliged to personally evaluate his administration and secure testimonials in an effort to re-establish "his honour and character". He cited his interest in the welfare of the people, improvement in law and order evidenced by "an empty jail" and asserted that he had laid a foundation for future development although his term coincided with "a period of unparalleled depression... throughout the West Indies". Baynes was able to refer to an address by the Council regretting his departure. The prominent inhabitants of the island all signed a similar address in appreciation of his valuable public services. Some of the tributes sound a bit artificial, insincere and may have been orchestrated. In fact, some of the words merely echoed Baynes himself. Even the five members of the Assembly who had earlier petitioned against him joined the chorus of praise. It may be that they were prepared to be generous at his departure and it may be that their ambivalence reflected the mixed rule of an enigmatic character. In addition, Baynes had many personal friends who would have been willing to obtain for him a good character reference. Baynes administered the colony at a difficult time and nature made it even more difficult. The Sugar Duties Act of 1846 deprived the British Caribbean of preferential protection for sugar, and a massive earthquake struck the island in 1843. Add to this a new population of the 'free' and a merchant-planter elite who wanted to enjoy neo-slavery and needed a very able administrator. The British did not always take particular care to choose appropriate representatives and Baynes1 heart was bigger than his head. A large heart and an acute mind were both needed. Baynes' dubious rating did not prevent his descendants from succeeding him in time. Edward Baynes (most likely his grandson) became the first Commissioner of Montserrat in 1889 and served for about 19 years, retiring in 1898. Where Edward Dacres Baynes presided over an earthquake, Edward Baynes presided over the 1896 flood and the Fox riot. In 1900 his widow Mary

Some Prominent People In Our History

7

Baynes was voted an annuity of £25 by the Montserrat Government Yet another descendant, T.E.P. Baynes, became commissioner in 1932 and he too saw a disaster in the 1935 earthquake. E.D. Baynes had discovered a good stamping ground for his clan. Their records are better than his, but his task was perhaps the most challenging.

ANTHONY BRISKET

he first representatives of the British Government in

T

colonial Montserrat were styled governors. This

changed when the Leeward Islands colony came into being in 1671; each island had a lieutenant-governor, while a governor presided over the entire federal colony from his headquarters first at Nevis and then Antigua. Anthony Brisket, Montserrat's first governor (1632-49), had connections with the Irish in both Ireland and Virginia from where the colonists came. Brisket's ancestors hailed from Italy, but they acquired property in Ireland through influential friends at the English court. Anthony Brisket had a settlement in Virginia before 1632. This very probably came through his connections with John White of Ballyhea, County Cork, Ireland. He was a surveyor of Virginia which in those days meant the entire coast of North America from the present New York to Florida. So Montserrat's earliest connection with North America was established through its first Governor, Anthony Brisket. After his initial visit in 1632, Brisket went back to England in 1636 to have his trading commission renewed and to import Irish settlers. It was then that he disclosed to the crown his plan to build a church of stone and brick "for the glory of God and your Majesty's honour". Given the politics of the period, this had to be an Anglican church. It was built as much for the honour of the Governor as for the glory of God; it was named St Anthony's to pander to his vanity, it is believed, although there is a saint who bears the name Anthony. (Brisket Bay—now Old Road Bay—and Brisket Town were similarly named after Anthony Brisket.) Brisket's Anglican church in a Roman Catholic colony suffered waves of destruction by natural disasters and French invasion, but the present transept is very likely a part of the original church. 8

Some Prominent People In Our History

9

Brisket ensured that his relations succeeded him; at first it was his brotherin-law Roger Osborne in 1649, who was followed by Brisket's son Anthony II from 1662 to 1667. The first planter-governor made a fortune on which Osborne set his eyes, but in the end young Anthony inherited his father's wealth. In 1666 he owned three estates totalling 1,398 acres including Fort House and Waterworks. It was not unusual in these colonies for the governor to use the power which he derived from the Lord Proprietor to enrich himself. (The Lord Proprietor was, under the crown, the constitutional owner of the colony.)

WILLIA M STAPLETON

W

illiam Stapleton was the first person to carry the

title of Deputy Governor of Montserrat (1668) as a member of the first Leeward Islands federation. Stapleton hailed from an Anglo-Irish family whose estates in County Tipperary were forfeited because of his support for the king during the English Civil War. Forced to leave Ireland because of his loyalty to the crown, he served as a soldier of fortune in France, Spain and Italy before returning to England after the Restoration. There he was imprisoned on a charge of murder, but he obtained a pardon from the king to allow him to sail as a soldier to Barbados. From there he made his appearance in the Leeward Islands to lead an expedition against the French in St Kitts. From this restless and even criminal background, Stapleton was appointed by William Willoughby, the governor, to the top administrative position in Montserrat because of his reputation as a soldier and as "a man of known valour, good conduct and great integrity, was born in Ireland and therefore understands the better to govern his countrymen". Although he was an Irishman he obviously had no sympathies for Irish dissidents, so the English regarded him as a valuable ally in Montserrat. Except for an interim governor in the person of a local planter, Stapleton replaced the Brisket clan and proceeded to create a dynasty himself. When he left Montserrat to become Governor of the Leeward Islands in 1672, he was succeeded by his brother Edmund, and later on he got yet another brother, Redmond, appointed as deputy governor. When Willoughby made a request to build a town in the Brisket Bay or Old Town area, it was named Stapleton Town. This town complete with fort and thatched court house superseded Brisket Town. Stapleton was not only loyal to the king and to his relations, but also to his own search for a fortune. His first acquisition in Montserrat was Waterworks

10

Some Prominent People In Our History

11

Estate, a gift from the crown which Anthony Brisket II was forced to forfeit for traitorous behaviour during the French attack on Montserrat in 1667. He added to Waterworks (which his second son inherited), other estates through purchase both here and in Nevis, St Kitts and Antigua. His marriage to the daughter of the Governor of Nevis may also have added to his fortunes. Stapleton was so highly regarded by the British for his administration in Montserrat, that he was made governor by a special commission in 1671 even while Charles Wheler the Governor of the Leeward Islands was his boss and governor-in-chief. Not surprisingly, he succeeded Wheler as governor of the Leeward Islands in 1672 and was instrumental in ensuring a total separation of the Leeward Islands from the Barbados administration in 1675 after years of debate. As Governor of the Leewards he fought to ensure that the Caribs did not repossess Montserrat. Following his marriage to a Nevisian and his elevation to the post of governor, Stapleton resided in Nevis. He became in effect an absentee landlord who leased his Montserrat estates to tenants. Eventually a family member sold Waterworks to a relative, William Fenton, for £2,500. The existence of Waterworks Estate today and in white hands reminds us of men like Stapleton, who used it to milk wealth from the island. But his real enduring legacy to the island is intellectual rather than material. It was Stapleton who commissioned the first official census which put the population at 3,647 in 1678; it was he who also commissioned what turned out to be a perimeter map of Montserrat in 1673. The map provides interesting and instructive details on the topography of the island, public buildings, towns, estates and their owners. To complement this, his personal and semi-official records now housed at the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester provide valuable information and insight on the social and economic life of Montserrat between 1672 and 1686. As governors go, Stapleton was among the more enlightened and farsighted. In the process, this penniless soldier became a man of wealth and title in Montserrat and the Leeward Islands.

AGRICULTURE

JULIETTE GREEN AWAY

Juliette Greenaway became a full-time A lIthough small farmer only after she had sent her last daughter (now a lawyer) to primary school some 26 years ago, she has made a valuable contribution to the industry. Born in Beeches Hill in 1930, she was forced to quit school to assist her mother in farming following the untimely death of her father, so her grassroots upbringing influenced her future. Juliette Greenaway, whose three children are all university graduates, operates a three and three-quarter acre farm at Dyers, providing some of the labour herself and employing a few individuals. Growing mostly vegetables and food crops, she personally markets her own as well as the produce of others. Her farming has attracted national attention, having won numerous prizes in agricultural exhibitions, culminating in 1992 in the prestigious Farmer of the Year trophy for being the champion exhibitor. A quiet and dignified lady of deep religious faith, Juliette Greenaway has been the Enrolling Member or Leader of the St George's Anglican Mothers Union for over 36 years. She is married to James Greenaway a retired prison superintendent and an equally devoted church man.

13

ELLEN JANE LINDSEY

E1'l

ien Jane Lindsey was born at St Patrick's on August

,13, 1944, to Christiana Meade and the romantically

liberal estate manager, John Cassell of Fergus Mountain. After receiving lower primary schooling at St Patrick's, she was transferred to the Kinsale school at age 11, but was re-transferred to the St Patrick's school when Mary Tuitt became the headteacher. Like mother, like daughter, can be said of Ellen Lindsey, since her mother and grandmother were all farmers; her father of course was the boss farmer. Reared near to the soil, she was attracted to farming by watching her grandmother grow crops. Encouraged by her, she made her baby step into farming by planting a potato vine which produced a grand tuber, although the soil had little depth. Thus enticed she obtained permission to cultivate the mini plot; she planted cotton, but the plants soon died just as grandmother had said. Early in life, she had experienced success and failure in farming and had learnt a lesson which was vital for the farmer in Montserrat with its erratic rainfall. Ellen was plucked from her farming environment while still a young girl to live with another family in which she could be more economically secure. Her mother's income from farming was inadequate to properly support her entire family. In her spare time, she was required to mind some younger kids, but the land beckoned and she would disobey orders and turn to gardening when her guardian's back was turned. So up went the hoe and in went the corn and peas. She took her nascent gardening skills to the St Patrick's school where she established beds, some of onions and red beans, only to be robbed by some 'two-legged' animal. Ellen learned early not to over-romanticize the farmer's life. While still at school, she had to transport heavy loads of produce on her head to the market and also did some selling. 14

Some Prominent People In Our History

15

On leaving school, she combined gardening with assisting a seamstress, getting a wage of $3.00 to $4.00 weekly. It was after her marriage to Christian Lindsey at the early age of 18 that she took up farming in earnest. Her share of the family land was neither very large nor easily cultivatable. After removing rocks and stones, she went into vegetable farming, growing ground provisions— cabbages, cucumbers, eggplants, peas and dasheens on about two acres of land. She diversified with some sheep and goats and kept a donkey for transportation to the mountain side. She was now able to market her own produce to the sweet tune of $47.50 on the first effort. Ellen celebrated her arrival as a farmer by entering peas in the national agricultural exhibition and winning a second prize. Winning became a habit and the second time round she won prizes for peanuts, ginger and dasheen. She climaxed her winning ways in 1980 with several first prizes and the coveted best farmer of the year honour. Visiting her plots, the judges were impressed by her irrigation methods and the terracing on her sloping land utilizing the stones extracted from the land. She markets her produce mostly at hotels and supermarkets. Ellen's success as a farmer is all the more significant because she was a young woman. In Montserrat, the average age of the farmer in those days was above 60. Ellen Lindsey was able to marry scientific knowledge and techniques to the customary farming knowledge she acquired by observing her parents. She attended courses mounted by the CARICOM Secretariat and the Government of Montserrat in the management of small business, crop and livestock production, and marketing, and is a regular attendant at agricultural extension training courses; she proudly displays her many certificates. Ellen does not restrict her training and usefulness to agricultural pursuits. After Hurricane Hugo in 1989, she participated in a peer counselling training programme in post-disaster psychological trauma. Ellen Lindsey's abiding pride in farming is still very evident in her enthusiasm and the sparkle in her eye when she is being interviewed. For it is a creative act which gives her a sense of achievement and independence. To farm is to pray, putting her in harmony with the eternal Creator. Farming has brought Ellen Lindsey national and international recognition. She was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in 1988; in that same year she was one of two Montserratian women profiled in Nesha Z. Haniffs Blaze a Fire: Significant Contributions of Caribbean Women; and PALS, a local women's support group, gave her an achievement plaque in 1993 appropriately inscribed: You in U garden by Yourself U just Good at One with God.

ARTS AND

CULTURE

SAMUEL AYMER

amuel Aymer who hails from the east of the island

S;

* was born in 1911. He migrated to the Plymouth area

early to join his father Jimmo Aymer who lived at Dagenham mountain; from there he went to St Peter's in the north where he was destined to meet his mate under very intriguing circumstances. At the age of 83, Elizabeth Aymer (Miss Betty) daughter of Nat Greenaway of Cheap End, St Peter's, graphically recounts the meeting. Seeking his fortune Sam scrimped and survived by boiling breadfruit and roasting fish caught in Bunkum river. It was in this river that Elizabeth Greenaway and a couple other schoolgirls first saw Sam whom they greeted with stones when he refused to give his name. (Elizabeth led the stoning.) Her next her encounter with Samuel Aymer focuses on the mysterious musical world of jumbie dance which gives him his claim to prominence. Encouraged by village musicker Ben Gerald, Aymer mastered the fife and became part of the goatskin band which played weekly at Fogathy Hill. From the fife, Aymer went on to the bobla drum, and became an expert preferring it over the fife. Elizabeth still a schoolgirl became very ill with a throat condition and lost considerable weight. The doctor was unable to diagnose the problem. The supernatural came to the rescue; through a dream, her dead mother using her Aunt Louisa Greenaway as a medium, advised Elizabeth's father to "look after the child". This meant holding a jumbie dance to bring the worlds of the living and the dead into harmony to solve the crisis. Nat Greenaway was a poor man, but his child's life was at stake. He sold her fowl to help finance a jumbie dance and sure enough, Aunt Lou (Louisa) became entranced (turned) and divined that Elizabeth was harmed by a village lady through a yellow banana. Young Elizabeth was given the impossible injunction to find the banana skin so that it could be included in a special brew to effect a cure. As Elizabeth could not recover the 17

18

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

banana skin, she suffered on until her aunt found a substitute and concocted an insipid potion which was forced down her throat Days after, following a mysterious outrush of weevils from her throat, she recovered slowly. Elizabeth became Aymer's perfect mate. Not only was she grateful to him for his role in the healing, but she was an incurable believer in the power of jumbie dance and the mysteries of Sam's music. They moved into Plymouth and were married at the Hurley Memorial Pentecostal church at Wapping which they attended fora while until he found the style of worship incompatible with their beliefs. Elizabeth Aymer who lectures her grandchildren on the virtues of jumbie dances and the efficacy of their miraculous cures is very conscious of the heroic stature of her Samuel Aymer and the national void created by his death in 1979. Sam was in demand to play the fife in masquerade bands, and in the days when brand-new brides walked from the church to their homes he played in the goatskin bands which gave them musical accompaniment as they walked to the house of feasting. The most popular song ran: Tankie, tankie, tankie God A get me own wife

But it was as a bobla player in the jumbie dance ensemble that Samuel Aymer filled the greatest need. With Daniel Morson, Ben Gerald, Bo Miles and Henry Devil, Sam played for jumbie dances in every village of the island lifting obeah spells, getting dancers to turn and prognosticate on healings; they also played at weddings and christenings to invoke the favour of dead ancestors on newlyweds and newborns. Samuel Aymer became so famous for his music that in 1979 he represented the island at the Caribbean Festival of Arts in Cuba. It was this ultimate achievement whch inspired this poem: Black Sam (For Samuel Aymer: Deceased 1979) Black Sam black fife black drum Fluting de universal hum Of humble hearts De people's laureate Music rooted in pain Cut bamboo crooked like tired feet Burnt out cane Distilling an anthem sweet.

Some Prominent People In Our History

19

Black Sam Blood in yuh eyes Rum in yuh head Tones haunting Fife talking Voices of de living Voices of de dead. Black Sam black fife black drum Caroling de hum of de living Hum of de dead Jumbles' laureate Black Sam Africa in yuh eyes Ashanti melodies in yuh feet Fife and fibres in accord Recording ancient memories. Black Sam Illiterate man? Blowing yuh name in concertos Writing yuh name in sound Piping yuh fame In the pain of history. Sam gone Called up higher Number 1 quadrille for de celestial choir Fe fee foh filih filah filoh Fifing in a purer breath A note of victory in death Black Sam black fife black son Fifing de general hum Of Montserrat Music purified in pain De people's laureate. (H. A. Fergus)

Elizabeth Aymer keeps her husband's musical instruments as sacred memorabilia. In time, they should find their way to the national museum.

ALPHONSUS (ARROW) CASSELL

the soca-calypso king of the world, Alphonsus dubbed assell, universally known as the Mighty Arrow, has electrified audiences across the world with his performances. Arrow's name is mentioned in the same breath as the Mighty Sparrow (Slinger Francisco) the doyen of calypsonians whose tent he has shared along with other leading exponents of the calypso art. Mention Montserrat abroad and the chances are the name that jumps from the lip of the listener is not that of a politician or parson, but Arrow's. That is the kind of visibility which he has given to this micro rock of 11,000 souls and 32 square miles, although he is sometimes erroneously billed as a Trinidadian. Arrow is the last of nine children of the late Joe and Rachel V. Cassell of Wall Street, Plymouth. Born in 1951, he comes from a family of good academic achievers; he reached Form Six of the Montserrat Secondary School and could have gone on like several of his brothers and sisters to complete tertiary education, and secure a sedate white collar job. He chose business as a career and entertainment as his hobby. His business has developed into a major downtown Plymouth store, Arrow's Manshop, and he has transformed his avocation into a profession—a profession which contributes to his business since the name Arrow carries its own drawing magic. Questioned on his reason for choosing business, he indicated that it gave him a sense of independence. Calypso also became a lifelong business for the Mighty Arrow. Arrow came from a family of calypsonians. His brother Lorenzo sang calypsos even while a student at UWI, Barbados, and Justin, stage named Hero, has been calypso king of Montserrat on numerous occasions, climaxing his career as calypso king of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) in 1986. Arrow's career formally started in 1968 at the age of 17 when he entered the

20

Some Prominent People In Our History

21

local calypso competition—a competition which he dominated until 1974 when winning became monotonous and he felt it necessary to make way for the new brigade of artists who were coming on the scene. He published his first record, a forty-five, in 1970 and followed up the next year with his first album, Arrow on Target In 1972 he went to the mecca of calypso, Trinidad, where he met and came under the influence of Sparrow. Thereafter, Arrow's success was phenomenal. By 1980 he had released seven albums and 1982 was a crowning year with the issue of a soca/calypso album Hot Hot Hot which quickly sold over 75,000 copies. It was 'hot' whether he was in Montreal or Morocco. Arrow has attended the Trinidad carnival every year since 1972 and has a strong following in that country. When he sang "Raise you han if you want to jam", all Trinidadians raised their hands; and when the Pope visited they adapted the line to: "Raise you han' if you love the Pope". The people loved him to the tune of Arrow. Indeed people all over the Caribbean and beyond are raising their hands for Arrow who for a period was also a familiar figure at the Antigua August carnival. With a sense of mission as well as with a quick commercial eye, Arrow turned to North America for greater international exposure and support. Before long he had visited nearly every continent and numerous capitals; and in so doing helped to further internationalize the calypso. Crowds warmed to his music even in countries like Germany, Guatemala, and Japan where the mother tongue is not English. This great apostle of the calypso art has appeared in popular international shows like Top of the Pops in England and Soul Train in the USA; and his music has been used in movie soundtracks and advertisements. Hot Hot Hot which hit the national charts in Englad has sold some 4,000,000 copies. Making the point in a BWIA flight magazine that soca and calypso have not been very successful in penetrating international markets, Simon Lee lists Arrow and Sparrow as the two exceptions. Arrow brought his own distinctive voice and idiom to the calypso. In his early years he sang the classical calypso making trenchant social comment and giving valuable advice all within the discipline of art. This is what he did when he sang "Hold on to your Property" during the real estate boom in Montserrat when expatriates were buying land in this terrestrial paradise; and when he implied that the Creole language had an inherent value, serving the purpose of national cohesion and self-respect in "Dis is awee Culture", he was being teacher and educator which is what the calypsonian is, according to the Mighty Sparrow. In calypsos like these including "Man Must Live", which celebrates man's resilience in the face of adversity, he contributed to what Slinger Francisco referred to as "the philosophical thought process of the Caribbean".

22

GALLERY M ONTSERR AT

From about 1979, Arrow experimented with, and evolved a new calypso genre in which the message was subordinated to the music. He borrowed from French and Spanish music and re-created something new with an Arrowesque image. As journalist David Edgecombe observed, everything from soca, meringue, cadance, to salsa, rap and scratch is incorporated in the music and the 'fusion' results in an international flavour which appeals to many tastes. What results is party and jump-up music with a catchy line or two carrying the thought. In this soca-calypso, Arrow the businessman and the artist also fuse. This popular music attracted album sales and big dollars, a realization which does not escape Gordon Rohlehr, Professor of West Indian Literature at the UWI. Commenting on the change in Arrow's music, he felt it was deliberate and catered to popular taste with an eye on sales. Arrow agrees, but insists that there is the added motive of making people happy which he enjoys. Having the advantage of producing his own albums he is in the position to ensure the integrity of his style. Arrow has received and continues to receive several accolades and honours for his contribution to music globally and to the development of Montserrat. These include the MBE which he received at Buckingham Palace in 1989; a Global Award from the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) in 1992 for making the Caribbean better known through his music; and a Special Award at the first Annual Caribbean Musical Awards in New York in 1991 for internationalizing soca music. In 1992, the Mayor of Oswego in New York gave him the keys of the city and in 1994 the San Francisco Carnival Committee honoured him for the most exciting performance at their international carnival. Montserratians have also recognized the stature of the Mighty Arrow. He was one of the earliest recipients of the Funkyman Award and in 1994 the Montserrat Progressive Society of New York presented him with an achievement award. This impressive list of honours underscores the outstanding success of this Montserratian who at age 45 still has many more miles to go in music.

ANNIE CUMMINGS GREENAWAY

oprano soloist Annie Cummings Greenaway was born

S;

>at Mount Pleasant, St Peter's in 1905 to Mary Doway

Cummings and Arthur Payne. Her mother migrated to Trinidad when Annie was only three years old and later to the United States leaving her under the guardianship of a devoted aunt, Ethel Allen, and the support of a caring extended family. She was fortunate therefore not to have suffered the deprivation experienced by many who shared her absentee parent circumstances. Destiny had marked her out for stardom, and she did not lack for nurture. The seeds of her illustrious career were sown in early childhood when the St Peter's Parish priest drafted her into the church choir at age 11; he recognized the youthful beauty of her voice. Her mother, distant but supportive, played her part by paying for piano lessons for which she journeyed to St John's thrice weekly where Annie Kirnon Daley instructed her. Annie Cummings joined her mother in the USA in 1923 where she sought to earn a living in a cloth factory on 135th Street in New York; but her native talent and sense of purpose led her to high school and on to the New York College of Music which she attended for three years. She then took up singing seriously, but continued to receive training in voice and piano from a succession of tutors. Thus her voice became honed and her music blossomed befitting an artist poised for international acclaim and enthusiastic reviews. As Dr J.A. Irish pointed out in his commemorative booklet on Annie Greenaway, the church provided her, as it did many black singers, with an opening stage and a supportive audience. In 1936 she became the lead singer in the Union Congregation Church choir where she exercised her talent "with poise and dignity" and served her God for some 26 years. On May 30,1948, she broke down 23

24

GALLERY MONTSERR AT

some of the barriers of racial prejudice when she debuted at Town Hall and sang her way into the hearts of a black and white audience 1,500 strong and drew lavish compliments from the New York Times and the Amsterdam News. She had put herself and Montserrat on the world's stage. She was earning $400-$500 per concert in contrast to the weekly wage of $10 for her factory job. After nearly 26 years abroad Annie Cummings, who had in 1932 married Joseph Greenaway, made her first visit to her native country. On Sunday July 17, 1949, Montserratians were at last able to enjoy what audiences in the USA and other West Indian islands had experienced—the melodious voice of Annie Greenaway. To her credit, the first performance was in her native St Peter's. Earl Baldwin the governor and Charlesworth Ross the commissioner were there, but equally, if not more importantly, her villagers were among the 600 who crammed into the church and were thrilled and inspired. A humble villager was shining among the stars. She moved on to other venues including St Anthony's which was "peopled to the utmost capacity" as many who heard her in St Peter's went back for more. Mrs John H. Jeffers of Wapping, her local accompanist, was at her best, according to the Montserrat Observer, running those chords with such even brilliance, which blended so nicely with the dramatic soprano's melodious voice. The programme was reported as "good to the last word", but the audience was particularly thrilled by "Who'll buy my Lavender", "A bird from over the Sea", "Caro mio Ben", "It's my Desire", "I Passed by your Window" and the spiritual "The Old Ark's A-moving". The performance can be described as stunning as it brought "a quietude over the whole service". Annie Greenaway gave Montserrat more than a sense of pride and self-respect. She was unselfish with her earnings and Montserrat benefited. This Jim Bass tribute succinctly sets forth the multiple roles in which she served: "soloist, philanthropist, church woman ... benefactress, humanitarian, and a friend of thousands in all strata of society in Montserrat, the Caribbean and the United States". Among other things, Montserrat received pianos for schools and churches, treats for children, and electricity in some schools and churches. Her philanthropic arm has extended to the indigent and disprivileged in some other Third World countries. Annie Greenaway has received many accolades and honours from the several community organizations in which she served, and has won recognition from mayors, governors and even from President Ronald Reagan. In 1990, the Caribbean Research Centre at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York under the direction of Montserratian scholar Dr J.A. Irish, organized a programm

Some Prominent People In Our History

25

of tribute to this noble Montserratian on June 16,1990. An attractive commemorative booklet written by Dr Irish was published in that same year to celebrate the woman and the event. Capping his tribute Dr Irish wrote: "One finds her at age 85 burning brightly, aided by a medicinal dose of good brandy. Her love and commitment to people everywhere is like perpetual early spring new and fresh." A beautiful bouquet of words for a talented lady whose photograph in old age shows a lovely sparkle in her eyes. In its search for role models, Montserrat must look to its wider geographical and social space in the Caribbean diaspora. Annie Cummings Greenaway the singer of Mount Pleasant and Zion Hill is a worthy one. She is international, but no less Montserratian for that.

JAMES ALFRED GEORGE IRISH

w:f

hen Dr James Irish formed the United National

Front (UNF) to contest the general elections in 1983, he was accused of being a communist by the incumbent People's Liberation Movement (PLM), led by John A. Osborne. Commenting in his defence, I mentioned that he was perhaps the most brilliant Montserratian of my generation. His continuing career as a scholar and a builder of social and community institutions has merely served to reinforce this assessment. It is difficult to exaggerate the accomplishments of Irish, given the many fields in which this gifted Montserratian has excelled—thinker, teacher, Christian preacher, trade unionist, musician, cultural animator, author and social architect. Born in 1942, his mother and father were Elizabeth Sweeney Piper and James Irish, but he was nurtured mostly by his grandmother, Sister Mary Rodney a staunch Pilgrim Holiness Christian who, in George's poetic words,

... fell intact and did not fade.

Irish missed normal entry to the single elitist secondary school, but was perhaps rescued from relative obscurity when he arrived via the recently introduced unprestigious 'Senior' section of the school. He was not fully stretched at the Montserrat Secondary School (MSS), but showed leadership qualities there and won a hastily instituted Montserrat Scholarship which died with him. He gained an upper second class degree in French and Spanish at the UWI in 1965 and went on to complete a PhD in Spanish. At the UWI he distinguished himself equally in extracurricular activities, including Christian outreach work and athletics and won the BWIA Student of the Year award in 1964. Irish was appointed a lecturer at UWI after graduation and later became head of the 26

Some Prominent People In Our History

27

Spanish department at Mona. His education in the rich Jamaican cultural environment with its ferment of ideas, his concentration on Latin American Spanish and the academic ambience of UWI were valuable preparation for his relatively short, but productive stints in Montserratfrom 1971 to 1974 and 1981

to 1985. The period between 1971 and 1974, when he was UWI resident tutor, was a significant one in Irish's life and a significant one for social development in Montserrat. Whether he was founding and leading the Emerald Community Singers (ECS), or working at a local theatre group, or establishing a debating tournament among secondary schools in the British Leeward Islands, or writing articles in the local newspaper, or composing songs, or publishing booklets, or founding the Montserrat Allied Workers' Union (MAWU), what he did was to give intellectual leadership and cultural focus to his society. As scholar and artist he paid his unrivalled dues to his country. An inescapably religious man, he balance the secular with the religious and was sometimes equally bold in his religious initiatives. He was a devoted and regionally respected member of the Pilgrim Holiness Church. Along with training and native talent, Irish is an inspired person. Almost everything he touched in this first Montserratian period turned into gold. The success of MAWU and the international esteem of its General Secretary Vereen Thomas-Woolcock—largely due to the foundation laid by Irish—is history; so let me illustrate with the ECS. After 24 years, this group is still strong and vibrant. It has developed an international record having toured Barbados, Trinidad, Cuba Guyana, and the USA and it has produced long playing records which still attract people. The singers make a contribution annually to cultural tourism and they have remained truly community oriented, responding readily to requests to perform on public occasions; they have been good ambassadors of Montserrat. A unique feature of ECS, connected as it was to the UWI Centre, was the research, creativity, artistry and training which Irish invested in building up their repertoire. This intellectualism (characteristic of Irish's work), coupled with a strong ancestral element helped to give ECS and their folk-songs a marked longevity. In this way, he contributed to the building up of a counter-culture and an emerging self-definition and black pride in Montserratians. He engaged minds as well as spirit and exploited our people's flair for singing, dancing and acting. From this perspective there is no inconsistency in this evangelical Christian's recognition of the role of ancestral religion in our culture and the staging of it in the form of Jumbie dance with its 'woo-woo' music. Sophisticated but simple minds pooh-poohed his recognition of the inherent value and authenticity of

28

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

creole language, but this made sound development sense and was consistent with Irish's worldview. Whether he was organizing an arts festival or inviting Haitian dancer Lavinia Williams to run a workshop, his sense of roots and the primacy of the indigenous culture filled his consciousness and informed his work. It is easy to list Irish's accomplishments, but a biographer has to convey something of his large vision, and place his work in some kind of philosophical context. What Irish spearheaded in Montserrat in the 1971-75 period, for instance, was a cultural naissance with an innovative ethos and he himself was conscious of what he was doing and its larger context. It was not merely the establishment of Alliouagana Drummers; the Alliouagana Arts Festival or the Alliouagana Music Centre. In his words, he endeavoured to counteract the effects of "subtle education oriented to the abuse and rejection of what was local and the exaltation of what was foreign... a voluntary overexposure to and adoption of alien material... without one having the individual confidence and self-assurance to adhere to the good that there is in one's own local traditions". It is clear from this statement that while he was promoting self-esteem and self-acceptance, he did not support an uncritical glorification of local lifeways. This new thrust (with which Irish associates a nucleus of persons—Dorcas White, David Edgecombe, Edith Allen, Mary Griffin, Joy Nanton, Willie 'Kinnie' O'Garro, Joseph Jackman and Howard Fergus) was, not surprisingly taken into the realm of ideas in a public space. As the regional university man in Plymouth, this was a legitimate mandate. He wrote articles in the ne wspa pers on a ran of subjects such as sports, constitutional reform, and community development. He interpreted this side of his mission as "that of a person who injects information into the public mind and stimulates public interest". Irish did stimulate public interest as well as ire. He fulminated against colonialism which he termed "a mean and shameful status" and some of his utterances seemed racist to certain persons in the society and harmful to tourism and the strategy of development by invitation and to Montserratian-Canadian relations. Neither the expatriate Canadians, the "new white settlements" nor "the growing local elite who stand aloft perched on the hills" in "apparent luxury" contemplated Irish's ideas with a calm spirit. And when he added notions like worker participation he did not endear himself to conservative and capitalist Montserrat, and this sector tends to have long memories. I do not necessarily agree with all of Irish's ideas, blessed especially with hindsight, but this is irrelevant in this piece (a local scholar more distant from Irish and his time could do well to make a study of them). The focus here is on the importance of public debate which he adopted as an educational policy with

Some Prominent People In Our History

29

development implications. Vital truth can emerge from this kind of dialectic. He did elicit rejoinders from the likes of Chief Minister Austin Bramble and a British expatriate John Day (Nick Chaucer and also known as Dies /roe) whose pungent repartees were not unworthy of the intellectual encounter. I take exception though to his attempt to dismiss Irish's ideas as "the rhetoric of a verbose correspondent". Austin Bramble and Irish differed especially on the matter of independence, but Bramble appreciated the importance of informed dialogue. "The Government is assisted by such public opinions and by being made to explain and justify its policies", Bramble admitted. In 1971, Irish headed the editor's thank-you Christmas list of persons who "contributed stimulating articles" to the Montserrat Mirror. In 1971, Irish returned to the Mona campus after writing in Alliouagana in Agony, his second of two booklets on Montserrat, "I am about to leave, but my work will go on." He was right; he had laid solid intellectual foundations and built abiding social institutions. Irish continued to direct MAWU from his bases in Jamaica and later the Dominican Republic where he lived and taught between 1978 and 1981, but returned home in 1981 to begin his second Montserrat period which lasted until 1985. This was the period of electoral politics; it was a period of personal disappointment for him, but one of productivity withal. At the MAWU annual general meeting in 1982 Irish publicly announced his intention to seek political office with union endorsement. He recruited his three trade union colleagues, Bilton Bramble, Charles Nick Ryan and Vereen Thomas (now Woolcock), and formed the UNF. Like W.H. Bramble and several Caribbean labour leaders, Irish used the union as a support base. Some contend that the union was established in the first place as a springboard for his political career, but he has publicly denied this. Whatever was the motive behind the union, it has served the island well and continues to be an indispensable infrastructure. Irish's UNF suffered a dramatic defeat at the 1983 polls when they garnered an aggregate of only 251 votes out of the 6,213 votes cast. Irish had been ostensibly very popular except in some predictable quarters, so this showing was rather surprising. Many factors contributed to the defeat. Irish had strongly and publicly supported the incumbent John Osborne's PLM government in 1978 after making a trade union pact with it. His move therefore seemed inconsistent to some persons, although in fact Irish had offered conditional support or "critical support", the term he prefers. In my view Irish's timing was not the best. John Osborne who went on to win another general election in 1987 was still strong in 1983 and the economy was relatively buoyant. Besides, the Montserratian

30

GALLERY M 0 NTS E R R AT

electorate was not ready to make the transition to a new breed of political leaders with a certain level of formal education—a transition which was not made until 1991. Perhaps the last straw was when he was fraudulently painted as a communist by his political opponents. A letter postmarked in the USA and signed by Rufus Snyder on behalf of a 'Save the Caribbean Association' was sent to hundreds of Montserratians. It contained what it alleged was an extraction from a CIA record of Irish's Marxist manoeuvres during his sojourn in the Dominican Republic. Irish was compelled to invest energy into fighting the scare and smear, but it did not avail. Irish may have been somewhat left of centre as any progressive Caribbean thinker with any social conscience would be, but he was not a communist. In fact he is a very deeply dyed evangelical Christian. The ploy, however, worked. If this was a period of failure, it was also a period of success. In 1982 he established the Montserrat Cooperative Credit Union and that same year the Academy of Arts and Commerce was founded with the collaboration of Bilton Bramble and Howard Fergus. This school was a major initiative and success while it lasted (1982-87). It gave an opportunity to drop-outs and rejects from the main system to study towards the London College of Preceptors or General Certificate of Education examinations. In Irish's words: "It has placed graduates in the Technical College, the Civil Service, broadcasting, insurance firms, the local banks, the hotel sector and in commerce and industry". This period which saw what historians may well regard as an aberration from Irish's true destiny also saw the setting up of the Alliouagana Music Centre, another plank in the cultural foundation which Irish laid. The immediate post-election period was one of limbo in Irish's life; he went into small business but did not readily score his usual success. In search of a stronger economic base for his family and still smarting somewhat from political defeat, he moved to the USA where he again excelled as teacher, scholar and institution builder. In 1989, he was appointed Director, Caribbean Research Centre, Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York where he is also Professor in Caribbean and Latin American Studies. The light of Irish's prodigious talent and intellect cannot be hidden and in New York he has received many prestigious assignments and consultancies and has won numerous awards and accolades. He is a consultant on multicultural education to the New York City Board of Education and was a member of the Select Panel of Eminent Persons commissioned by the Secretary General of the OAS to review the role of the OAS within the Inter-American system. Among his honours is the Funkyman Award for outstanding contribution to education and

Some Prominent People In Our History

31

culture in Montserrat. As a scholar, Irish has continued to indulge his penchant for research and publication and Montserrat has featured prominently in his published work. Irish's success in the USA can be described as overwhelming, but this is not surprising. And yet I would argue that his work in the somewhat intellectually sterile atmosphere of Montserrat was vastly more important. It was seminal work calling for his unique combination of talents and skills as he opened up intellectual and cultural frontiers. He is a son whom Montserrat ought to delight to honour. This national figure has put physical distance between himself and his island, but spiritual distance is a different matter. He occasionally comments on events in Montserrat and some of his work more than echoes his beloved isle and undying attachment to it.

ERNEST ARCHIBALD MARKHAM

Markham hails from Harris and is the great A r rchie grandson of a prominent easterner, William Michael Osborne. Born in 1939 to Rev. Alexander S ylvester Markham (BD, LTh, DD) an Linda Anne Eliza Markham (nee Lee), he had his early schooling in Montserrat before he emigrated to Britain in 1956 where he completed secondary education and then read English and philosophy at the University of Wales (Lampeter). He also spent some time at the University of London. Not known for his religiosity, Archie descends from a solid line of staunch Methodists. Born at Tuitts in 1871, his paternal grandfather William Henry Caxton Markham, "acknowledged as one of the best carpenters and cabinet makers in the island", is said to have "owed everything to the church"; and he married a daughter of Quamina Williams, the father of Bethel Methodism. Their first son, Archie Markham's father Tom, entered the Methodist ministry in Canada. Archie's maternal grandfather, Nathaniel Lee of Harris, was also a local preacher as was the poet's great-grandfather William Michael Osborne. References to his preaching ancestors appear respectfully in his poems with a suppressed sense of questioning. In one entitled "Preachers, Preachers" we learn that: a grandfather's voice was mocked in this village (not his message, dear family, the voice, the voice) A father's sermon corrupted by flesh ... Meanwhile preachers preach around our fears: who will unlock the old voices trapped here? Once, in childhood, I tried to free them from twin-pillars looming, like something from the Bible, above our house in Harris1

and "bibles white and black" resonate in some poems. More relevant to our story, Nathaniel Lee "possessed a good library and did a lot of reading", notes 32

Some Prominent People In Our History

33

parson-chronicler, G.E. Lawrence. Markham may have suppressed the religion or dealt with it through his characteristic wry wit, but he thrived at least on the literary tradition. A few literary voices have emerged from Montserrat in recent years including David Edgecombe's in drama, this writer's own work in poetry, and the playwright Edgar White who is also recorded in this volume, is a writer of international standing; but Archie Markham, one of a continuing number of Caribbean writers 'in exile' is the greatest literary figure that this island can claim. Markham is something of a wanderer having lived and worked in France, Northern Ireland, Sweden, Germany, and Papua New Guinea, but he is not rootless. He returns to England where half my life was scheduled to be lived ("The Sea") and to Montserrat, to his ruined house and childhood environment and the felt presence of his awesome grandmother. He is not just a wanderer, he puts down roots so that he can write taking ideas and inspiration from the host country and offering something to it in return. In his own words, he is "the resourceful traveller", and for critic Paula Burnett he is an Ulyssean traveller, trailing the world with his Caribbean roots securely bestowed. The poet claims to have built houses in France, but I would not myself employ him as a builder except where the tools are his well-honed creative intellect and powerful imagination. Markham had a stint as media coordinator in Papua New Guinea, but he is first and foremost a teacher and writer, and in a sense he teaches because he writes, impelled it seems, by a sense of mission to help others discover the poets and storytellers in themselves, whether they live in Ireland or Papua New Guinea or Montserrat. In the wake of every 'missionary' journey he leaves behind writers and literary journals. Archie Markham's writings range over a number of genres. He began writing plays, the first being The Masterpiece, produced in Wales in 1964. It was in his role as director of the Caribbean Theatre Workshop (1970-71) that he wrote and directed The Private Life of the Public Man in St Vincent and Dropping Out is Violences Montserrat. He also co-produced Tim in London in 1967, staged the reading ofSeverusofEnga in Papua New Guinea, and his TheNarrativeVerandah was scheduled for a premiere performance in London in 1994. Markham's experience as a dramatist serves him well in his poetry where he carves many dramatic scenes and creates several voices for what Paula Burnett calls his "imaginatively muscular ideas".

34

GALLERY MONTS ERR AT

Markham is yet to write a novel, but he has written prose fiction of a high quality, creating unique modes of storytelling. His stories are scattered in literary journals in the Caribbean, in Europe, and down under in Papua New Guinea, but a collection, Something Unusual (London, Ambit Books) appeared in 1986 and Ten Stories was published in 1994 by Pavic/ Sheffield Hallam University Pres with a third collection, Madness, forthcoming. His versatile talent must not be understated, but it is as a poet that Markham excels. He publishes poetry at a nearly phenomenal rate, but not at the expense of artistry, however effortless his pieces seem. B etween 1971 and 1991 brought out 13 poetry pamphlets and between 1984 and 1993 five major books of poetry and with Archie, there is always another forthcoming. His five major poetry titles are Human Rites (1984), Lambchops in Papua New Guinea (1985), Living in Disguise (1986), Towards the End of a Century (1989), and Letter from Ulster and the Hugo Poems (1993). His poetry reflects his colonial education including Shakespeare, Latin grammar and The Aeneid, but Caribbean and Montserratian lifeways, indeed his school days are very present, are all well integrated by his quiet but powerful irony and mature wit. His pieces are clever in the best sense of the word. In "Maurice V's Dido" from his recent Letter from Ulster and the Hugo Poems you encounter 'distant' Dido and the boys of his Montserratian class, 5b, Latin quotes and his subtle, unostentatious but effective use of nation language. Markham may be a British writer, but he is also a Caribbean writer whose work is enriched by his use of the wide social and emotional spaces at his disposal Even when he writes about Britain, he is often writing about the Caribbean—its blood and tears, as he discerns children of immigrants queuing up for houses they claim their fathers built. Montserratians have no doubts about Markham's West Indianness. In three months after the passage of Hurricane Hugo, he published a best seller Hugo Versus Montserrat, a classic record of the facts, memories and creative constructs of that night of hurricane mayhem. In a lighter mood, but still toughly teasing in his interplay of home and away thoughts, he tells us in "Hinterland": The first wet dream was not the joke Schoolboys brag about, but fear Of stretching out a foot from Montserrat And falling into sea. In France, in Germany

And which 'British' poet can w r i t e , " . . . we must pool/our assets. I'm coming soon to celebrate with the little/Hamilton girl. Tell she I love she".

Some Prominent People In Our History

35

"Lambchops" (a group of poems) does not strike one at first as the most poetic of words, but it is typical of Markham to surprise and ambush you into admitting: Why not? By assuming different personae—Sally Goodman and Paul St Vincent— he extends his styles and types of consciousness while at the same time he can listen to the critics incognito, and ascertain whether his work has an acceptability 'independent' of his name. In a double creative act he wrote "Lambchops" as Paul St Vincent, a black West Indian trying to survive in London. Markham the 'missionary' is inevitably an editor sowing creative seeds, preparing the environment for productivity. In the early 1970s he joined a poetry performing group significantly named the Blue Foot Travellers and later served on the General Council of the Poetry Society of Great Britain (1976-77), the Greater London Arts New Writing Committee, the Poetry Book Society (1987-90) and was assistant editor of Ambit (1980-83). Working with the Minorities Arts Advisory Service (MAAS) in London, he edited the magazine Artrage between 1985 and 1987. In Papua New Guinea, he established and edited Enga Nuis. He started writing Ulster in Ireland while teaching English at the University of Ulster at Coleraine (1988-91) and is presently editor of Sheffield Thursday at the Sheffield Hallam University, where he is a senior lecturer in Creative Writing. There, in addition to teaching in undergraduate and MA writing programmes, he is charged with developing a Caribbean Resource Centre. Markham is a builder after all, an architect of infrastructure for creative writing. In addition to the magazines, Markham has edited a number of books. The first, Merely a Matter of Colour: The Uganda Asian Anthology (with Arnold Kingston) (1973) indicates something of the wide canvas of his work. Then in the same year in which Hugo Versus Montserrat (with Howard Fergus) appeared (1989), he edited a very substantial volume of poetry published by Bloodaxe titled Hinterland: Caribbean Poetry from the West Indies and Britain, which features 13 poets including Derek Walcott, Edward Brathwaite, Martin Carter, Olive Senior, Michael Smith, Mervyn Morris and Louise Bennett. A parallel book of Caribbean short stories is in the making. His editorial endeavours also include two pamphlets, one being Poetry on the Buses (Sheffield, Pavic, 1992). With increasing recognition of his prominence as a writer, Markham has been able to attract a number of fellowships. These include a Creative Writing Fellowship at Hull College of Higher Education (1978-79), a C. Day Lewis Fellowship at Brent (1979-80), fellowships at Ipswich (1986) and more recently at Ulster. At the age of 56 Markham's creative accomplishments are very impressive; and while he is variously called British and West Indian (one doubts the usefulness

36

GALLERY MONTSERR AT

of these labels), his themes are so wide-ranging and his artistry is so outstanding that his is a universal voice and stature, yet to be fully discovered. Montserrat of 11,000 people is fortunate to have produced a poet of this calibre and even more fortunate that his Montserratian roots and identity enjoy a permanence in his creative consciousness. I may doubt my credentials to evaluate Markham, but never doubted that with his work before me, I was in the presence of a powerfully creative intellect. This tribute that Paula Burnett has paid to Markham seems apt: "Markham is a reminder to any non-Caribbeans, who may still believe that Derek Walcott is the only notable Caribbean poet, that they are making a serious mistake". It is in that league that Markham belongs. With his disarming wit and cool sense of outrage controlled by a tolerant but searching irony, he speaks with a uniquely authentic and compelling voice—a son in whom Montserrat is well pleased.

MATTHEW PHIPPS SHIEL

M

atthew Phipps Shiel can be deemed Montserrat's first novelist, since he was Montserratian by birth.

He was born to Methodist local preacher and trader Matthew Dowdy Shiel and Priscilla Ann, a freed slave, on July 20,1865. Redonda, a half square mile island which legally belongs to the country of Antigua-Barbuda, can also claim him since in a fit of royal vanity his father had him crowned King of Redonda in 1880 and he later adopted the title King Felipe I. (One of the assumed duties of Shiel, the monarch of Redonda, was to bestow titles such as duke and duchess to his literary friends in particular.) England, where he lived most of his life, naturally has the greatest claim on him. As the custom then was, Matthew was schooled overseas—first at Harrison College, Barbados, then in Devon in England, before he studied for a degree at King's College, London. A linguist, he turned to medicine for six months, but abandoned it when he discovered he could not stomach operations. He turned therefore to literary pursuits including journalism, and having written his first novel at the age of 12, he went on to write at least 24. None of the novels is set in Montserrat, but the island's landscape and occasionally temperamental natural phenomena, especially its seasonal hurricanes and boiling bubbling geysers, shaped his early consciousness, his character, and doubtless his overcharged style. In his 1901 article "About Myself", he himself described Montserrat as: a very great and holy place, full of passionate woes, the very apex and hub as it seems to me of the world ... I have an idea that at the moment of my death, it will sink. I do not know if it is true. I have passed on the calm sea some blazing day, like an Eternity of light (whether in the body I know not), close under this piled augustness of crags and my eyes have filled with tears of love and pity for it, and all its turbulent epilepsies and its despondent manias... It has soufrieres 37

G A L L E RY M 0 NTS E R RAT

38

(hot sulphur-springs), and sometimes, afterone of its tantrums, passing invisible ships many a mile out at sea can smell that fume of Hell it sends.

This is an example of Shiel's style; it is grand, gothic and disturbing, reflecting his mystical religious temper and the awesome outburst of Montserrats earth and sky; and some of his novels may well reflect the fantasies of a crowned king separated from his kingdom where boobies, goats and iguanas kept court in splendid privacy. Shiel's best known and perhaps his best written novel is The Purple Cloud. It became a film, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, in which Harry Belafonte starred. Writing in London Magazine in 1964.J. Maclaren-Ross, aGrandDukeofRedonda, observed that this novel contains some of Shiel's most magnificent scenes. A short passage is reproduced here: Immediately after midnight there was a visible increase in the conflagration, when on all hands I began to see structures soar ablaze, with grand hurrahs, on high, in fives and tens, in twenties and forties: all between me and the limit of my vision, they leapt, they lingered, they fell, while my spirit more and more felt deeper mysteries of sensation, sweeter thrills. I sipped exquisitely, I drew out enjoyment leisurely . . . I seemed to see pandemonium through crimson spectacles, the air wildly hot, and my eye-balls like theirs that walk staring in the midst of burning fiery furnaces, and my skin itched with a ripe and prickly itch.

The words came from the lips of a typical Shielian over-mighty character. The current monarch of Redonda ('Queen Maggie1) is 45-year-old Margaret Parry of Manchester, a great-granddaughter of Irish trader Matthew Dowdy Shiell and grand-daughter of the novelist who dropped the final T from his name. Shiel had bequeathed his august title and robe of office to his literary executor, the poet John Gawsworth, but in Parry they have returned to the blood-line, to the probable disappointment of the present 'pretender', Jon M. Wynne-Tyson. Like her predecessors, Queen Margaret may well bestow an array of royal titles on her friends. No firm connection has been made, but it is almost certain that the novelist was a close relative of Queely Shiell, one of Montserrat's largest slave owners with 266 slaves in 1800; by 1824, he had increased his number to 656. Another Shiell, William, was President of the Council in 1842; in 1841, he was a manager of 16 estates scattered all over the island from Gerald's in the north to German's Bay in the south and Hermitage in the east Four of these, including Richmond and Grove, were owned by Queely Shiell. The Reynold Morse Foundation of Ohio has done an excellent job in researching and popularizing the story of this enigmatic Montserratian English novelist. He died in 1947.

EDGAR NKOSI WHITE

ontserrat boasts a small number of outstanding

M

playwrights like Vincent Browne, David Edge-

combe and Archie Markham, but Edgar Monk White is the most widely published. White is also a recognized novelist. Born to Phyllis White and Thomas Dyer in 1947, he attended the Cork Hill primary school and sat at the feet of teacher Biddie Greenaway on whom he lavishes praise for her nurturing. In 1952 young White migrated to the United States of America where he attended the Theodore Roosevelt High School in New York City. Growing up in Spanish-speaking Harlem, he himself learned Spanish and one of his plays is bilingual. While still a teenager he joined a seminary to take up holy orders but he allegedly became disillusioned with the church and dropped out. Later, however, he would take up where he left off. White attended City College, New York University, and Yale School of Drama. While at Yale he was the artistic director of the Yardbird Theatre Company in Harlem. His writing career started in earnest after the famous poet Langston Hughes read his pieces, recognized his talent and encouraged him to pursue writing as a career. He did just that and at the age of 20 his first play, The Mummers was produced by Joe Papp at the New York Public Theatre and later published by William Morrow Publishers. The Mummers was so successful that Joe Papp produced his next four plays. In New York, White went on to establish himself as a recognized playwright. Five of his plays were performed at the New York Public Theatre; and his works have also been staged by Cafe la MaMa, the O'Neill Centre and Theatre Dy Lys. White went to England in the 1980s, originally to take Les Femmes Noires to the London theatre. Between 1979 and 1989, several of his plays including Masada, Lament for Rastafari and The Nine Night were performed. He reached even greater international heights when his Lament for Rastafari was produced 39

40

GALLERY MONTSERR AT

at the Dutch Royal Institute in Amsterdam in 1987 and Redemption Song made the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland the following year. Not surprisingly his plays have been also published in Africa. Returning to New York in 1989, White continued his early success, staging Trinity and Like Them that Dream at the New Heritage Theatre. His blue opera about the Scottsboro Boys, Live from Galilee, was produced in 1993 by Cafe la MaMa. Himself an 'exile1, the theme of exile recurs in his plays, but he is a frequent artist-traveller and Caribbean characters, experiences and issues are ever present in his plays. Edgar White not only wrote several plays on Caribbean themes as some titles suggest, but his plays travelled to the Caribbean from both his London and New York basesJhese include The Nine Nights, Lament for Rastafari, The Defence and I Marcus Garvey which was staged in Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad. Although considered a bit lengthy, I Marcus Garvey was a tremendous success at the Ward Theatre in Jamaica in 1991. Writing in the Sfor(October 7,1991) Phyllis Thomas referred to it as "the epic on the life of Jamaica's first national hero which was penned by Edgar White". The play also drew this comment from Franklin McKnight in the Sunday Gleaner (October 6, 1991): "Edgar White's Marcus Garvey and the Captivity of Babylon is timely in many ways. Not only because between now and next week when it takes a break, it is the forerunner to the season of excellence in the arts that holds much promise, but also because the play opens a few weeks before Heritage Week which celebrates Garvey as the first national hero." This play is something of a masterpiece. Lament for Rastafari and Other Plays "offers a dark and disturbing picture of how blacks struggle to survive in a white society and with each other". One of White's earliest plays, J'Ouvert Song, was staged at the University Centre on the playwright's first return to his country in 1976. He himself provided flute music for the play which was directed by the Resident Tutor, Howard Fergus. This play apart, White is conscious of the fact that Montserratians have not had an opportunity to see his work and is seeking to have this corrected. Edgar White continues to be a prolific writer. In 1990 his novel The Rising was published by Marion Boyar Publishers. He is presently working on another novel, several screenplays, some about the Caribbean-American experience, and In a Night World, a play which celebrates Caribbean-African music and dance. A list of his published works appears below. White obviously believes in variety (or perhaps versatility). He adopted the African name Nkosi to signal his ancestral links with that country; he recently graduated from the New York Theological Seminary and is soon to be an ordained

Some Prominent People In Our History

41

minister. Nkosi is currently Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing, Playwriting and Humanities at City College. In June 1994, Edgar Nkosi White was selected as a member playwright of the prestigious New Dramatists for a four-year term. This is a 45-year-old institution committed to assisting, nurturing and developing playwrights in all areas of their craft; it is located at 424 West 44th Street in New York City. Its award-winning members have included James Baldwin (TheAmen Comer) and Lonnie Elder III for Ceremonies in Dark Old Men which was once staged in Montserrat. It is not certain what effect White's theological training will have on his work, some of which already deals with religious themes and issues. It is not clear whether it will affect the sometimes stark realism of the language of some of his characters which some persons find a bit abrasive. It will certainly not affect his growing international repute as a playwright. And although he tends to be billed as born in the Caribbean, we know he hails from the Caribbean village of Montserrat. Some theatre critics regard Edgar White as showing the potential to becoming the most important West Indian playwright after Derek Walcott. This of itself is an impressive tribute. Published works of Edgar N. White (1994)

Novel 1988 The Rising. London: M. Boyars. Plays 1970 Underground: Four Plays. New York: Morrow. 1973 Crudficado: Two Plays. New York: Morrow. 1983 Lament for Rastafari and Other Plays. London and New York: M. Boyars. 1984 The Nine Night/Ritual by Water. New York: M. Boyars. 1986 Redemption Song. London and New York: M. Boyars. Recent Anthologies 1993 Calling the Wind. New York: Harper/Collins. 1993 Crosswinds: an Anthology of Black Dramatists in the Diaspora, ed. by William B. Branch. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. 1994 Voice of Colour: Scenes and Monologue from the Black American Theatre, comp. by Woodie King, Jr. Applause Acting Series. New York: Applause Books.

EDUCATION

VINCENT BEN N EH BROWNE (Major)

incent B. Browne a multi-talented Montserratian

V:fienjoyed the added boon of an excellent

education.

Born September 7,1922, he was the son of the colourful figure Claude E. Browne, a senior Leeward Islands civil servant and distinguished photographer, and his wife Wilhelmina Marion Browne, nee Piper. Their other child died young, so he was very much a loner. Speaking to journalist Esco Henry (now a lawyer) in 1985, he reminisced: "In my very young days, I was quite a loner and my father didn't allow me to get away with anything." Browne started secondary schooling at the Excelsior School in Nevis where his father was posted. When his father returned to Montserrat, he attended the Montserrat Grammar School, but before long he was sent off to St Mary's College in Trinidad to obtain a better quality secondary education than was available on the island. Browne's sojourn in Trinidad made a big impact on his life and by implication on Montserrat. In his own words, "It was in Trinidad that I first became exposed to the cultural arts. In fact I should say that my formative years were spent in Trinidad. It is there that I managed to acquire the knowledge of the musical instruments I now play". His music teacher was the renowned J. D. Greaves with whom he studied the violin up to grade VIII. As a result he played the violin in the St Mary's College senior orchestra; in helping to start and train the junior orchestra he developed his versatility on reeds, string and brass. It is said that he plays 12 musical instruments including the violin, cello, guitar, trumpet, trombone and saxophone. With his music he enriched and enlivened the cultural life of Montserrat, training and conducting the Montserrat Defence Force (MDF) band, creating his own arrangements and teaching individuals. He considers an overture which he wrote for the band as his profoundest musical piece. The first 43

44

GALLERY MONTSERR AT

Montserratian to enter the University College of the West Indies (UCWI), as it then was in 1952, he exercised his musical talents in leading a University band, the Varsity Sextet. At the University he composed his famous Mono Moon and featured in a UCWI film as a cellist. Although Vincent Browne involved himself in major community endeavours, he is perhaps best known as an educator. He started his teaching career at the Montserrat Secondary School (MSS) in 1943 and taught for 10 years in his pre-graduate days. On returning from the UCWI with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, Spanish and French in 1955, he resumed teaching and was promoted to the principalship in 1957, becoming the first native to attain that position. There he influenced the lives of several persons who became leaders in the society. One of his many favourite assembly morning injunctions was, "if anything is worth doing it is worth doing well". While principal, Browne had opportunities to act as education officer and permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education and Social Services, thereby extending his contribution to the development of education. He wrote a number of memoranda proposing changes in the secondary school system some of which were eventually implemented, "although coming out as part of a report attributed to others", he comments. He still maintains his interest in education and is particularly concerned about the defects in the moral character of today's children. After serving for 10 years as principal of the MSS, Browne's next substantive position was that of warden at Chancellor Hall at the UWI in Jamaica. In 1970, he was transferred to the Cave Hill campus of the University as warden and student counsellor. Back home in Montserrat he served the Roman Catholic community by heading their primary school for a short period. Browne was an educator by profession, but he was equally distinguished as a general community figure who plunged himself and his talents into several avenues of public service. He was the unpaid programme manager at Radio Montserrat during its formative years in the mid nineteen fifties. He recruited and trained broadcasters, some of whom have served the island well, and was meticulous in the editing of material for airing. "If I was home and I heard something on the air which was not correct, I'd drop whatever I was doing and rush back to the station to find out what was the matter", he told Esco Henry. His classical evenings and Tots and Teens live show on Saturday mornings are remembered with lively appreciation. Vincent Browne joined the MDF in 1943 and rose rapidly, becoming commanding officer in 1962. That body benefited greatly from his own penchant for orderliness, discipline and perfection. In him the force had a bandmaster who

Some Prominent People In Our History

45

could both write music and direct; his Lindalita, a full length overture for brass played by the MDF band has resounded in the streets of Plymouth for years. Even after Major Browne retired officially from the Force, he maintained contact and wrote their music. His latest project was that of adapting traditional folk-songs to be played during military parades. Thus he replaced many a British air with folk songs like "Bam Chick a Lay". This was another important plank in his contribution to the development of national pride and self-respect. Culture and the military were united in Vincent Browne not only in music, but in theatre. He trained members of the Force to act, wrote plays for them, and MDF concerts of drama and music became popular features of Montserrat's cultural calendar which in those days was not as crowded as it is now. In 1964, Browne was awarded the MBE for "efficiency and devotion to duty" bland words which hardly reflect the remarkable quality and range of his work on the island. In 1967, he was promoted to the rank of major. Browne's love for the military and faith in its benefits led him into the scout movement. In 1945, he established and managed a sea scout troop on the island. (In 1952 when he left for studies in Jamaica, Oscar Piper and Melvin Gallway took over the leadership.) He also took charge of the MSS cadet corps and became for a period scouts' commissioner for Montserrat. During his sojourn in Barbados (1970-82) he got involved in scouting as a member of the managing committee. Vincent Browne's activities as a playwright and his interest in drama have already been alluded to. At MSS his graduation ceremonies were incomplete without a dramatic presentation. These were mostly classical scenes from the likes of Moliere and Shakespeare, staged in period costume, but he was not content with directing the plays of others. He is not Montserrat's best known playwright, but he was the pioneer, and an outstanding and prolific one. Beginning in 1956, he has written some 16 plays including Pale, Sunquest and On the Seventh Day, which are all full length; Big Business, TheSnob, The Meeting, Apropos of Swellings and Apropos of Dumplings; and four which treat the Christmas theme—AIIThieves, The Fourth Wise Man, SimonsTavern and TheOther Cheek. Several plays satirize social issues, albeit in a humorous setting, and contain rich and racy slices of local life. On the Seventh Do/is historical, focusing on the plight of ex-slaves in post-emancipation Montserrat. Big Business, The Snob and The Meeting have attracted regional recognition and festival awards. Big Business which "addresses the dilemma of teenage pregnancy and marital infidelity in the context of apparent religious piety", was successfully staged at the first Caribbean Festival of Arts in Guyana in 1972. Browne was at last published in New York in 1991 when the Caribbean Research Centre at the Medgar Evers College brought out Big Business and Other Plays edited by J. A. G. Irish.

46

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

In 1956, Browne was the obvious choice for Coordinator of the UCWI Extra-Mural Leeward Islands Drama Festival which was held in Montserrat. In his retirement days, he founded the Montserrat Amateur Dramatic Society (MADS). Appalled in his words by "some of the plays that are staged here ... [he intended] to continue producing plays here to give the public stimulating material". MADS was unfortunately short-lived. It was, however, able to stage Browne's Sunquest, a satirical comedy, in 1983. There is much current talk of arts and culture in Montserrat, but it is easy to overlook the quiet but powerful work of Major Browne who built a solid base for the indigenous arts. Browne did not hide his artistic light in Barbados where he associated himself with the National Independent Foundation of Culture and Arts. Browne's list of 'extracurricular1 activities is a long one. He was a deputy director of the Montserrat branch of the British Red Cross, 1956-63; and in 1962 was a president of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, an international organization which emphasizes leadership training through community development projects. He was later made a senator of the organization. From 1960 to 1963, he was a member of the St John's Ambulance Management Committee and Vice-Commodore of the Montserrat Yacht Club from 1966 to 1967. Vincent Browne's is easily the most impressive public service achievement by any Montserratian of his time and perhaps even to the present. When he taught Extra-Mural classes in Spanish between 1949 and 1966, and taught at the Montserrat Academy of Arts and Commerce in 1982 and gave private classes in music, he was rendering community service, for any payment would have been a mere token. Browne's community activities were ultimately extended to political action. Coming back to Montserrat after retiring from the UWI, he took a prominent position in Dr J.A. Irish's United National Front which fared badly in the 1983 general elections—perhaps the only public life failure with which he is associated. Generally perceived as a conservative gentleman of privileged background, he was criticized by some for associating with what they regarded as the radical grass roots platform of Irish. His own explanation is that he desired to see the island run by a government fully concerned with its welfare and not for selfish reasons. Perhaps Browne's critics did not take into account the effects of his exposure to progressive thinking on UWI campuses and his boundless faith in James Irish, his five-star scholar. In addition to the MBE, Major Browne has been given a number of other awards in recognition of his work. In the year of the MBE for "efficiency and devotion to duty", he also gained the Scout's Medal of Merit. These were followed

Some Prominent People In Our History

47

in 1967 by the Efficiency Decoration for 12 years' "loyal and effiaent service as an officer of the Montserrat Defence Force" and by the Award of Merit from the MAWU for outstanding service to teaching in 1982. In 1984, Funkyman, a private local awards system, gave him an award for his contribution to culture and entertainment in Montserrat and he was the choice of the Lions Club for its Citizen of the Year award in 1987. The Rotary followed suit in 1992 with their 'Distinguished Service Award' in recognition of exceptional leadership and devoted service to the people of Montserrat. Finally in 1993, he received the QBE in the Queen's New Year Honours for service to Montserrat and to the region—a paltry honour in retrospect, considering the quality and magnitude of his work. Coming from Montserrat's upper middle class, Vincent Browne possessed advantages, native gifts and a nurturing environment which many a Montserratian boy of his time lacked. To his credit he became a successful and worthy steward of these gifts, for his life and genuine service positively touched hundreds of Montserratians of all classes and ages. Short in stature, he stands tall in the island's roll of honour. It should not be too difficult even for Montserrat to find some way to immortalize him. Something of a philosopher, Browne should have the last word. In an article headed by the quote, "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton", he wrote inter alia: The Duke of Wellington might have been too modest to make the point that good, practical and intelligent leadership contributed very largely to assuring and securing the victory at Waterloo. Our leaders, wherever they are called to lead, must ponder very carefully on this last point. There is far too much nonchalance apparent in the ranks of our leaders and employers. There are too many gossip-mongers in our offices, both in the public and private sectors. There are too many clock-watchers operating in our labour force! As yet we have no potential Waterloo to consider in Montserrat. But, if there ever comes a time when we are up against our own 'Waterloo', I sincerely hope we will be able to ensure victory on the grounds that we have truly 'played the game1 and upheld all the Rules honestly, rather than having to wait for outside assistance.

This conveys something of the mindset which led him into the prodigious volume of public service which puts our island, the island so dear to him, forever in his debt.

THOMAS NOEL KIRNON March 22,1986, Thomas Noel Kirnon was greatly O nhonoured by Antiguans when they climaxed a week

of activities by re-naming the St John's Boys School, the IN. Kirnon School 19 years after his death. He spent most of his working life in Antigua, but was born in the little village of Judy Piece in the north of Montserrat on May 25,1887—the second child and second son of David and Ann Kirnon. Tom Kirnon attended the Cavalla Hill Methodist school where he excelled and graduated to being a pupil teacher. This was the only form of secondary and higher learning open to ordinary children following the Standard Seven Examination. Kirnon again demonstrated his brilliance in the three-year pupil teacher system placing first in the third-year examination in the entire Leeward Islands Colony which at the time included Dominica. This performance won him a scholarship to the Mico Teachers' Training College in Jamaica from which he graduated in 1908 at the young age of 21. Upon graduation, Kirnon's first assignment was the headmastership of the Freetown Wesleyan school. This was followed by stints at Sawcolts and Seatons Wesleyan Schools. After six years of solid service in Antigua he returned home in 1914 and was posted at the Bethel Methodist School in the east of the island. Here he was known far and wide as an old-school disciplinarian who did not spare the rod, but equally as a dedicated scholar and consummate professional. He is still referred to with a certain amount of reverence. Writing to me about Kirnon, a veteran educator, Edwin R. White, observed that "some notable scholar sat at his feet". A contemporary of Hodge Kirnon, who is recorded elsewhere in this volume, Tom Kirnon was numbered among the Montserratian intellectual elite of the time and was a member of their lively literary organization. In 1921, Montserrat lost Kirnon when he was recalled to Antigua, the headquarters of the Leeward Islands colony to lead the St John's Boys School in 48

Some Prominent People In Our History

49

1922. This was itself a tribute to the young man "from little Montserrat", as one Antiguan eulogist puts it. His 15 years at this school gave him a chance to make a marked contribution to the development of Antigua's human resources, as evidenced by the outpouring of praise which attended his interment in 1965 and the memorialization of his name in 1986. The roll call of prominent Antiguans who came under his influence and testified to the positive and productive quality of his nurture include Chief Minister, Premier and Prime Minister Vere Cornwall Bird; Oscar Bird, whom he encouraged in athletics with the words: "put on your wings, Birdie"; James H. Carrott, whom he taught as a pupil teacher and who went on to become a Leeward Islands inspector of schools; Olva Flax an author and Ashley Bryan, a Professor of Chemistry at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Prime Minister Bird remembers Kirnon in these words: I am able to offer personal confirmation to the nation that he was a man of sterling qualities and a really outstanding educator . . . As one who had experienced the wholesome up-lifting influence, I can testify to the fact that he was a person of exemplary character and a teacher who had a consuming interest in the educational, moral and social well-being of his pupils and students. In the words of Oscar Bird: Shoddy work was anathema to him ...

the importance of cleanliness and

tidiness in matters of personal hygiene, in dress and of the school premises was constantly kept before his pupils. Their posture, their punctuality, their manner of speech came under his constant scrutiny. And Professor Ashley Bryan referred to him as "a headmaster's headmaster". Kirnon provided both professional and intellectual leadership to his teachers. It was he who 'lured' them into studying for the English Associateship of the College of Preceptors (ACP) and he held Saturday morning classes to prepare them for their various examinations including external degrees. True to his native spirit of intellectual inquiry he exposed himself to educational literature coming out of the UK and the USA and became aware of new thinking in education. True scholar and teacher, he organized study groups of teachers around the new ideas to ensure their propagation to the benefit of the country and for the social and professional advancement of his colleagues. This gives meaning to the claim of James Carrot, former inspector of schools, that he incited my intellectual curiosity into wider fields of knowledge than my limited opportunities at the time made possible. Kirnon himself earned the ACP and became a Registered Member of the Teaching Profession with the Teachers' Registration Council of Great Britain.

50

GALLERY MO NTSERR AT

T.N. Kirnon was a progressive 'black' thinker even if he waved no banner proclaiming this. A former student of his, Professor Ashley Bryan paid him a great and insightful compliment when he wrote: "Mr Kirnon's Weltanschauung [worldview] had greatly extended beyond the narrow confines of our tiny geographic locus." To support this, he cited Kirnon's sojourn at the all-black Tuskegee Institute where he became acquainted with the struggles of black peoples in the USA and elsewhere. He introduced his students to the works of black poet, James Weldon Johnson, including the now famous anthem "Lift Every Voice and Sing". Equally significant, when he introduced 'Houses' in his boys school he used names from the USA (Booker T. Washington), Africa (Aggrey) and Antigua (Stevens). He thus subtly demonstrated and sought to instil a sense of black identity and a positive self-concept. Kirnon was in the vanguard of the movement to establish a professional association among Antiguan teachers and indeed among Caribbean teachers. It was he who organized the Antigua Teachers' Association in 1932 and went on to establish relationships and association with teachers in other territories. Eventually he was a delegate at the original meeting which founded the British Guiana and British West Indies Teachers' Association, a forerunner of the Caribbean Union of Teachers (CUT). He brought a missionary zeal to the professionalization of teachers and improvement in the quality of their work. J. Oliver Davis, his first pupil teacher, recalls a Sunday in June 1956, when T.N. Kirnon, then in retirement, came to his home and dispatched him on a mission to contact teachers in the country districts. He wanted them to take interest in a conference of West Indian teachers scheduled for Antigua. In fact the long illness which resulted in his death began on that Sunday, Davis noted. After acting either as Inspector of Schools or Education Officer between 1937 and 1941, Kirnon was confirmed in the administrative position of inspector of schools. Operating from this wider stage, he was able to influence educational development throughout Antigua and the entire Leeward Islands. C.M. O'Mard, then an education officer, paid this tribute to Kirnon the inspector of schools: Despite numerous odds, he performed his duty with absolute DEVOTION. By far the greater part of his working life was spent at work. He knew no resting day, he knew no closing hour. He was never absent, never late. He lived and worked for education from sunrise to sunset and from eve to dawn all through the year.

Kirnon's life was not confined to the not-so-narrow corridors of school teaching. As a member of the St John's Debating Society, he was a skilful debater. A staunch Methodist, he was a man of integrity and high moral principles "who refuses to compromise his convictions for expediency". It is hardly surprising that

Some Prominent People In Our History

51

this bright Methodist teacher, who was so many things to so many persons in the Montserrat and Antigua societies, was a local preacher; he was also a circuit steward and Sunday school teacher. Kirnon drew lifelong support from a devoted wife in Sarah Mable Greer, a daughter of the village figure John T. Greer of Harris, whom he married in 1920. (Her sister Bankie also married another notable headteacher, Rodway Mason.) They had one girl, Violet, and five boys—Herbert, John, Paul, David and Knox, many of whose names celebrate religious figures. It is said that he strove to inculcate in his children the noble ideals he set for others—a tribute echoed by his son, Herbert Everard Kirnon. One is conscious of the fact that the source of much of this information on Kirnon is speeches and statements made in circumstances in which speakers are conventionally committed to speak complimentarily. But when the nation of Antigua and Barbuda decided to honour a Montserratian in such a signal fashion, this model man and teacher must have exhibited the marks of true greatness. Besides, a sincerity absent from many a eulogy shines through the sentiments expressed at the passing of the man and the naming of a school in his honour. Impressive too is the wide range of persons who took delight in honouring him and the many facets of his life which they highlighted. These are too much to invent. One is apt to wonder about the difference T.N. Kirnon might have made to the moral and intellectual tone of Montserratian society, had he not been recruited by Antigua; that is, if in characteristic fashion we did not stone that prophet. And yet during the seven years in which he served as an educator here, he touched many lives significantly who influenced yet others. Antigua deserves congratulations "for memorializing this Montserratian who was perhaps the most influential teacher in our times".

FREDERIC EVERED PETERS

of T.N. Kirnon, F.E. Peters was like him ALacontemporary distinguished educator. It can be said without

exaggeration that like T.N. and Hodge Kirnon, he was a star in Montserrat's intellectual firmament in the early years of the twentieth century. We are short on details on the life of F.E. Peters, but his monographs on the history of Montserrat are enough to earn him a place in this first gallery of Montserratian worthies. Born in 1890, he was the son of Octavia Ophillia and Lewis William Peters. After all-age primary schooling, he entered the teaching service and rose in turn to be headmaster and then superintendent of schools which was the supreme educational position in Montserrat. J.R. Peters, the literary editor of the Montserrat Herald was his uncle, so he seemingly hailed from an intellectual background. As an educator, F.E. Peters was influential and respected. A graduate of Mico Teachers' College in Jamaica, it was he who headed the delegation from the Montserrat Association of Teachers to the West Indian Royal (Moyne) Commission in 1938; his clarity of expression and his concern for educational development is evident in the memorandum which he presented along with Rodway Mason and Clarence Edwards. They were concerned that after teachers underwent "a period of at least five years training for their profession, their status was still inferior to that of junior clerks in the civil service who perhaps received no special training for their work". Peters and his colleagues were not just preoccupied with salary but with the low status of the teacher and its effect on national education. The dual control of education by church and state and the resultant administrative inefficiency exercised his mind. The tenure of teachers who were in reality employed by the 52

Some Prominent People In Our History

53

church was insecure and both church and state were able to excuse themselves with regard to certain obligations to the schools. In his view, the school failed to fulfil its mission because these problems prevented the teaching profession from attracting the best persons to its ranks. His plea was for raising the status of the teacher to a level commensurate with the importance of their work in the community. A well-groomed gentleman, Peters did much by practice and precept to improve the image of the teacher in Montserratian society. After serving 20 years as headmaster of the St George's elementary school, he was appointed to the position of Supervisor of Schools on June 1,1942. In his personal development, Peters was an all-rounder; he was a useful and ardent cricketer, an excellent musician and a Freemason. He was consequently a valuable role model for young teachers of his day. When he was headmaster at the St George's school in Harris, he made a great impression on young Edwin Rowland White who set out to emulate him as a musician. F.E. Peters was also outstanding in his grooming, dress and personal appearance whether he was on the playing field or inspecting schools. As impressive as was Peters' work in education, it is as a Montserratian historian that he excelled and made his most telling contribution to Montserrat considering especially the dearth of written material on the island. He wrote and published three booklets. In his introduction to the first book, he gives us an insight into his intellectual vision: I am convinced that progress in any people is possible only when each generation can sow good seed by adding to the store of knowledge, the fruit of which shall be reaped by those that come after.

This book of 51 pages, entitled Montserrat: Her Disasters. A Souvenir of the Great Hurricane of September 12th and 13th, 1928, was written about two months after the hurricane, so Peters must have already collated information on the history of Montserrat and its disasters. It is a comprehensive even if compact account of the island's natural disasters with a valuable and authentic overview of Montserrat's history. The clarity of Peters' prose which sometimes takes on the lilting rhythm of poetry, and its picturesque nature, mark him out as an outstanding storyteller and a creative writing artist. Here is a sample, and note the pathos: No tongue or pen can describe the scene of desolation ... the beauty and freshness of yesterday had all disappeared, so also had the hopes and prospects. Houses partly or totally wrecked with their furniture and broken pieces scattered far and wide, or lying in confused heaps, trees uprooted or standing as mere posts destitute of leaves and branches... The Fessidore was gone, no doubt to

54

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

the bottom. A piece of wood tossing to and fro on the boisterous sea marked the spot where the ill-fated vessel had probably foundered.

It was a deliberate strategy of Peters to include 'ringside' accounts of the storm by witnesses in their own words. James R. McDowell, manager of the firm D. Hope Ross Ltd, confirms that his initial diffidence went as "Mr Fred Peters prevailed, on the ground that the varied experiences of residents of different stations of life here should make interesting reading now and many years hence". As it turned out, the accounts came from upper and middle class persons, bu the graphic details of the "cold reality" of the storm make compelling reading. Peters' book is also valuable as a gallery of photographs of Montserrat's buildings and scenes, some before the storm and some after. It is also a revelation of the quality of photography produced by local artists such as J.W.R. Perkins and Claude E. Browne. Peters' second work is reportedly an 11-page booklet giving a brief history and description of the famous St Anthony's Anglican church in Plymouth. It was printed in Barbados by the Advocate Company in 1931. A true intellectual of his time, F.E. Peters felt the need to participate in the centenary of the emancipation of Montserratian slaves on August 1,1934. Under the patronage of Acting Commissioner Edward P. Bell, he gave a lecture entitled: "The Abolition of Slavery" at the St Mary's School Chapel. (The venue was appropriate because this was the church where the freed slaves gathered to celebrate their freedom, as well as the first elementary school erected on the island to educate children of emancipated slaves.) Popular demand for copies of the lecture motivated Peters to print and publish it as a pamphlet. Printed in Barbados in 1934, the 16-page document was dedicated to Joseph Sturge, father and son, because of their involvement in the history of the island and their contribution to its development for nearly a hundred years. While admitting that "no picture can portray the horrors of West Indian slavery", Peters placed his theme in a global context emphasizing the ubiquity of slavery. Mindful perhaps of his mixed audience, composed as he said of "descendants of two races", he was careful not to be inflammatory although he was faithful to the gory details, brutality and mental degradation of the inhuman traffic: To appreciate the present, we must remember the past not in the spirit of hate and revenge, but with determined purpose to press onward and upward in the march of progress.

In emphasizing our debt to abolitionists like Wilberforce and the godly group, he followed the conventional view and did not recognize the economic factors

Some Prominent People In Our History

55

which undermined the institution. He was obviously unaware of Hodge Kirnon's thesis (referred to elsewhere in this book) on the subject. Peters was not wrong in observing that the world was growing to realize tht no race was superior to the other; but the achievement of racial equality in Montserrat was to take a longer time than he seemed to have anticipated. No limiting comment can detract from the quality of this essay, based as parts of it are on primary sources, much of it on competent analysis and all of it on a generous spirit. Whenever Montserrat's general history is written, Peters has to be a main reference. When Peters became ill, he went to Massachusetts in the USA for medical attention, and died there on April 17, 1949. He was buried at a cemetery in Cambridge, but his footprints had been indelibly planted in these dark Montserratian sands.

EDWIN ROWLAND WHITE

Rowland White (Teacher Mayers) who became E;'d.dwin an octogenarian on October 1, 1993, was born and raised in the village of Harris. His father was the patriarchal Samuel Henry White of Long Ground (popularly known there as Godfather Whitie) and his mother was Frances Ryan-Mayers of Harris. A fairly successful farmer, Samuel White rose to be manager of the New Windward estate, but life for young Edwin was nevertheless just as hard as that of other village boys. In his own words he had "the bare necessities of life. At times his clothes were patchy, and his home less than desirable". It was as a young scholar that he distinguished himself from other boys and ultimately went on to become one of the most outstanding educators of Montserrat. "Little White", as he was called because of his diminutive stature, raced through all-age primary school reaching standard seven at age 11 and earning three standard seven certificates, the highest academic credential available to him. He recalled how Inspector of Schools Leslie Tucker lifted him to stand on the bench at age six when he outshone his classmates in response to his questions. A boy of exceptional ability and a prodigious memory, he was a popular reciter at the village Tea Meetings. That such long poems and passages of scripture came from so short a boy added to his entertainment value. After a brief stint as a bookkeeper at Farms Estate belonging to the Dutch family Hollenders, he entered his destined career in 1929 as a pupil teacher at his own St George's School which had just been rebuilt after the 1928 hurricane. Having mastered his local apprenticeship, including passing the required pupil teachers examinations, young White won a scholarship to the Rawle Teachers Training Institute, Codrington, Barbados in 1933, where he was a contemporary of Oscar Bird of Antigua and Olva Flax of Tortola. His scholarship had to be 56

Some Prominent People In Our History

57

supplemented by community support, but it all paid off for he returned with top honours. Although trained, a job for White was not automatic in the church managed schools which were starved for funds. It was the Gingerland Boys' School in Nevis that finally rescued him as an assistant teacher in 1936. He taught in Nevis until 1940 when he was promoted to his first headmastership at the West End School in Anguilla, which was part of the tri-island presidency with St Kitts-Nevis. He enjoyed the community respect that was attached to a village schoolmaster in Anguilla and the generosity of the people which found expression in gifts of eggs, fish, peas, cakes, conkie and 'red cock1 drink, but these did not assuage his longing for home. The golden opportunity came in 1942 when he was invited to head his alma mater, the St George's Anglican School in Harris to replace the distinguished F.E. Peters, who had been elevated to being inspector of schools. After overcoming some opposition from some persons at home, after reconciling himself with the pension loss consequent on transfer from a government school to a denominational one, he settled down to leading the school to progress in school attendance, scholarship and sports. The Harris school and community benefited from White's talents in music and outreach work which had contributed to his popularity in St Kitts and Anguilla. In Montserrat his work blossomed and his scope as an adult educator widened when he became headmaster of the Wesley School between 1949 and 1962. White was not just a headmaster, he was an innovator and builder of institutions. It was he who initiated the St George's Choral Society and Rover Scouting for school and community youths; the latter, he felt imparted gentlemanly attitudes to the youngsters. For the young adult men, he introduced what was called "The Men of Tomorrow" with the assistance of the district Police Chief, Sergeant Bridgewater. This organization gave paramilitary training to young men from Long Ground to Dyers three afternoons weekly; it provided recruits for the MDF in which White was a non-commissioned officer, and for an army division which was being trained at Amersham by Major Sutherland in connection with World War II. White's influence was wide and deep. In his Harris headmastership days, White also contributed to the village debating society which flourished between 1944 and 1949. Even more importantly, he assisted village youths in their formation of steel bands which had been recently introduced into the island. With his knowledge and love of music he helped them to set and tune pans. So when the Rising Sun Steel Band of Harris won the first ever national competition in 1952, White's work featured in that victory.

58

GALLERY MONTSERR AT

White himself felt that his scope for community work was limited with his transfer to Plymouth, but the quality and significance of the work certainly did not. Recognizing his track record in, and flair for adult education, Dr Bertram Collins, the UCWI resident tutor for the Leeward Islands, appointed White as the University representative in Montserrat. And an excellent choice it was. In his outreach work, he combined job skills training with the arts and enrichment courses. White started to learn typing while in Nevis and mastered the art on his return to Montserrat gaining RSA Certificate Stage III. This served him and the island in good stead for many a clerk and secretary learnt the skill at the school in his house. The importance of this saleable skill should not be obscured by his prodigious contribution to choral music and social organizations. As University representative, he established the Salem Choral Society which became famous for its concerts and other community performances. The Salem School Reunion of August 1993, gave Salemites the opportunity to remember and hail White with gratitude for his role in the social development of their community. In Plymouth White was generally recognized as a national resource. He was choir master of the St Anthony's Anglican Church, which in those days carried its own kind of prestige, albeit a snooty one. Under his training, Wesley School won an all-island school competition in choral music held at the Council Chamber in 1962; and when Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II visited the island in 1966, who better to conduct the massed primary school choir which regaled her with "You Can Unite the West Indies" ? White was a tremendously successful educator. In 1954-1955 he topped up his college training with a six-month stint at the Teachers College, Columbia University in New York; and in 1964-1965 he received refresher and advanced training at Birmingham University in the UK. He was well poised, therefore, to exercise enlightened leadership as President of the Montserrat Union of Teachers, Vice-President of the CUT and as Inspector of Schools. By his own admission, he used his famous headmaster F.E. Peters as a role model; he emulated, for instance, his skill in teaching vocal music. Some of the "other respects" in which he followed Peters must have been in personal grooming, immaculate dress and clarity of speech. As it turned out, White like Peters became Inspector of Schools. As Inspector of Schools, White was creative. His most significant creation was a radio programme Education Half Hour for "education and entertainment". School children appeared on radio regularly for the first time to recite, spell, sing and respond to general knowledge quizzes. The importance of this programme must be seen against the background of a period when popular commercial entertainment was minimal. This is why White's community programme was so critical to social development particularly so in the country districts.

Some Prominent People In Our History

59

Following compulsory retirement in 1968, White migrated to the US Virgin Islands where he discovered a fresh arena for his educational skills as well as for his new mission in pastoral work. While still a headmaster he had a 'born-again1 experience in 1957 and to the surprise of many left the exalted St Anthony's Anglican Church for a humbler Pentecostal Church at Wapping where worshippers sometimes weep and shout without the dignified sound of a pipe organ. In St Thomas, White became a pastor in the Apostolic Faith Church and the principal of its school mainly for island-aliens, which he built up to a roll of around 250. When the government opened its school doors to foreign students in 1970, this private school languished and was eventually closed. But education was what White knew and did best, not least because it gave him the opportunity to help people. So he entered a new work phase with the establishment of White's Education Centre to answer, as he says, community needs. Offering English, mathematics, typing and piano, the school served children and adults, those both seeking high school certification and learning for enrichment and retooling. The US government recognized White's tall community stature and made him a Notary Public in 1979. This gave him an added capacity to serve people. Following a near tragic road accident in 1984, White retired to his home at Frydendahl in Smith Bay, but he took with him his typewriters and pianos where his untiring and unretiring zeal for teaching finds more than token expression. Meanwhile White has been a pastor with the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas and was later elevated to the position of Ruling Elder or Assistant Bishop—a full life of service in both time and space. In December 1992 he organized a White family reunion, bringing together members of his kith and kin from several corners of the world. He was back on island again in December 1993 to receive a Funkyman Award. Carlton Allen, an unassuming Montserratian youngster with a patriotic and philanthropic spirit, dispenses awards annually to those who have made outstanding contributions to the development of Montserrat. His committee recognized the enduring work of the Rev E.R. White in education and community. It is difficult to comprehend how a Montserratian who did so much within and beyond the call of duty retired and left the island without one of the British empire awards which often decorate 'lesser breeds'. Some salvaging work was done in December 1993 when White was called to the governor's home to receive the Montserrat Badge and Certificate of Honour. It is worth explaining that White's service to Montserrat did not end with his migration to the US Virgin Islands. He was a founding member, indeed the founding father of the vibrant Montserrat Association of the Virgin Islands

60

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

becoming its first president in 1979. It provides fellowship and mutual support for Montserratians in the Virgin Islands and they unite under its umbrella to promote the welfare of Montserrat The oldest member of the organization, he has been given a position of Elder on its executive—a guarantee almost of lifelong service. White attributes his good health and longevity to God's blessing and his obedience to six simple health rules: (1) live in and breath fresh air; (2) drink pure water; (3) eat wholesome food sensibly; (4) exercise temperance; (5) take exercise; (6) take rest. Edwin Rowland White ranks among Montserratian men of vision, and his was a vision of lifelong education for Montserrat. He spent decades fulfilling that vision and the island became poorer when no one took up the torch.

MERCHANTS AND

PLANTERS

MICHAEL SYMMONS OSBORNE

lymouth merchant M.S. Osborne whom one naturally

Passociated with the Montserrat upper classes was only three generations away from slavery. His position illustrates the social mobility that was possible for a few of the grandchildren of slavery. Osborne's grandfather was imported from Africa while still a small boy, sold to the owner of White's Estate and given the name Mile. Starting out as a 'grass boy', Mile merited rapid promotion to driver (that is, middle level supervisor) and then overseer at Bethel. The records show that he had a least two children from his union with Peggy Osborne—Sarah and William Michael. The latter, a millwright by trade, became manager of three estates—Farrell's, Tuitts and Webbs. The family was catapulted into fortune. William Michael Osborne who became a staunch Methodist and a local preacher was the grandfather of M.S. Osborne. He married Julia Gordon, the daughter of an Englishman who moved to the island to manage an estate. James Robert Osborne, a son by the marriage, was the father of M.S. Osborne and known as Maas Bill. M.S. Osborne was born in 1902. Like other leading merchants and planters of his day, M.S. Osborne's father James Osborne aspired to political power. He was first nominated to Council in 1911. In 1914, he demonstrated his gratefulness for his second term in the Council by supporting James Wall in a motion to donate £1,000 to the British for war relief; they wished Montserratians to bear "their humble share of the burden now imposed on the empire". J.R. Osborne, a Justice of the Peace, bequeathed his relish for politics to three of his sons—Harold, Reginald and Michael—all of whom sought political office. Michael attained this through the nomination route first in 1934. His last stint was in 1961 when Bramble, the Labour Party leader, saw fit to retain his services. He also served in the federal Leeward Islands legislature when he was elected to represent Montserrat in 1937. 62

Some Prominent People In Our History

63

Metayage or sharecropping was a big issue in M.S. Osborne's time. A landowner himself, he found himself on the side of those who supported this labour system. When in 1952 W.H. Bramble tabled a motion for its abolition, M.S. Osborne and A.W. Griffin considered it the best system and voted against the move. E.T. Edgecombe, a small landowner wanted it retained in a modified form, while Michael Walkinshaw wanted it to go. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that personal or group interests factored in the vote. M.S. Osborne was not, however, void of the milk of human kindness and he did enjoy considerable influence with ordinary people. In 1938, when A.W. Griffin moved a resolution that "Government should take steps to introduce whipping as a penalty for praedial larceny and the larceny of livestock", he voted against this throwback into slavery. During the 1942 Menzies' riots in St Patrick's when a stand-off and impasse developed between the police and those wanted for arrest, Osborne partnered J.C.L Wall in persuading them to surrender to the legal authorities. In 1952 Bramble asked C.P. Wade of Wade Plantation for lands for a "model village either free or at a reasonable rate" for aided self-help housing at Tuitts and Long Ground. A.W. Griffin, the Manager, was uncooperative. It was at the intervention of M.S. Osborne that Wade gave five acres at Tuitts and two at Long Ground. W.H. Bramble had ample justification for choosing M.S. Osborne when he sought to integrate the monied upper class into the development of the country. It was, however, in business and tourism that M.S. Osborne made his most significant impact on this country. A leading commission merchant and shipping agent, he himself owned a number of schooners which plied among several islands. The Industry, /rono,and after World War II the Fess/cforeand the Moneka were vital commercial arteries of the islands carrying men and merchandise for Osborne. He made money, but his initiatives served national needs. HisTrescellian House was a leading store in Plymouth and his Bata Shoe Store was the first shoe store on the island. The island's hotel industry cannot be separated from the name of M.S. Osborne. In 1952, he bought the Coconut Hill hotel, the only guest accommodation of its type on the island, and renovated it in 1954. (Coconut Hill has an interesting history of its own. A Dr Johnson who owned Roaches and Molyneaux estates used the original building as his town house. In 1926 it passed into the hands of Aurora Drinkwater, an Englishwoman, who bought it for EC$6,000. When he bought Coconut Hill from Aurora Drinkwater's sister, M.S. Osborne became the first local Montserratian to own it.) Osborne built the Vue Pointe Hotel in 1961, a luxury resort with 24 rooms, and thereby facilitated the development of a modern tourist industry on the

64

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

island. Sited at the centre of a real estate development thrust, it was an integral part of that development With about 40 rooms and a convention centre, it is still the leading hotel complex on the island. Osborne who had married Sylvia Blanchard of Dominica died in 1967. He left his family some thriving businesses, but in the Vue Pointe Hotel he also left the island a critical commercial infrastructure on which further development was based. His two sons succeeded him as business managers, and the elder, Bertrand has followed him into the halls of politics. Since 1987 he has represented the people of Kinsale and St Patrick's.

JOSEPH STURGE

f all Englishmen, the famous humanitarian Joseph I 0!Sturge, who was born in 1793, played the most

significant role in the post-emancipation history of the island. As an extension of his humanitarian work in England 'God's politician' travelled to several

Caribbean colonies ostensibly to encourage juster treatment of the new apprentices. As a by-product of the venture, lands were bought and successful agribusinesses were established in Dominica, Trinidad and Montserrat; but it was Montserrat which became the headquarters of the Sturges1 Caribbean fortunes. The trip of godliness brought great gain and Sturge came closest to success in serving both God and mammon. The corn merchant of Elberton, England, became the successful lime merchant of Montserrat. He bought his first estate (11,000 acres) in 1857 and named it Elberton after his birth place in England. His avowed aim was to demonstrate that "by fair and just treatment of native labourers, sugar could be profitably produced without the aid of the servile labour of Indian coolies". In the same year he and his brother Edmund acquired Olveston (named from another childhood scene) and Woodland estates, and in 1860 the Grove was also bought. Making use of their ready capital and the Encumbered Estates Court (1865) through which lands could be bought from bankrupt landowners without the new owners inheriting their estate debts, the Sturges swallowed up nearly half of the island. By 1916, the Sturges and their associates had added Richmond, Fryes, Isles Bay, O'Garro's, Brades, Forgathy's and Tar River to their earlier holdings. These all became the property of the Montserrat Company registered at Birmingham in 1873 which was itself the successor of the Sturge's Montserrat Company which had been set up in 1869. The company owned so much land that parcels required for public purposes had to be acquired from it. In 1932, for instance, government had to purchase 65

66

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

the Grove estate for use as a Botanic Station; and in 1936 the company granted five acres for a public recreation park by way of immortalizing Joseph Sturge who founded its fortunes in 1836. A request by government some 40 years before had obviously not been successful. The gift was self-rewarding, but Sturge Park is still the main public park in Montserrat The agreement not to sell spirituous liquor in the park, inspired by Joseph Sturge's Quaker sentiments, is no longer observed. Criticisms can be levelled at Joseph Sturge and the aftermath of his visit to Montserrat. For instance, one biographer accused him "of endeavouring to reconcile two things which are quite incompatible, namely, the dictates of the Gospel of co-operative love and the competitive strife of the profit-making system"; and Eric Williams in his famous book Capitalism and Slavery took a swipe at Sturge accusing him of acting merely out of the profit motive. For Williams, Sturge was the spokesman for Birmingham iron masters whose Vested interest' was well served by the abolition of slavery and the downfall of the old colonial system. Alex Tyrell, the most recent biographer of Sturge, took a more flattering, perhaps even a more realistic view of Sturge's double motives when he observed that there was nothing shameful about Sturge's notion of a humanely managed capitalist enterprise. It is a certain fact that his descendants and associates were the most progressive, inventive and liberal of Montserratian landed magnates. True, they owned thousands of acres, but they facilitated the growth of a peasantry by renting and selling parcels of land to local farmers; the Montserrat Company paid the highest wages, and it avoided the iniquitous system of metayage. Montserrat's lime industry was initiated by Francis Burke in 1852, but it was the Sturge brothers who developed the industry to produce citric acid for their own chemical works in Birmingham. This project became very important and lime juice brought health to British sailors and wealth and fame to Montserrat. Production peaked in 1885 when from 1,000 acres of lime, 180,000 gallons of lime juice were exported to Crosse and Blackwell in England. Before 190 Montserrat lime juice had became universally known and Schweppes of Australia and New Zealand became its main purchaser down to as late as 1951. A clause in the Schweppes contract ran: The licencees shall not market in Australia and New Zealand as 'Montserrat1 Lime Juice or Schweppes Lime Cordial any Lime Juice other than that which they have obtained from the Company prepared solely from Montserrat Lime Fruit Juice or market any 'Montserrat1 Lime Juice under any other name or description.

Some Prominent People In Our History

67

When sugar yielded place to cotton as the island's biggest export at the beginning of the twentieth century, the lime industry continued in second place; and the Montserrat Company also turned to cotton and became its most progressive producer. It demonstrated its usual inventiveness by developing two agro-industries from cotton seed—an animal feed called cattle cake and a cooking oil which became a household word as 'Depot sweet oil'. It was manufactured and sold at the company's building called the Depot. Joseph Sturge's influence and benevolence went beyond a humane capitalism. His company workers were better housed and the company took an uncommon interest in education. In 1924 an official letter of appreciation commended the second Joseph Sturge for being "too much enlightened to adopt the illiberal policy and belief that primary education would prevent people from cultivating the soil". In other words, the thinking of the Sturges on the education of black people was atypical. In 1870, their company established the first non-denominational school on Montserrat, equipped it well and paid the staff decent salaries. It is also to the company that the first experiment in technical education in Montserrat is attributed. This was as early as 1929. The humanitarianism of the Sturges did not rule out profit and it did not frown on power either. Edmund Sturge who lived in Montserrat in the 1860s became a member of the island's legislature in 1867 and later almost all the company's attorneys were numbered among Montserrat's law makers. As the memory of Joseph Sturge faded, planter interest as an object of power rose in prominence. His successors, however, never completely lost sight of the humanity and liberalism which launched their ship of fortune. One form which this took was annual scholarships to the small selective Montserrat secondary school. The company changed its name to the Montserrat Real Estate Company (MORECO) in 1961; the new name symbolized perhaps its no-nonsense materialistic focus. And yet in its policy of donating lands for public purposes, it has not entirely abandoned the spirit of Joseph Sturge.

SAMUEL WAAD

amuel Waad was the first Montserratian sugar baron

S;

^ that we know of. An Anglo-Dutchman, he was at the

forefront of the development of the island as a sugar-and-slave society. He was also a big livestock farmer. By 1654, his estate consisted of 70 head of cattle, 500 sheep, two horses, two colts, many pigs, 30 Christian servants and 50 slaves. His estate illustrates the characteristic demographic pattern of sugar society in which blacks outnumbered whites. That both numbers were close, suggests that the island was still in a transitional stage from tobacco to sugar. Waad's story enables us to have a view of another governor and the corrupt administration which was inflicted on the island. This was the grasping and unprincipled second governor, Roger Osborne, who was a leading planter. Waad had inherited much of his wealth by marrying the widow of Brisket who was Osborne's sister Elizabeth. Osborne himself had hoped to be the guardian of his sister's son, young Brisket, with all that this meant for boosting his fortune. In this he was disappointed. To make matters worse, Waad was deemed to be living in grander style ("better estate") than Governor Osborne himself. Osborne's response to his disappointment was to plant the charge of mutiny on Waad although there was not the slightest evidence of Waad rebelling against his leadership. Acting as judge and jury, he ordered him to be shot and seized his estate. There was a token outcry and the judicial murder was referred to Daniel Searle, Governor of Barbados. Osborne got off scot free and even retained his governorship, but young Brisket inherited his father's estate. These cases of injustice were possible in the far corners of the British empire.

68

WALTER EDSTON WADE

W

alter Wade who was born at Cudjoe Head on July 17, 1889, rose from humble beginnings and ad-

verse circumstances to be a towering success as a businessman. His mother Ann Wade, nee Buntin, died tragically during the 1899 hurricane and his father, Joseph Nathaniel Wade passed away not very long after. Wally had three brothers—Boysie, Branche and Joseph and one sister Beanie, but he became "more honourable than his brethren". Before he died in Nevis on May 22,1971, he had advanced his fortune from mites to millions. After the death of his mother, Wally was forced to leave school to fend for himself when he was hardly literate. He was however highly numerate especially in the area of counting money and was at least able to write his name. He first worked as a labourer for rock bottom wages, but he saved his pennies in tins. It was in inter-island trading that Walter Wade first sought his fortune in the 1930s. He built two famous boats, the Morning Prince and the Evening Princess for this purpose and shipped vegetables and other merchandise including donkeys to Guadeloupe and Dominica and as far south as Trinidad and Curacao. The Morning Prince ran aground in Plymouth and the Evening Princess ran on a reef in Curacao. His third boat, Morning Prince //suffered a similar fate on the rocks known as the Bocas in Trinidad, but Wally persevered and built yet a fourth vesse which he appropriately named Perseverance. This in time sank in Little Bay in the north of the island. The boat business reads like one of continual loss, but in fact through 'trafficking' Wally was quietly building a small fortune. He extended his business on Brades estate which he bought, and with a grocery at Cudjoe Head. He went further into farming when he acquired the Baker Hill estate where he built a sugar mill whose tower survives to the present day. When the ECS, a leading choral group, sing: 69

70

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

Wally build wan big big boat Come help push aff de Morning Prince When he find he wan cyan push um off Come help push aff de Morning Prince

it is this industrious and resourceful businessman they are celebrating. In search of a larger field for his activities, Wally moved to Nevis around 1946 having bought the historic Pinney's estate from a Dr McPherson. He struck gold there growing coconuts and raising livestock. He manufactured copra and taught the Nevisians how to make it as well, and he was able to ship several tons of the product to Barbados along with animals such as horses, donkeys, mules and cattle. Many Montserratian workers benefited from his business expansion as he took them to work on his Nevis estates where he built homes for them. Success in Nevis led to further success, and Wally went on to be one of the biggest landowners in Nevis. He added to Pinney's with the acquisition of Belmont, Mount Travers, Clarke's Tower Hill, Farms and Bath with its mineral springs. In Montserrat, he bought a house in Chapel Street in Plymouth which he later sold to the famous Robert Griffith. He had become a multimillionaire with fortunes which spread from island to island. He had no estate in St Kitts, but he did establish a store on that island. The social side of Walter Wade's life is just as romantic and interesting as the material side, if indeed the two can be separated. On April 14,1925, he married Catherine Elizabeth Daley with whom he had 15 children—Ann, Dennis, Alfred, Miriam, Jane Ann, Susan, Dorothy, Christie, John, Maurice, William, Lizzie, Edith, Rose, and Ruby. The sixteenth, a boy, was stillborn. Ruby, the youngest child, is a member of the Legislative Council representing the Northern district. She is married to Howell Bramble, son of the heroic W.H. Bramble. God blessed Wally with a quiver large and full as he had done with the business. He married again in 1960 another Catherine—Catherine Emily Osborne—following the death of the first wife. His children remember him as a disciplinarian, but loving, kind and caring. Walter Wade became a born-again Christian in 1922, and this had a tremendous influence on his life and the lives of his children. He witnessed widely and indiscriminately about his faith in Christ; and as a benefactor, most of his outstanding gifts went to Christian charity and outreach work. Although a member of the Pilgrim Holiness denomination, it was he who donated lands to the Pentecostal group at Cudjoe Head for the building of their church. He donated lands for mission houses as well as church buildings. The Pilgrim Holiness College in Barbados had a Walter Wade Hall which he financed. His religious influence

Some Prominent People In Our History

71

on his children is evidenced in the fact that six of Wally's ten daughters are either ministers of religion or wives of ministers. Wally Wade was distinguished in dress and colourful in speech. His favourite colour was red, but he himself wore khaki suits and helmets, the hat associated with plantations. His sayings were pregnant with worldly wisdom. "When I am 10 minutes early, I consider myself to be late", he told one of his daughters to emphasize the importance he attached to punctuality. If he did not coin the dictum, "studiation beat education", he was at least fond of quoting it and in a sense, his life illustrated its truth. A famous scriptural quote of his was: "When a man cometh to honour and knoweth it not, he is worse than the beast of the field." When stricken by illness, his daughter Dorothy allegedly told him: "Father, you know that God can heal you, pray to Him for your healing." His reply was: "Girl, the recommendation of that place is so great, I want to go." Wade's fame had travelled far beyond the Leeward Islands. He was once interviewed on his remarkable life in Nevis by David Brinkley and Chet Huntley for a major American news network. Wally's children are grateful to him for the spiritual heritage he left them as well as for the material fortune. They see in it a fulfilling of Proverbs 13:22 which observes that "a good man leaveth an inheritance to his children". There were problems, though, in accessing that inheritance; and it was only after a prolonged legal battle with their father's Kittitian lawyer that they were able to finally appropriate the major part of the legacy. There is a near epic quality about the life of this humble, unskilled and near illiterate Montserratian who by dint of hard work, ingenuity and native wit met with success in a comprehensive sense of that word. His is a classic example of a rags to riches story.

JOHN CLIFFORD LLEWELLYN WALL C.L Wall was born in St Kitts on May 18, 1903, to J .Jane Jessup (formerly Brownbill) and William L Wall, a Montserratian. A merchant like his father and grandfather, he also inherited their drive for political power and like them he demonstrated a concern for the social well-being of the society, but he did this in a much greater measure. James J. Wall took the oath in Council for the last time in 1911 as a representative of the commercial community, but in 1914 his place was filled, as it were, by his son William Llewellyn Wall. His first term was memorable for his tireless efforts to ensure that educational provision was made for the children of the island. A high school established in 1905 had faltered by 1914 due to lack of support and was destined to be closed. Wall then proposed to his Council colleagues that the governor be asked to consider the advisability of offering £100 annually "to a duly qualified male teacher to be approved of and be under the control of the Education department in this island and who may obtain the minimum of 10 scholars". If this were not feasible, he wanted £100 to be spent annually on scholarships tenable in Antigua for two boys and two girls. By 1917, W.I. Wall had not succeeded for he was still arguing for scholarships worth more than £25 tenable "at some large secondary school in the West Indies". Wall was a merchant who did not hesitate to champion the interests of his class. For instance, in 1921 he complained officially that Frenchmen were doing business in the island to the detriment of local business; and it is arguable that it was the children of Wall and his merchant-planter colleagues who stood to benefit from his efforts at education and that therefore he was motivated by self-interest His struggle for educational infrastructure and provision at the secondary level is noteworthy. He was laying foundations for national social progress from which many beyond his class ultimately benefited, and a platform on which his son would build. 72

Some Prominent People In Our History

73

John Clifford Llewellyn Wall was elected to Council in 1937 along with H.F. Shand, James H. Meade, Alfred H. Allen, H. Randolph Howes and A.W. Griffin. This was a formidable line-up of merchants and planters of whom Wall was the spokesman and ultimately the most distinguished in his broad service to the society. His maiden Council speech struck a note of unselfishness. "We should come here," he said, "both nominated and elected members not to express our personal views and opinions, but rather those of the majority of the taxpayers of this island." A large number of poor folk were included for they had to pay taxes—4/- for their huts, and in the case of men, 2/- for the road. Like his grandfather, J.C.L. Wall took a keen interest in the island's education. In 1937, most schools were still under the control of the major religious denominations—Anglican, Methodist and Roman Catholic. Wall was concerned that children of parents outside these groups were not getting a fair educational deal. He had a genuine sympathy for the marginalized and drew attention to the fact that people who lived as far away as Roaches and Long Ground experienced hardships in travelling all the way to Harris for medical attention. In short, he started the agitation which led to the building of a clinic at Bethel. The visit of the famous Moyne Commission in 1938, gave another opportunity to see Wall at work in the popular cause. Wall was a leader. Although his memorandum to the commission had the support of the elected members of Council and in his words the "largest and most important landowners—H.R. Howes, A.W. Griffin, Charles Griffin and Paul Hollender", he was the guiding genius. It was he who was interviewed at great length by the commissioners. Wall's idea of establishing a sugar factory to produce 1,000 tons of sugar for local consumption might have saved the island £6,000, but it was not practical since such a project was not economically viable; but he was on firmer ground in seeking agricultural credit for poor tenants, in asking for agricultural instruction in schools and for guidance to peasant farmers from the department of agriculture. On the vexed issue of metayage, he stood out against all his colleagues in seeking a modification. This was easier for him since he was not a planter, but his mettle in championing the cause of the labouring class is worthy of recognition. On social matters, there was hardly a more enthusiastic spokesman on the plight of the people. He pointed out the high incidence of infant mortality due largely to malnutrition of mothers; and he drew attention to the need for district nurses. Even before the Moyne Commission, he was a member of the Taxpayers Association which called on the government to set up a housing scheme in which labouring peasants would pay a fifth of the cost of their houses so that they could cease to live in "hovels on the point of falling to pieces". One-fifth was all

74

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

an industrious man and his wife averaging income of "£14.00 a year including milk, ground provisions, sale of stock, produce, etc.", could pay. J.C.L Wall was an active person with his hand on the pulse of the people. It was no wonder that he criticized the commissioners who administered the territory for Britain as being too office bound. Because of Wall's generous spirit and his genuine efforts to fight for the people, he became very influential. This is why he was able to bring in persons wanted by the police in connection with the Toby Hill riot of 1942, when the firearms tactics of the English assistant superintendent of police failed. In Wall's handling of this entire episode, his passion for justice for the poor and for just and fair administration became evident. As a trade and labour union emerged in the 1940s, and with it new champions of the people, Wall was somewhat upstaged and lost elections. He was defeated by R.E.D. Osborne at a by-election in 1950, and in 1952 he lost in the Southern district (which then included Plymouth) to R.W. Griffith and B.W. Edwards, two strong Labour candidates. He returned, however, in 1955 and was the only merchant to win a constituency. It is no wonder, therefore, that in 1958 Bramble drafted him into the ranks of his Labour Party; and significantly he defeated Griffith who ran as an Independent candidate. Wall was caucasoid, but because of his track record, he sat more comfortably on a Labour platform than any other person of his class and circle could have done at the time. On his return to the legislature he showed a similar zeal particularly for improving education, sports and other social services. There was another side to J.C.L Wall's life and contribution to Montserrat. A leading Plymouth merchant and commission agent, he represented Lloyd's of London, the Austin Motor Company and some major steamship lines. These provided vital national services, but as a vessel owner he touched the life of the ordinary Montserratian even more closely. His first vessel was the M.V. Romans named from his three daughters, Rosemary, Mavis and Iris (he was married to Dominican born Christine Randell with whom he also had a son, John H. Llewellyn Wall). Built at Wapping around 1943, the Romans plied among the Leeward Islands until it was destroyed by fire in St Kitts harbour in 1946. Wall's next venture was a joint one when together with M.S. Osborne, he bought the M.V. Moneka in 1947. The partnership became leaky in 1948 and he sold his shares to Osborne and bought his own M.V. Caribbee. Both of these were ex-World War II torpedo boats bought from Alstons in Trinidad. The Caribbee traded between Barbados, Dominica, St Kitts, Antigua and Montserrat for some ten years before it sank during a freak storm in Dominica in 1958.

Some Prominent People In Our History

75

As an agent of major steamship lines and owner of busy motor vessels, J.C.L. Wall dominated sea traffic in Montserrat. It was good business for him, but it was also necessary for the people as well as a source of jobs. Indeed there is documentary evidence that he tried to obtain the best wage rates that he could for local workers from the ship owners with whom he dealt. Whether in the halls of Council or in the hulls of ships, J.C.L Wall served the people of Montserrat with distinction and was a great supporter of community causes. One can understand why Montserratians of his day thought and still think lovingly of 'Mr Clifford'. His son John succeeded him as a leading businessman in Plymouth.

RELIGION

THOMAS

O'GARRA

e are greatly indebted to Methodist minister,

WGeorge E. Lawrence, for the only biography there is of a native Montserratian, apart from my own work on William H. Bramble 27

years later, and even more recently Dr J.A. Irish's Tribute to Mrs Annie Cummings Greenaway. Lawrence's even more valuable record of Methodism in Montserrat is vital for an understanding of the general social history of the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. O'Garra carried in his head much of the history of Methodism in Montserrat and was therefore a vital source for Lawrence to tap. It was his view that Thomas O'Garra deserved "to go down in Montserratian history as one of the island's outstanding personalities". Thomas O'Garra was born at Cavalla Hill, on January 13, 1857 to Peter and Sarah O'Garra and attended the Cavalla Hill Methodist school. The curriculum was based on reading, writing, arithmetic and scripture. The dominant learning method was a recitative one and, as O'Garra had a very good memory, he did well at school. His library of six books including John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress reflected his commitment to Christianity and to Methodism in particular. He was unique in having even this small library which included Death Struggle of Slavery. O'Garra married Ann Allen of Davy Hill in 1887; but as a man whose life was governed by rules and conventions he first courted her respectably, beginning with a letter which ended: And now, dear Miss, if you will accept my proposal, and return me a satisfactory answer, I shall endeavour by the grace of God to promote the happiness of her whom I prefer before all others in the world.

The stiffness and formality of the letter are laughable today, but were natural to proposals of the period. In fact, one would normally expect the letter to be addressed to Ann's parents, if they were alive, rather than to the admired one. 77

78

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

An industrious labourer, Thomas O'Garra saved enough to purchase land at Fogathy Hill where he built a wooden four-room house; a house of this size was above the average. O'Garra was therefore fully ready for marriage in 1887, a union with an ample quiver of 12 children. He gave each one either the Christian name or the surname of a Methodist minister who had served in Montserrat. Many a religious devotee did this, but not to the same extent as O'Garra. An exemplary and devoted Methodist, he worshipped in a wooden building at Cavalla Hill, used for school as well as praise (church) while a boy in long shirt (meaning no pants); and when this was destroyed by the 1899 hurricane, he participated in the maroons of free labour which rebuilt the school first. Uncle Tom, as O'Garra was affectionately called, not only physically built the church, he was one of its great pillars and spiritual builders. He gave generously because "if you fist your hand to God, he will fist his hand to you". About the age of 28, he was a class leader who preached occasionally. He went on to become a leading local preacher and his sermons were filled with wisdom, witticisms and occasionally big words for "ever since morning, I never heard tell of big words choking a puppy dog or tearing a man's jaw bone". The phrase "ever since morning" meaning "from since I knew myself illustrates the colourful and graphic metaphors and figures of Creole speech, which O'Garra used alongside his accomplished standard English. He preached with a generous spirit, illustrating his sermons from Montserratian life and what he knew of its history. This model Christian and philosopher of native stock, deserves to be called a saint; he died on June 26, 1941, after a productive and rewarding life. He was the forerunner of a long line of stalwart Methodist local preachers, which includes Jonathan (Mass Barlow) Daley, Anthony and Michael Walkinshaw, William (Governor) Osborne, James Peters and Henry Markham.

QUAMINA WILLIAMS

is said that a prophet has no honour in his own I t tcountry. Quamina Williams, a wise and talented son from the east of the island, was an exception. This Bethel Methodist patriarch and prophet was revered by people of all faiths on the Windward areas of Montserrat and indeed by people the island over for, as a local preacher, the island was his parish. As late as the 1940s, his name was still a household word although he died in 1922. His name was more frequently mentioned than any other single person in the island, observed one of his contemporaries from the east. Another, William Bramble of Farms, noted: He was the greatest black man I ever heard speak on religious principles. He taught Philip Joseph and Governor Osborne to preach, and ruled over all the Methodists on this Windward side. He was respected by every official and person of quality in the land.

The only person who rivalled him somewhat as a personality in the area was his close friend, William Osborne, the grandfather of M.S. Osborne. Born on November 2,1833, Quamina spent his boyhood at Whites where his father was an overseer, and attended the Bethel Methodist School. One of his teachers was Teacher Tina Skerritt who lived at Tar River Estate. He was the son of David and Emma Williams both of whom were slaves, his father having been born in 1779 as one of the 1,901 slaves in St George's parish which included Bethel, Whites, Long Ground and Roaches and some areas of Harris1. He experienced the great earthquake of 1843 which damaged the island to the estimated extent of £23,000. He was converted at Bethel by a sermon on the text from Luke 12: 31: "But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be 79

80

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

added unto you." The text embodied a principle which governed his entire life. For as he advanced the Christian cause and the Christian way, he himself prospered materially by the standard of those times. Quamina's leadership qualities were evident very early; he became a class leader and quickly rose to be a society steward and local preacher. His powerful intellect shone through in his preaching. Trumpet-tongued, he preached without notes and kept his audiences spellbound. Quamina was considered the father of Bethel Methodism, but he was really an all-island Methodist figure. It was said that the Methodists of Montserrat almost worshipped him. He was a good role model for forward looking young people of his day. So memorable were his sermons, that for decades after his death, the generation to whom he preached recalled some of their favourites with delight: "Are not Abana and Pharpar rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?" (2 Kings 5: 12); "And the king lamented over Abner and said, Died Abner as a fool dieth" (2 Samuel 3:33); "And this is the writing that was written, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" (Daniel 5:25); "The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come" (Isaiah 57: 1). Quamina William's leadership skills and his power with men were in demand in the secular world. He was made manager and overseer of several estates across the island including Molyneaux; he was as trustworthy as he was intelligent. With all his thronging duties, he still answered the call for help from sick persons all over the island "from Trants to Webbs". He was thought to be descended from African kings, but he earned the esteem in which he was held. It was natural for people to give way to him in the street and to salute him, according to Rev. G. Lawrence. He was "every inch and every ounce a man". People recognizing his Solomonic wisdom and his moral authority, went to him to get their disputes settled and exaggeration or not, he was perceived as being more effective than the law enforcement authorities. Not surprisingly, Williams married into a prominent Methodist family. His first wife, by whom he had six children was Martha Meade, the daughter of Constant and Ann Meade of Carty's; he had another eleven by his second wife Mary, so his quiver was large and full. One of his daughters married Jonathan Daley who became a prominent figure and local preacher as well, and his granddaughter Rosalie Corbett (Riley) of Bethel was an outstanding church worker. Through his children and grandchildren Quamina Williams bequeathed to the island and to the east in particular a goodly and godly heritage.

Some Prominent People In Our History

81

Williams died at Long Range where he lived, on July 29,1922. In the manner of Hebrew patriarchs, he sat up and counselled his family before he expired. His final words to the parson JJ. Studley were: Preach Him to all and cry in death Behold, behold the Lamb.

"Parson the chariot of Immanuel is even now this side of the Jordon waiting to take me over." He was among the persons memorialized in the stone laying at Bethel Centenary Church on August 1, 1923, when a pulpit was given in his memory. This Afro-Montserratian was a great light from the east of the island, a perfect mix of talent, education and genuine piety, a hero of faith and works.

SLAVERY

THE ST PATRICK'S DAY MARTYRS

S

lave uprisings were common in the Caribbean for the understandable reason that slavery is an unnatural

state, and slaves violently resented captivity and coercion. Slave resistance ranged from abortive efforts to the highly successful St Domingue revolution 1794-1804. The Montserrat uprising failed to achieve a white overthrow, but succeeded as a timeless inspiration to all generations of Montserratians who descended from slavery. The slaves chose the strategic St Patrick's Day, March 17, in 1768. A colony made up predominantly of Irish people, it would have been steeped in celebrations on this particular day, the feast of St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. The plan was to have slaves on the domestic staff at Government House seize the swords and guns at the height of the revelry, while those outside would use sticks and stones and whatever arms they had for their attack. A white domestic servant overheard two men discussing the placement of the arms and reported the matter to the authorities. Nine slaves were dubbed ringleaders and brutally executed, while 30 others were imprisoned pending banishment to other islands. Local scholars brought the incident to public attention in 1971 and used its anniversary as an occasion for mounting cultural and artistic programmes. By 1985 the government, prodded by an element of agitation, caught the vision and made March 17 a national holiday. Some Irish nationals see the Montserrat St Patrick's Day festivities as a celebration of the Montserrat chapter of the Irish diaspora and come in solidarity and in search of 'new world' connections. Government naturally encourages the Irish connection because of its tourism implications. 83

84

GALLERY MONTSERR AT

Montserrat's historical link with Ireland is unmistakable and there is an abiding legacy in names and snippets of folklore. Then there is Roman Catholicism which came via the Irish. However, even if after a fashion, Montserratians dress in green and wave the shamrock, they are not Irish; and the St Patrick's holiday is intended to salute and celebrate those unnamed heroes in whose breast the unquenchable flame of freedom burned in 1768. In the Montserrat book, they are martyrs as this 1980 poem suggests. To Heroes of St. Patrick's Day (1768) To heroes Of St. Patrick's Day In whose black breast The multi-coloured pulse Of freedom Beat A bloody march To bloody death To heroes Of a nighted thrall Whose livid lips Made universal call To freedom Evoking Stony silence From St. Patrick's Whited gods. To heroes Who conspired to squeeze The juice that sate Their fatsome enemy Betrayed by yellow mulattoes But you escaped Your slavery To heroes Of the intellect Neath whose black brow White thoughts to cut and cure

Some Prominent People In Our History

85

The cancerous Hated hand Of tyranny Arose for execution To heroes Of the spirit Proud Ibo rises to thee You stand with Toussaint, Cuffy King-Pyms of liberty Your spirits pulse In boldened breasts of brothers Black like you Who in your death find strength And struggle to be free. (H. A. Fergus)

OLAUDAH EQUIANO

he famous slave, Olaudah Equiano, has more than a T;•passing connection with Montserrat, although that connection lasted only three years, 1763-1766. Born in Eboe in the kingdom of Benin in 1745, he was kidnapped by Africans while still a boy of 11 years and eventually transported to England to be a slave. It was the ship's captain who named him Gustavus Vassa; the practice of giving high-sounding names to slaves was quite common. In England Equiano was baptized into the Anglican Church at Westminster and sold to a ship's captain, James Doran. (He was later converted to Calvinism.) Several persons were attracted to this industrious and sensible young man and taught him to read, write and to do arithmetic. Through his initiative and entrepreneurial drive he had amassed nine guineas by the time he arrived in Montserrat. Equiano had developed a reputation for good character and in addition to seamanship and literacy, he had acquired other useful skills such as hairdressing and wine refining. Robert King, a Quaker merchant who lived at Philadelphia with a Montserrat base, was glad to purchase him. Because of his skills and knowledge and the the nature of his master's business, he was fortunate to escape the deadening drudgery of plantation labour. He was a sailor on one of his master's sloops under an English captain, Thomas Farmer. Through his work on board this vessel, he earned much money for his owner. With his eye on freedom at the same time, he bought goods such as tumblers and liquor at the busy Dutch port of St Eustatius and sold them at Plymouth at a profit; he benefited similarly from goods bought in Georgia and elsewhere in North America. By these successful ventures, Equiano amassed some £47 and approached his master for his promised redemption. King was reluctant to part with so profitable 86

Some Prominent People In Our History

87

a slave and only manumitted him at the intervention of the ship's captain in 1766. Now a free man, some of the beautiful black girls of Montserrat were, by his own account, attracted to him, but his mind was on London, where he had spent his earlier years out of Africa. There he became something of a public figure, and became part of the unsuccessful expedition to found a colony in Sierra Leone, comprised of freed slaves. Not all of Equiano's memories of Montserrat were pleasant. He writes of an incident when he and his colleagues were savaged by the surf at Old Road Bay as they set out to obtain rum and sugar in a canoe. Through his autobiography he gives glimpses of what slavery was like in Montserrat and his attitude to its inhumanity. He reports, for instance, on a master who robbed a slave of the fish he caught during his leisure hours and the lack of redress for such a wrong. Equiano's life and career should have helped to debunk the myth about the laziness of the black man and his congenital lack of intelligence. His prose is not only elegant and highly expressive, but he wrote some verse as well even if this was not his strong point. He died around 1797 and seems to have had a daughter, Ann Maria Vassa.

SOCIAL SERVICES AND

COMMUNITY ACTION

CATHERINE BARZEY

B;.

ornon May 7,1917, to Quamina and Catherine Ryan of Gages, Catherine Barzey attended the Wesley

all-age primary school in Plymouth. This was all the education available to her at the time, so she took up nursing in the early 1930s, learning on the job at Glendon Hospital and earning a salary of $2.40 per month. Her local in-service training was augmented by an overseas course in Trinidad in 1950 and a Ward Sisters' course in Barbados about ten years later. An avid reader, she furthered her professional knowledge through books. In a sense, Catherine Barzey's first nursing instructor and inspiration was her mother, popularly referred to as Ma Ryan. She was the neighbourhood midwife practising natural medicine and was skilled in the use and application of local herbs and household remedies; she was however wise enough to encourage her daughter to pursue formal studies in health and patient care. The young nurse Ryan recounts (as passed on to her daughters) that Matron McKenzie took a dislike to her, claiming that as an attractive young lady she would soon marry and abandon the profession. As a consequence she assigned her essentially menial tasks, one of which was the daily routine of cleaning the toilets with improvised brushes. Undeterred, she persevered to ultimately act as Matron of Glendon before she retired in 1972. Ironically she was the nurse assigned to Matron McKenzie in her dying days and performed the final deathbed rites as a nurse. In addition to working at Glendon Hospital, Barzey, who in 1952 had married John Joseph Barzey of Cork Hill, served as a district nurse in the Cork Hill and Weekes areas, a position she returned to in her retirement years. She loved the profession and practised it with diligence albeit often under difficult conditions. Indeed in those days nurses had to improvise many of the tools of their trade. In 89

90

GALLERY MONTS ERR AT

the perception of her daughters, she was the Florence Nightingale of Montserrat. She helped train many nurses demonstrating to them her oft-stated philosophy: "Nursing is one of the highest professions a young lady can think of. You have everyone in your hands—the king and the pauper, rich and poor." She joyed in the knowledge that the second of her two daughters, Alarice, followed her into nursing. In counselling her children, Barzey drew on the folk wisdom of her own mother, Ma Ryan. They recall a sample of those 'proverbs': "When people give you basket to carry water, carry it and give them some to drink." (This was a way of saying that with the correct attitude you can turn an impossible situation into something positive that can even benefit the one who created the untoward situation.) "Some people look down at their big toe and they see that it looks alright, but they never look off." (Meaning that some people are too easily satisfied with immediate successes, without bothering to invest in the future. Her first daughter Gloriadene did not do this. Having earned an Arts degree at the University of the West Indies, she went on to a Masters degree in Education at Hofstra University on Long Island, USA.) "It is not what you earn that is important, it is what you save." A staunch Seventh-Day Adventist, Barzey was well respected by the Montserrat community and by both her children, who laud their upbringing and followed her into dedicated service one as teacher and the other as a nurse. They take pride in the fact that when their mother was awarded the MBE by Her Majesty the Queen in 1972, she was personally invested by her at Buckingham Palace. This was a fitting award and recognition for a lifetime of service in the field of health.

CHARLES NORMAN GRIFFIN

orn in 1899 into a planter family, Charles Norman

B;, Griffin was the son of Charles G. Griffin of Paradise. He was the great-grandson of John Griffin Jr who in 1815 had married Margaret Blake whose ancestors came here from Galway, Ireland, in the seventeenth century. C.N. Griffin was the first Montserratian to win the Leeward Islands Scholarship, which carried a value of £100. As this was inadequate, the Montserrat Treasury supplemented it with a further £50. It would not have been difficult to secure the deficit in a Council comprised predominantly of C.G. Griffin's planter and merchant colleagues. Montserratian elitism bred and supported its kind. Norman Griffin studied medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and returned to the region in 1923 to practise in the Leeward Islands for half a century. He worked first in Antigua, as a district medical officer for $125 per month, supplementing his wage with private practice; he also received payment from estates for attending to their labourers. In his own autobiographical essay, Griffin observed that the chief endemic diseases in those days were malaria and dysentery; the incidence of tuberculosis was also high. Griffin's Leeward Islands practice took him to virtually all of the islands including the British Virgin Islands and Dominica, where he married into a Dominican planter family of English stock (Frampton) in 1931. It was in Nevis that he met Patricia Haines, the young lady who later became his second wife who was then serving as the matron of the Alexandra Hospital. In preparation for the top position of senior medical officer (SMO) of the Leeward Islands, Griffin undertook further studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, with the aid of a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship. It was as senior Federal medical officer with Antigua as his base that Griffin first served Montserrat in an advisory capacity visiting twice yearly. Montserrat would 91

92

GALLERY MONTSERR AT

have benefited indirectly from his services to the federal government and from his ex officio position as a member of the Federal Executive and General Legislative Councils. Griffin did not practise in Montserrat until after his official retirement and his awards of the MBE and the QBE. Answering an urgent call to substitute for the SMO and superintendent of Glendon Hospital, he left St Kitts for Montserrat in 1958. He served until mid 1960 and did another acting stint between 1961 and 1963. In his twilight years in between trips to England where his wife lived while his children were being educated, Griffin made perhaps his most important contribution to Montserrat. He served as chairman of the Montserrat Extra-Mural Advisory Committee of the UCWI. One of the projects in which he was involved in this capacity was the establishment of a scholarship fund from which a number of Montserratians received bursary assistance or loans for their education at the University. He also became the first president of the Montserrat Family Planning Association, which was initiated by Dr Erica Gibbs, the wife of the administrator; he also headed the Montserrat National Trust which got off the ground in 1970 after several months of gestation. Griffin's retirement in Montserrat brought another blessing. His daughter Mary who had become a qualified art teacher in London, accepted a contract to teach art at the MSS. She brought a remarkable commitment and creativity to her work and inspired good teaching in others. In addition, she plunged herself into the cultural programme of the UWI Centre. She was particularly instrumenta in setting up an arts and crafts exhibition and organizing a very successful Arts Festival. Although Mary Griffin was born in Antigua, she has demonstrated a strong patriotic attachment to her father's land and was moved like him by a spirit of community concern. It was in this same spirit that Mary, her sister Elizabeth and their brother John Norman Griffin established in Montserrat the Norman and Patricia Griffin Trust Fund in 1987 to provide bursaries for students in secondary and tertiary institutions on the island. To date over 19 students have benefited. Griffin and his forbears, in the manner of their time, took much from the island; he and his descendants are happily giving something back. His Fifty Years of Medical Practice in the Leeward Islands is a valuable historical and sociological document. It provides details on the administration of medicine, the prevalent diseases and a glimpse into the lifestyle of an upper class white and his family, a hundred years after emancipation. It would have been even more valuable if he had painted for us something of life at Paradise before he became a doctor. Charles Norman Griffin died at Richmond Hill in Montserrat in 1976.

PATRICIA GRIFFIN

he youngest of three daughters, Patricia Constance T!•Wilhelmina Griffin was born on October 24, 1907, while her English father Canon F.W. Haines was rector of St Anthony's parish where he served for 40 years. Her Irish mother, Jane Bell lived in Antigua with his relatives who were planters. Patricia, true to custom, went to school in England and trained as a nurse at St Thomas' Hospital and Battersea Maternity Hospital in London. On her return to the Caribbean in 1939 she acted as Matron of the Roseau Hospital in Dominica before taking up permanent positions first at the Holberton Hospital in Antigua and then at the Alexandra Hospital in Nevis. In 1942 she married Dr Charles Norman Griffin (his second wife) who knew her as a girl in Montserrat before she went to England and who met her occasionally on his visits to Nevis. Griffin spent much of her early life outside Montserrat in various of the Leeward Islands where her husband worked and in England where she kept house for her school-age children, Mary Patricia and Elisabeth Constance, both of whom were born in Antigua. In 1964 on her husband's final return home, she came with him and plunged herself and her seemingly boundless energy into community work. A professional nurse, Patricia Griffin worked at her husband's surgery on Church Road and this gave her the opportunity to interact with, and observe the plight of the elderly in Montserrat. The majority of the island's senior citizens had toiled all their lives in agriculture and lacked the money to cater to the basic essentials of living. There was no Provident Fund or Social Security scheme then, and the meagre public assistance programme could not service the army of old and indigent. Ironically some of them would have laboured on her father-in-law's estate at Paradise (a double irony). 93

94

GALLERY MONTSERR AT

Ignoring the niceties of guilt and blame Patricia Griffin moved in 1964 to found the Old People's Welfare Association (OPWA) through which she assaulted the distress of persons 70 years and over. To more easily identify the elderly and their needs she divided the island into districts. Some 750 persons were identified and to these she added young people who were handicapped and in need of special care. Her district scouts diagnosed the problems of the elderly such as poor housing, poor nutrition, lack of proper beds and lack of proper care. She cajoled and harassed a corps of persons both young and old into the service of the elderly; and directly or indirectly she involved the other members of families in the work whether they were at home or abroad. Griffin was the chief fund raiser for the association. She started repairs on homes and introduced a home help service to care for the housebound. This service which has survived up to the present, has prevented many senior citizens from being placed in the hospital or infirmary. Patricia Griffin built enduring social institutions. One of these was the annual Christmas party of the OPWA. This takes variou s forms and is held in villages an sometimes in one grand location. The community participates both in donations and in the entertainment and feasting. The most ambitious project undertaken by the OPWA under Griffin's guidance was the establishment of a residential compound for senior citizens, known as Golden Acres. The plan was to build nine individual housing units, accommodation for a resident supervisor and a community space with shopping, laundry and cafeteria facilities. A modest rent would be paid for the houses, and persons living at home could use the facility as a day care centre. The project attracted some funds initially. Griffin visited England and returned with money to build the first unit and a promise from Help the Aged in London of £100 towards the Christmas party. In fact four units were constructed from voluntary donations and the PLM government built another two. Golden Acres did not work out as grandly as designed, but the concept is still alive and is in part being implemented by the OPWA which operates a day care centre for the elderly at Webbs. That project which now includes paid officials reflects Patricia Griffin's vision. Griffin's community work was not confined to the OPWA. She held executive positions in the Red Cross, the YWCA and the nursery school system. She was responsible for the establishment of the first pre-school and the Red Cross Workshop in Kinsale. A trained nurse, she always stressed the importance of good nutrition and was criticized and dubbed 'trouble-maker1 for propagating the idea that local fruit drinks were more nutritious and wholesome than imported aerated

Some Prominent People In Our History

95

beverages. Griffin's interest in the disadvantaged did not endear her to certain persons in the society. But it was this burning concern for the disprivileged which led her to properly establish the Montserrat Consumers Association (MCA). The origins of this body lay in a small YWCA consumer group which came into being in 1966 with encouragement from the Caribbean Regional Consumers Council. In 1972 it developed into an association "in order to have greater consumer awareness throughout the island". Its catalyst and first president was the indefatigable Patricia Griffin. It became a member of the Caribbean Consumer Council and by 1974 it published a periodical, Consumer Concern edited by librarian V. Jane Grell. The first edition of Consumer Concern reflected the comprehensive goals and programmes of the MCA. These included advice on nutrition and wise purchases, education on metrication, consumer complaints and much more. Consumer complaints were taken very seriously. On September 17, 1973, Patricia Griffin wrote to the Trinidad Chamber of Commerce complaining about the poor quality of khaki pants imported by J.G. Eid of Plymouth from Messrs Ernest Viera of Trinidad. The Trinidad Chamber of Commerce responded positively and launched a detailed investigation into the matter. The MCA died out, but there is no doubt that it was and is, even more so now, a very necessary institution. Griffin had a vision for these institutions which addressed the needs of people at the grassroots. Regarded by some as a nuisance, Patricia Griffin served Montserrat well. It is not surprising that she was reportedly offered a royal award in the MBE. The story is that "she quickly refused it as she did not want the public to think she was working for recognition." She would have been a most worthy recipient of any national award. On discovering that there was some prejudice against Griffin because of her background and marital connection, my reply was: "Give Jack his jacket and Patti her pantaloon." She d ied in Lancashire, England in 1986. Patrici Griffin ranks highly among outstanding Montserratian women.

HODGE KIRNON

H

odge Kirnon can be numbered among a Montserratian literatti which emerged in the late nineteenth

and early twentieth century. The group, referred to by Kirnon himself as 'wideawake men', included Thomas N. Kirnon, Austin Taylor, Fred Peters, W. Graham, Fred Nanton, J. T. Allen, and the famous Montserrat Company headmaster, P. K. Arthurton. Born in 1891 in the village of St John's, Kirnon migrated to the USA, where he established a reputation as a thinker and journalist. An intellectual of weight, Hodge Kirnon distinguished himself as a writer, and his monograph Montserrat and Montserratians marks him out as the first Montserratian historian. It is an elaboration of a lecture which he delivered at the Montserrat Progressive Society Hall in New York in March 1924. The 50-page booklet covers topics like the economy, social life, religion, education, journalism and politics in addition to a historical outline of the island. He had a holistic concept of development; and as he himself asserted, the study was scientific in spirit. The scientific nature of this work is proven by the fact that Kirnon anticipated the famous doctoral thesis of Trinidadian historian Eric Williams which evolved into the classic Capitalism andS/ove/y(l945). According to Eric Williams, slavery was abolished in the West Indies not primarily because of humanitarian agitation, but because of certain economic circumstances. The identical thesis was advanced by Hodge Kirnon, a relatively obscure Montserratian, 20 years before Williams: Very important factors which were favorable to the cause of emancipation, but which have all this time been overlooked by teachers, writers, and historians are certain commercial developments which seriously affected the economic life of the West Indies at this time. There was at the beginning of the nineteenth 96

Some Prominent People In Our History

97

century the development of the beet sugar industry which flooded the English markets and completely swamped the West Indian cane sugar. The market quotations for West Indian cane sugar were the lowest in the history of its market value. It was about this time that India offered excellent prospects for the investments of British capital with highly remunerative dividends, and with hardly any risks. Under such conditions, the sugar industry was at a severe discount and the whole economic structure of the West Indies was on the verge of collapse; thus slave labour became a negligible factor with the decline of the sugar industry and the general financial breakdown. The Abolitionists at this opportune time pulled down the institution of slavery after its economic foundations were loosened by commercial interests powerfully antagonistic to those of the West Indies.

Kirnon obviously did not accept the Anglocentric explanation of emancipation popularized by the Oxford history professor Reginald Coupland and others. Williams' position has come under critical attack in recent times, but it is nevertheless important to associate Hodge Kirnon with it. Hodge Kirnon did not fail to recognize any genuine contribution of whites to the development of Montserrat. Commenting on the death of Joseph Sturge, for instance, he observed that West Indian negroes and Montserratians in particular, lost a friend. But he had a pride in black people and their achievement and a black consciousness unusual among Montserratians of his time. It is hardly surprising that Kirnon became involved in what came to be known as the Harlem renaissance. Wayne F. Cooper, a biographer of Claude McKay, was impressed by Hodge Kirnon's review in Garvey's Negro World of McKay's most important book of poems, Harlem Shadows (1922). At the time he held the lowly position of an elevator operator at 291 Fifth Avenue; but "a sensitive and skilled observer of the Harlem cultural scene", he wrote "the longest and most appreciative review" of the poems. McKay actually wrote to thank Kirnon for the "real feeling" he had shown for his poems. An alumnus of an all-age village primary school, Hodge Kirnon became a scholar of note and a literary critic.

NOEL JAMES LINNINGTON MARGETSON

D;,

r N. J. L Margetson was a Leeward Islands figure.

Born in St Kitts on June 2, 1895, he practised medicine in his native island as well as in Montserrat and Antigua, but it was in Montserrat where he became something of a legend that he worked longest. He was the third child (of four) of Henry Francis Margetson, his youngest brother being Karl Headley Gould (1896) who became as famous in music as Noel was in medicine. After attending the St Kitts Grammar School, Margetson won a scholarship to Queen's Medical College, Ontario, Canada. His first appointment as medical officer was in St Kitts, but he came to Montserrat in 1925, where he was destined to play an outstanding role in the life of the colony and its people. For several years he was one of only two doctors in Montserrat and his name became a household word. Many of his cures were effected as much by people's faith in him as through his scientific skill. Around 1933, Margetson was awarded an Andrew Carnegie fellowship to study surgery at Edinburgh University in Scotland, which qualified him as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS). As surgeon and general practitioner, he became even more valuable to the island and an older generation of Montserratians still speak fondly of him for his caring and his skill. He was perhaps the first black person in the British Leeward Islands to obtain the FRCS and some white visitors to Montserrat with characteristic ignorance expressed surprise that he did. As medical officer, Margetson was sometimes an ex officio member of Executive Council between 1935 and 1940, and was its president at one period. In that capacity, he acted as Commissioner of Montserrat on several occasions. In 1947, he left Montserrat to become surgeon specialist at Holberton Hospital in Antigua. 98

Some Prominent People In Our History

99

Margetson's involvement in Montserrat went beyond the demands of his immediate profession for which he was paid €450 per annum. He was active in the St John's Ambulance Brigade, was a member of the St Anthony's Lodge and represented Montserrat at cricket to the point of captaining the team. His services were recognized in the award of the MBE in Montserrat and the QBE in Antigua. Both islands have also celebrated his memory with Margetson wards in their hospitals and with a Margetson Street in Montserrat and a Margetson Avenue in Antigua. Two of Margetson's five children by his marriage to Jamaican Clara Adelaide Steele—Doreen and Franklin—featured prominently in Montserrat. Doreen Dewar followed her father into the medical field and became Matron of Montserrat's Glendon Hospital in 1959. Franklin, an agriculturist, entered politics and was Minister of Education and Health in the People's Liberation Government led by John Osborne in 1978-83. Indeed Noel Margetson's life and work continues to resonate in Montserrat at the third generation level. Granddaughter Beverley Dewar, formerly a nurse, now heads Family Life Services and her sister Ann Marie, a teacher by profession, is a poet, leading vocalist, and choral director. Margetson occupied an elitist position in Montserrat, but he served the common people with uncommon dedication.

JAMES MENZIES OF

TOBY HILL

J

ames Menzies1 claim to fame or notoriety is based on

the smuggling of liquor. The practice was rife in Montserrat in the 1930s and 1940s and still exists to a small extent today. The chief smugglers were the inhabitants of the village of St John's, but there were also smugglers in the south of the island. The St Patrick's smugglers tended to use small boats to transship casks and demijohns of rum (mostly) from northern bays or from sloops offshore south of Kinsale. Menzies was one of these smugglers; and the merchandise came mostly from the Dutch island of St Bartholomew. For several months before the so-called Menzies riots, the police had been keeping surveillance on suspicious activities in the south, but without a police launch they were virtually powerless. In November 1940, for instance, following up on an observation from his house, the assistant superintendent of police (ASP) took men to the southwest coast where a St Kitts sloop Try-in-trust gave illicit liquor to a rowboat from St Patrick's. A sack with a demijohn of rum was found, but the boats escaped. Borrowing a boat from J.C.L Wall, the police gave chase but valuable time had been lost and only the sloop's cargo of salt for Dominica was found. Over a year later on Sunday, March 22, 1942, policemen went to St Patrick's at early morning to arrest smugglers; the action occurred beside the house of James Menzies at Toby Hill. Menzies and the other suspects were belligerent and with the crowd sympathetic, they violently resisted arrest. The police were greeted with stones and cutlasses and one policeman was seriously injured. Following this, the ASP, an Englishman, proceeded to the scene with an armed posse to secure the arrest. Local reaction was the same, and they were attacked with cutlasses and stones. ASP Spencer and his men opened fire and shot five 100

Some Prominent People In Our History

101

persons including Jack Carty, Tarmie White, Mrs Menzies, Rhona, and John Riley who, by his own account, was just a spectator uninvolved in the riot. Although Riley spent nearly five months in hospital and the rest of his life with a 'battle scar1 (he walked with a limp from the bullet he received in his leg), he was never officially numbered among those who were shot; and having no money to pay local lawyers Kelsick or Meade, his request for compensation was unavailing. This episode had to do with an effort to punish those who defied the law, but it also revealed certain injustices. ASP Spencer failed to make the arrest, was slightly damaged in the fracas and lost his revolver. (The policemen were neither adroit with guns nor skilful with community relations.) More force was deployed to arrest four men; the Defence Force was put on duty on the Sunday evening and by 6.00 a.m. on Monday two officers and 20 policemen arrived from Antigua. Roman Catholic priest Father Gelaude intervened and persuaded Menzies and his wife to surrender and other arrests were made in Plymouth and at the hospital. Spencer nevertheless turned up in St Patrick's with a mighty show of armed force to the surprise of the community which was now quiet. J.C.L Wall and M.S. Osborne used their influence to secure further surrender and to prevent a police officer angry at the loss of his revolver from shooting. When he decided to use armed force to find his revolver he lost the sympathy of Wall, Osborne and other members of the legislature. The commissioner and the governor also lost the support and sympathy of the legislature when they ordered the Treasury to compensate Spencer for the loss of his revolver to the tune of £10 and because of Spencer's own insistence on using force and intimidating individuals with a revolver. On the whole, the elected members J.C.L. Wall, Charles Mercer, A.H. Allen and R.E.D. Osborne while not condoning the crime of the Menzies family circle behaved commendably in raising a number of issues and principles relating to justice, fair play and the high-handed use of authority. They saw these principles as being bigger than the particulars of the Menzies1 case which gave rise to them. The elected members were angry that the normal procedure of using a special warrant to secure funds to compensate Spencer was sidestepped as a way of avoiding the legislature. Then the governor and the commissioner threw the sub judice rule at them when Wall asked in Council for a commission of inquiry into the handling of the Toby Hill incident. The rule was rigidly and biasly interpreted; for as R.E.D. Osborne observed, discussion should only be denied if the matter was being discussed "in such a way as to prejudice the interest of the parties thereto". They also questioned the use of armed force by a Federal police officer

102

GALLERY MONTSERR AT

without the consultation and concurrence of the officer administering the presidency. When, therefore, writing to the secretary of state, the governor complained of the undesirable attitude of the elected members to law and order, he was most unfair. (The secretary of state was the British parliamentary official specially responsible for the administration of the colonies.) Indeed it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the governor was rather partial to Spencer who behaved reprehensibly in the whole affair. A Mr. Redhead who was the magistrate in Montserrat at the time expressed his disgust at Spencer's 'un-British' opposition to bail for the persons arrested. This merchant-planter legislature deserves kudos for their resisting of British officialdom in the interest of the citizens of St Patrick's and the principles of justice for the ordinary Montserratian as a whole. Wall was ever ready to assist the commissioner and the police, but he was not afraid to denounce any semblance of dictatorial action; and Charles Mercer's quip to the commissioner is instructive: "Apparently, your Honour, the principles which the British empire is fighting for, only apply outside and not in this small part of the empire." The real heroes of the Menzies riot were Wall and his colleagues together with Father Gelaude. They demonstrated willingness and skill to resolve a potentially dangerous situation by peaceful suasion; they indicated that crime should be firmly dealt with without perverting justice for the ordinary Montserratian. If James Menzies was a hero it is ASP Spencer who made him one, and even then he was only a hero in an indirect sense in that his case brought into the open the tendency towards certain inconsistencies if not injustices in the colonial administration of his day.

RICHARD PIPER AND

JAMES T. ALLEN

nineteenth century journalists and, T:M ashis farduoaswerewelateknow, the first black Montserratian intellectuals to wield their voice and pen in the cause of the disprivileged of this island. We are unfortunately very short on details on Richard Piper, but we know he published a newspaper called the Jack Spaniard. It was described in 1925 by Hodge Kirnon as "fearless, defiant, aggressive, and uncompromising in its attitude and in all its utterances. It voiced the grievances of the people who groaned under the tyranny of petty officialdom, and did a great deal during its brief existence to develop and focus mass sentiment upon the existing economic and legislative wrongs". This is an impressive evaluation. But this firebrand was a controversial figure who had detractors as well as admirers. A letter writer in the Montserrat Herald of March 26, 1898, by the name of 'One of the People', dubbed Piper's paper inflammatory. (The vicious and cowardly practice of attacking people in newspapers without revealing the writer's name has been around Montserrat for a long time.) This nameless writer portrayed Piper as being somewhat unstable in ideology going from being free thinking, radical and atheist to being a proselyting Christian and then reverting again to radicalism. Even allowing for the prejudice of this Latin-quoting writer, Richard Piper was indeed a radical for his time, but his zeal to see yokes lifted from the necks of the poor was not in doubt. 'One of the People1 was not one of the poor. Predictably, the oppressors became suppressors. Official victimization coupled with lack of support from many of the very persons Piper sought to help, soon led to a silencing of his newspaper. He was a pioneer blazing a trail which several persons would in time follow. In fact, even before the demise of the Jack Spaniard, J.T. Allen's Herald started to shout. 103

104

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

James Towesland Allen, alias Bodo Allen, was the most outstanding person to take up Piper's torch. In 1897, he started to publish the Montserrat Herald with James R. Peters as joint editor and for a time both newspapers were published simultaneously. It was printed in Kinsale by W.H. Humphrey, published every other Saturday and sold for three pence. Hodge Kirnon described J.T. Allen as "a very shrewd, alert and brilliant Montserratian", and he brought these talents to the service of the people. Like Richard Piper, he was fearless and outspoken. "Without the slightest fear or attempt to palliate any vital issue, it exposed official negligence, incompetence and bungling; also judicial stupidity, oppressive measures and other political and economic injustices." What the paper lacked in layout and news material, it made up for as the effective voice of the voiceless. Not surprisingly, the paper attracted official hatred and condemnation and was ultimately banned. But J.T. Allen was not a man to go easily into any good night. After a long legal battle he was sentenced to prison for a year and the Montserrat Herald was silenced. The government took the opportunity to introduce draconian newspaper laws which, among other things, required that publishers deposit a large sum of money before they could publish. The money could be confiscated if government considered that anything printed was objectionable. The Montserrat press was not free at the turn of the century. Outside the newspaper, J.T. Allen served people in other ways. Although not a lawyer, he defended them in court and sought to ensure that the poor received justice. A brilliant debater, he successfully matched wits and skill with lawyers. A jack of many trades, the well-dressed Allen was a man of more than moderate means. He was a gold and silversmith, a watch and clock repairer, a tuner of musical instruments and a general commission agent He acquired a number of estates in the north of the island including Blake's, but eventually lost them after a prolonged court battle. A generous lover, J.T. Allen never married. Among the children he sired was W.H. Bramble who became the first Chief Minister of Montserrat; and he was of course the grandfather of P. Austin Bramble the island's second chief minister, who like his father inherited J.T. Allen's passion for social justice. Montserrat owes J.T. Allen a double debt—his use of journalism to champion the cause of the oppressed and a line of outstanding leaders. In our kind of society, every generation needs a Richard Piper and a J.T. Allen. They used their skills and learning to disturb the ruling elite, but the masses benefited from their nuisance value. Such persons eventually foment change and give even a modicum of respectability and self-respect to grass roots people. They disturb the conscience of oppression.

JOHN HAYNES SKERRITT

brief entry is important because John H. Skerritt T:•his represents that group of coloured persons who emerged from slavery early and made strenuous efforts to move up the social ladder. His story also illustrates the crass discrimination against their efforts and the concerted action taken to frustrate and harass them. In 1805, Skerritt was given a job in the civil service as waiter of customs by the commander-in-chief. The Council opposed the move and set up a board of inquiry which they knew would return the verdict they desired. It submitted that it was dangerous to the peace and security of the island to give a coloured man a job that was reserved for whites only; and it sentenced Skerritt to imprisonment. In other words, he had committed an offence merely by accepting the appointment to the civil service. President of the Council Richard Symmons, disagreed and pointed out that in any case the board had no authority to overrule the order of the commander-in-chief. While concurring with the president, the Assembly took care to point out that "the mere permission of a temporary exercise of the menial and subordinate office of waiter of customs (as the name signifies) cannot be held as a precedent for vesting coloured people with offices and places of trust". In other words, there was still a wall of granite in the road of social mobility against free people of colour. In however small a way, Skerritt had made an upward move which inspired the free coloured in their struggle for some semblance of equality. For instance, they insisted on voting in the general elections of 1813 and since most of them were concentrated around Plymouth and Kinsale, they actually influenced the election outcome in that area. When free coloured votes led to the election of Dudley Semper, the Assembly nullified the elections with the argument that the free coloured did not legally have the franchise. 105

106

GALLERY MONTSERR AT

The free coloured voted again in 1820 and again the results were the same. By their continual agitation, they helped to win the franchise for the free coloured in the British islands before emancipation. The Skerritt case was a key factor in this struggle.

ELIZABETH WYKE

ome of the nursing activities of Elizabeth Wyke (nee

sAllen) read like a romance and provide insights into the demands made on nurses in her day.

Wyke was born at Rendezvous on January 12, 1923, the fourth of eight children of Epie and Mary Alfreda Allen. Her very fair complexion and caucasoid features indicate a mixed ancestry. This was not unusual in that area of the island which had a strong concentration of Irish and Scottish people from among Montserrat's seventeenth century colonizers. She attended the Cavalla Hill Methodist school where she obtained a good formal education. At the age of 19 Elizabeth Allen, as she then was, entered the nursing profession but left it in 1948 after she had met and married John Henry Wyke of Cork Hill. Her husband was a prominent businessman and she worked with him as the bookkeeper. It is said that she made certain that the creditors paid up—a service which her husband must have highly appreciated in those days of sometimes 'trust and no pay1. Partly because of her work, Wyke Enterprises became very successful, but she unfortunately lost her husband in 1953. She had lost their first child at birth and John Wyke died when the second, Johnnie, was only four months old. This turn in her fortunes forced her to resume a nursing career in which she made a valuable contribution to the island. Her eulogist described her as "a hard worker, simple, generous, sincere, caring, affectionate, dedicated and most of all humble". As a district nurse, she had to cover her district on foot or on horseback. When stationed at Bethel, she had to travel two miles to Long Ground; she also travelled from St John's to Salem and even between St Patrick's in the south and Harris in the east, a distance of about eight miles. In some cases she was answering night calls so she had to carry lanterns and flambeaus. 107

108

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

Elizabeth Wyke literally touched many lives. She vividly recalled delivering four babies in different villages in her 'district' in a single evening. She took on many challenges, as nurses had to in a day of few doctors; foot ulcers and fevers were common and her motto reportedly was: "There is no sore that I cannot cure", using the term sore as a broad concept. She was said to be a strict mother-cum-father who took the biblical injunction of not sparing the rod seriously. Like so many mothers of the time, she was versatile and industrious. As a seamstress she sewed her own dresses and her son's clothes. As a measure of her success at training, Johnnie followed his father into business, part of which, significantly, is clothing—Johnnie's Mecca Fashions. Elizabeth Wyke remained a committed Methodist to her death in 1994. An enthusiastic member of the Girls League she also adorned the choir with a beautiul clear voice. Hers was a simple and quiet life, but she lovingly touched the lives of many Montserratians.

GEORGE WYKE AND

EDWARD PARSON

•

hese two eighteenth century English planters are

T!

linked together because they were joint local heroes

of the battle of Runaway Ghaut, from a British point of view. During this century when the English and French strove for mastery in the Caribbean, nearly every island came under attack. When the French attacked Montserrat in 1712, these two men led the island's militia in its defence, pending the arrival of the British ships which never came. With only 60 men Wyke reportedly withstood the French at Runaway Ghaut while the inhabitants fled to higher ground for safety. The ravine cut by the Runaway Ghaut stream was given the name Frenchmen's Creek because of this battle. Edward Parson joined forces with Wyke and with a total of 400, they held the island against the French and refused to surrender to the French General Cassart who had 3,500 soldiers. As a result of his courage and leadership, Governor Douglas made Parson Commander-in-Chief of Montserrat. Parson was not hesitant in highlighting the importance of his work. For "although the French General Cassart would give us extraordinary terms of capitulation we answered him that we were resolved to maintain Her Majesty's colony to the last extremity", he said. Parson plausibly claimed that he had invested some of his own resources in fitting out the militia for war. Wyke and Parson served the island and British interests well, but they personally had vital vested interests in the island. With 700 acres recorded in the 1729 census, Wyke was about the largest landowner in Montserrat and at the same time Edward Parson's widow owned 400 acres. Indeed Parsons name has been indelibly carved into the island's landscape with a village and land settlement still bearing his name. Actually, Parson had hoped for an even more handsome reward than the position of commander-in-chief. He petitioned the 109

110

G A LLE RY M 0 NTS E Ft RAT

governor for the post of lieutenant governor, both for the pay and prestige involved. The Wyke-Parson story throws some light on the precarious nature of the island's defence in the eighteenth century.

SPORTS

CHARLES HENRY (JIM) ALLEN

B:

orn on August 15, 1951, Charles Henry (Jim) Allen

'attained the greatest international fame, but several

other Montserratian cricketers are known for their outstanding performance. Before focusing on Allen, the opportunity is taken here to highlight some of these. Selecting an imaginary Leeward Islands cricket team, cricketer and cricket historian, Austin Eddy of St Kitts included two Montserratians—Sylvester Davis and D.R.V. (Frank) Edwards. Apart from his individual contribution as a player, Frank Edwards has been an outstanding cricket administrator in Montserrat and the Leewards for over two decades. Along with Davis, two other outstanding players, Theodore Bramble and J.N. (George) Ed wards featured in Montserrat's first a way Leeward Island win in 1951. The captain was Sydney Meade. William (King) Graham of this era deserves mention not because he was a useful cricketer, but because he was an outstanding cricket administrator; he is described by Eddy as "for years a pillar of Montserrat's cricket". A number of players distinguished themselves before the era of the 1940s and 1950s. In 1925, for instance, Richard Piper captured an enviable Leeward Islands record when he took seven Antiguan wickets for 20 runs; and in 1938, off-break bowler Eddie Roberts, wrote himself into the records with a hat trick against Antigua. Other names that have survived as being worthy of a place in the Montserratian cricketing galaxy include Charles E. Greenaway, Willie Harris, James Pyke, Nat West, Dick Weekes, and Nathaniel Fox. Alford Coriette and George Allen, who were contemporaries of Jim Allen, also deserve a listing as well as Kingsley Rock and James Riley (Son Harris) who shared the new ball with George Edwards.

112

Some Prominent People In Our History

113

In this chronicle of Montserratian cricketers, Jim Allen has emerged as the one with the greatest international fame. This is remarkable since he hails from rural Montserrat and it is doubtful whether he would have made the Montserratian team in an earlier decade even with his talent. It was commonly felt that cricketers from the country were not allowed to share the prestige of representing the island. Born at Harris his parents were Handsome and Alberta Allen. The Almighty was liberal to his family with cricket talent, for his brother George Allen, an all-rounder, also represented the island in regional tournaments. In fact Jim's father was himself a good cricketer as was Jim's oldest brother, David, who emigrated before this other eastern light had a chance to shine islandwide. The village of Harris has always been blessed with good cricketers and has produced potential island players. It is only in very recent years that persons like Fitzroy Buffong and Basil Morgan (who has continued to serve cricket as a first class umpire and a valuable repository of facts on Montserratian cricket history) have made the national squad. One reason for the dominance of Harris over other villages has to be the facility; in Hyde Park, Harris until recently had the only recognized cricket field in Montserrat outside Plymouth. Technical knowledge of the game was perhaps higher in that village than any other area outside of Plymouth. In a sense then, Jim Allen embraced a goodly heritage. Allen made his first division debut in local cricket at the age of 18, when he played for Rivals against Texaco. Batting at number three, he scored his first half century. Between 1969 and 1975 he notched up centuries against every Montserratian cricket club with the lone exception of Malverns, a team studded with national players including A. Corriette, S. Greenaway, R. Jemmotte, B. Roach, V. Fergus and B. Morgan. His highest score for Rivals, renamed Antilles, was 103 against Wanderers. In the final years of his local league career, the Police drafted him into their team. Allen's prowess and achievement in the local league immediately placed him in the national squad for the Leeward Islands tournament which in those days was played in one territory rotating each year. But it was as a wicket keeper and lower order batsman that he made the team against Antigua in 1969. Jim Allen soon became a prolific scorer of runs in Montserrat and also a useful spin bowler as well. In 1979, he took three Jamaican wickets for 76 runs in Grenada when he played for the Combined Islands. Playing for his island in the Leeward Islands tournament he made an aggregate of 1,610 runs including four centuries at an impressive average of 60.12. His highest score was 165 against Nevis at Sturge Park. A very good fielder too, in 1976 he was awarded the prize for the outstanding fieldsman in the Shell Shield

114

G A L LE RY M 0 NTS E R RAT

match between Combined Islands and Trinidad and Tobago. He also demonstrated excellence as a wicket keeper; keeping wicket for Montserrat since 1969 and for the Leeward Islands on three occasions, he took 38 catches. Jim Allen drove his way into the Leeward Islands team and into regional first class cricket in 1972, when he played in Dominica against the Windwards; and his name soon began to be called in the same breath as the great Vivian Richards. Montserratians contend to this day that he should have made the prestigious West Indian side. You cannot blame them when you reflect on the facts. In his 55 matches and 95 innings of first class cricket, he amassed 3,058 runs including five centuries and was not out on five occasions. His highest score was 161 against Jamaica in 1979. Antiguan scholar, cricket analyst and commentator Tim Hector speaks glowingly of the cricketing skill of Jim Allen. Writing to D.R.V. (Frank) Edwards from England, Antiguan cricketer Guy Yearwood spoke of seeing "Jim get his West Indies test selection shortly". Significantly, in a letter to the Secretary of the English Test and County Cricket Board in July, 1977, Harold J. Burnett, the Secretary of the West Indies Board of Control referred to Jim as "a punishing batsman... knocking on the door of test cricket". In fact Burnett wrote to Allen on December 15,1978, inquiring whether he would be available for the West Indies tour of Pakistan in 1979. This is how closely he came to the promised land of West Indies test cricket. Allen, however, never made the West Indies team (an injury to his eye in 1981 may have contributed to this disappointment), but his exploits took him beyond the Caribbean boundary. He was blessed to have cricketer, sports enthusiast and patriot Frank Edwards in his dressing room. It was through initiatives taken by Frank Edwards and Antiguan Guy Yearwood that Jim Allen was attached to the Hyde and Werneth cricket clubs in the Lancashire League from 1977 to 1980. There he built a reputation as a run machine winning the Manchester Evening News Hemeling Lite Lager batting award and drawing lavish praise from cricket commentators. Referring to his "amazing display" of 176 not out in just 80 deliveries, Bob Cull said that he "outshone anything produced by his famous West Indian predecessors, such as Gary Sobers and Everton Weekes, during their heyday in Lancashire". It was a "mayhem" Cull noted as Allen "crucified" a Rohan Kanhai's over with three 6s, one 4, one 2, and a single. Referring to this same innings in which Allen scored 176 out of 222 runs made while he was at the wicket, Bob Normandale wrote in the Oldham Evening Chronicle of May 19,1980 of Allen hitting three 4s in an over in "the most devastating batting I have ever seen". It was Jim's phenomenal batting with Hyde and his demoralization of opposing sides as much as his Kerry Parker connection that led to a protest over

Some Prominent People In Our History

115

his participation in the Lancashire and Cheshire League. The charge was that Jim was a professional and not an amateur. One bowler, Glossop, registered his protest by bowling an underarm over before Jim "bowled" him over "with a whirlwind knock", slamming a brilliant 170. It was his big-hitting ways that led to his move to Werneth in 1980 when he scored 1,142 runs with three centuries. Allen did not at first reveal to Hyde his bowling skills, but it was bowling along with his batting which helped Hyde to jump to the First Division. After some impressive bowling in the nets, his skipper Peter Hardman called on him to bowl in their next match, and he responded with four wickets for 30 runs from 11 overs of medium fast bowling; and soon followed this up with five for 27 in 9 overs. Jim Allen was described by D.C.N. Jones as "arguably the finest machine ever to have appeared in the Lancashire and Cheshire League, became somethin of a cricketing wonder and his name is indelibly written in their records". In all, he took 38 wickets for Hyde at an average of 30.07 runs per wicket. Frank Edwards deserves some credit for his contribution to Jim Allen's overseas exposure and experience. Shortly after Jim's attachment to Hyde in 1977, he wrote to D. S. Carr, Secretary of the Test and County Cricket Board, seeking his assistance in placing him with a League or county club. When in 1978, he was recruited for the Kerry Packer World Cricket series, it was Edwards, as it was with Hyde, who was Allen's 'voluntary1 agent, mentor and manager. He did much to ensure that Allen became the first Montserratian to play League cricket in England. (His thick files of correspondence with Albert Hill of Hyde, with Guy Yearwood, the Antiguan Hyde recruit, with Lynton Taylor of World Cricket Series in Australia, with English cricket administrators and with the little hero himself, are invaluable for a comprehensive and insightful understanding of the Jim Allen story.) If justification for Allen's inclusion in the Kerry pack were necessary, he provided it with 101 runs against Australia in Tasmania. Montserratians still rave about Jim Allen, but they are not alone in their abiding respect for his prowess at the game. An appeal for funds to finance his eye operation in New York in 1981 elicited a generous response. The following sums were realized from overseas: (a) Collections in Antigua during a test match

$

4,930.89

(b) Contributions from West Indies players

$

5,600.00

(c) Contribution from Combined Island players

$

200.00

$ 10,730.89 Jim Allen's career ended in a bit of an anticlimax, and in spite of the success of his eye operation, the injury seemed to have permanently damaged his career

116

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

and even his morale. Montserratians often criticize Montserratians for not having done enough to show appreciation for Jim's personal and national achievements. One would question this, even when one adds Jim's short voluntary stint as a cricket coach in schools. In 1978, he was awarded the MBE for his contribution to cricket; and in February 11,1988, he was given a government job as a prison warder. Creole poet Ann Marie Dewar has immortalized him in the poem "Cricket": What a carry-on at Sturge Park! How de crowd a stamp an roar! Fo Combine play Guyana An a-we Jim tap de score. Lek waata fram a bus' pipe Lek bullet fram a gun Lek how lang-foot Sue mek baby

Is so Jim put on run! When Jim a bat ee no mek joke Cricket ball a fly all over To slip, mid-on boundary, square leg, Fine leg an' extra cover. If Jim didn't pick pan Combine Is how Combine woulda cope? When Guyana man canfront dem Is pan Jim deh heng dem hope. Maas James tell ee darta husban' Fo mark ee wuds; ee say Dat West Indies woulda beat Australia If Jim mi everdey.

It was sometimes said that Allen's stance at the wicket was unorthodox, but excellence sometimes breaks away from the norm to create its own orthodoxy. Jim's brilliance with bat, indeed as an all-round cricketer, transformed seeming defects into virtues. Unorthodoxy becomes irrelevant, but to speak of Jim Allen's style makes timeless sense. Highlights of his batting career appear below: Career Highlights of Charles H. (Jim) Allen 1971-77 1971

LI Tournament

148 vsSt Kitts in Montserrat

1971

LI Tournament

67 vs Nevis in Nevis

Some Prominent People In Our History

117

1971-72

(First Class)

80 vs Windward Islands for Leeward Islands

1972

LI Tournament

162 vs Antigua in Antigua*

1972

LI Tournament

141 vs Nevis in Montserrat

1972-73

(First Class)

51 vs New Zealand for Leeward Islands

1973

LI Tournament

101 vs Antigua for Montserrat

1973

(First Class)

58 vs Australia for Leeward Islands

1973

Shell Shield

96 vs Guyana for Combined Islands

1974

50-Over Match

111 vs Antigua in Antigua*

1974

50-Over Match

102 vs England for Combined Islands*

1974

Shell Shield

91 vs Trinidad for Combined Islands

1975

Shell Shield

110 vs Barbados for Combined Islands

1975

LI Tournament

146 vs Antigua for Montserrat

1975

Shell Shield

87 vs Trinidad for Combined Islands

1976

(First Class)

64 vs India for Leeward Islands

1976

Gillette Cup (50 overs)

54 vs Barbados for Leeward Islands

1976

L I Tournament

76 vs Antigua for Montserrat

1977

(First Class)

91 vs Windward Islands for Leeward Islands

1977

(First Class)

93 vs Windward Islands for Leeward Islands

1977

Shell Shield

150 vs Guyana for Combined Islands

1977

Shell Shield

57 vs Barbados for Leeward Islands

1977

Shell Shield

101 vs Barbados for Combined Islands

1977

(First Class)

58 vs Pakistan for Leeward Islands

* not out

THEODORE THEOPHILUS

BRAMBLE

B:

orn in Antigua on July 27, 1924, he came to Mont-

'serrat when he was barely two months old; his mother was Catherine Mulcare of Cork Hill and his father, William Bramble, came from Delvins. In the academy of his life, Major Bramble achieved a double major: one was in the military, which he pursued for 48 years attaining the high rank of major in the Montserrat Defence Force; and the other was in sports which ran over a parallel period and brought him international plaudits. Ordinance No. 5 of 1898 provided for the establishment of a defence force and the provision of its uniforms at public expense. It could be "summoned in event of war, invasion, internal emergency threatening the security of life or property, to quell them if the available civil forces are deemed inadequate . . . All things issued to the force including musical instruments remain the property of the government". It was instituted in the year of the Fox riots which engendered it. It was from this MDF, albeit with occasional changes in its name, that T. T. Bramble gracefully retired in September 1993. Bramble joined in 1945 at the age of 21 and became lance corporal and corporal in successive years 1947 and 1948. Following a course of military training under the tutelage of the Jamaica Regiment in Jamaica, he rose to the rank of sergeant in September 1956. Two years later (1958) he was promoted to quartermaster sergeant and in about two months thereafter he attained the rank of sergeant major. His promotion slowed down at this point for it was not until 1970, that he became second lieutenant followed by lieutenant in the same year. Fourteen years later in 1984, he was given the rank of captain and in 1987 he succeeded Major Fred Barzey as Commanding Officer of the MDF. On May 17, 1990 he was elevated to the rank of major. 118

Some Prominent People In Our History

119

This honour was welcomed by the Montserratian community which highly regarded Bramble's long career in the MDF and his uncommon and sacrificial dedication to the numerous duties he was required to fufil. When he was asked to which facet of his career he attached the greatest importance, Bramble noted that both sports and the military were interrelated; and in a sense they were, for it was as a member of the MDF cricket and football teams that he served those games in Montserrat From 1946 to 1953, he wa selected on the national football squad for the Leeward Islands tournament and was one of the outstanding footballers. An all-rounder at cricket (batsman and spin bowler), Bramble opened his career in Leeward Islands cricket in St Kitts in 1946. He and J.N. (George) Edwards were the first Montserratians to be selected for a combined Windward/Leewards side in British Guiana in 1948. He had other firsts in cricket; he was a membe of the victorious side which gave Montserrat its first away win in the Leeward Islands tournament in Nevis in 1951. Since he did not miss a tournament, he was again a member of Sydney Meade's inning team at home in 1953. Bramble's highest score in a cricket career which spanned 23 years from 1946 to 1969, wa 88 in St Kitts against Antigua in 1946; and he has scored 50 runs on every Leeward Islands pitch. He once took four Leeward Island wickets in one innings and recalls with pleasure bowling Sydney Walling of Antigua with a leg break behind his back after he had scored 100. Walling commended him for the ball. Another highlight of his cricket career was when he represented the Leewards against the Windwards in Dominica in 1956. His love for the game was such that he often travelled to Barbados and elsewhere to watch test cricket. Bramble's life was so dominated by sports and the Defence Force that one can easily forget that he had a career by which he made a living. At one stage, when for many years he managed the MDF sports club and canteen, he actually earned a living through the Force. In 1966, however, he joined the prison staff as a warden and served in Her Majesty's prison for 21 years. For this he was trained in Trinidad, where he became adjunct lecturer in drill when the authorities discovered that he was a sergeant major in the MDF and an exponent of that art. He became chief officer of the prison and acted as superintendent on several occasions. Montserrat's debt to Theodore Bramble is enormous. When asked what sports and the MDF had given to him, he unhesitatingly answered: "Discipline". In theory, sports and military training are supposed to impart this characteristic; but there are many lives in which this is not evident. The claim becomes credible in Bramble, a humble, soft-spoken gentleman with a well-ordered life—some-

120

GALLERY MONTSERR AT

thing of a model citizen even. His departure from the MDF was almost a semi-retirement from life for it was half of his life. He will linger long in sports, for when he ceased to be a player he took up umpiring and became a fully qualified West Indies umpire in 1971 and has been serving in that capacity ever since. In addition, he has been (even as a player) supervising the preparation of the national cricket pitch to ensure a proper standard. Withdrawal from all of these activities may well be imminent, but his name has been indelibly written in the sports and military pages of this island's history. If he were to claim that his old-fashioned politeness were a by-product of his training, who could gainsay that? It is a quality sadly lacking at the present time.

FRED SYLVESTER DAVIS

R

Ved Sylvester Davis of cricketing fame was the son of John Davis, an American, and Mary Mulcaire of Ply-

mouth. Born on October 6,1919, he attended the St Mary's school, a government all-age primary school where Robert Barton was headmaster. He left in standard seven, the highest class. Davis' all-round athletic prowess was evident while at St Mary's especially in the annual inter-school competitions of the day. In one and the same year he carried off the first prize in the 100 yards sprint, the sack race, and the high jump and was a member of the boys' winning relay team. Not surprisingly he was the champion athlete of the year, winning victor ludorum honours. An athletic-looking young man, Fred Davis took up football and cricket seriously after he left school, but it was at cricket that he most excelled. At the age of 19 he was called upon to wear his first island cap in cricket and acquitted himself creditably. One year later in 1939, he again represented Montserrat, this time in Antigua. The Second World War started in 1939 putting the Leeward Islands competition in abeyance. Davis joined the South Caribbean contingent of the army in 1943 and went for training in St Kitts, where he advanced rapidly becoming a sergeant instructor. In Nevis, where he also received military training, he met the young lady who later became his wife. During the army days he continued to play football and cricket. He was selected to play on the Army Leeward Islands team against a Trinidad and Tobago team which featured names like Jeffrey Stollmyer, Gerry Gomez and other players of West Indian cricket fame. It is said that both Stollmyer and Gomez complimented him for his bowling in the match. Davis returned home after the War in 1946 with valuable experience added to his talent to benefit Montserratian cricket In that same year he represented 121

122

GALLERY M 0 NTSERR AT

Montserrat both at football and cricket and made the Leewards cricket team as a result of his performance. With a prominent and permanent position on the Montserrat team he was selected for a Leeward Islands team which toured Bermuda in 1949. There he distinguished himself with the first of two hat-tricks in his career (a hat-trick being the dismissal by a bowler of batsmen in three successive balls). Davis' climactic year in cricket was 1951 a red letter year in Montserratian cricket. He scored a career best 97 runs not out which was the highest score to that date by any Montserratian cricketer in the Leeward Islands tournament. Equally distinguished, he captured seven wickets in the match, which was against Antigua, to give Montserrat its first ever away win in the Leeward Islands tournament. In those days each island in turn hosted the entire tournament. In the following year Fred Delinger, as he was popularly called, again bowled a hattrick against Antigua on their own ground in the subregional tournament. He thereby repeated the feat of another Montserratian bowler Eddie Roberts who took his hat-trick in 1938. It is believed that these were the only two hat-tricks ever in the Leeward Islands tournament. Davis, who now resides in the USA, visits the island almost annually. His name was for a long time associated with excellence in Montserratian cricket. His poise and athletic looking physique is still evident even at his age, set off by an air of gentlemanliness. He has five sons—Gabriel, Montgomery, Rudolph, John and Stephen. In 1995 Davis was awarded the prestigious Montserrat Badge and Certificate of Honour for his contribution to Montserratian cricket. The recognition was long overdue.

TRADE UNIONS AND

POLITICS

PERCIVAL AUSTIN BRAMBLE

P

ercival Austin Bramble who succeeded his father as

the second Chief Minister of Montserrat made an

outstanding contribution to the development of the island during his relatively short tenure of seven years. Some of his policies and decisions have drawn strong criticism, some not entirely without justification, and others have been politically inspired, but his was an essentially creative and productive regime. Born January 24, 1931, Bramble entered politics as a member of his father's Montserrat Labour Party to contest the 1966 general elections. His maiden campaign speech rang with sincerity and innocence, albeit with a tinge of the simplistic: "I shall slander no one, I shall abuse no one; I shall make no enemies." (It is not difficult to make enemies in micro Montserrat.) The people of Plymouth warmed to Bramble giving him 70.4 per cent of the votes. He trounced both Robert Peter Riley and veteran politician Robert W. Griffith. In his father's government, he was first assigned to the Ministry of Communications and Works, but was soon transferred to the Ministry of Education, Health and Welfare, where he was a particularly active minister. A former schoolteacher, he took a keen interest in education, and negotiations to build the Salem Junior Secondary school started during his term. Always touched by the plight of the disprivileged, he was equally enthusiastic about health and welfare policies. It was this same quality of social concern that led him to openly oppose the real estate policy of his father. He saw it, rightly or wrongly, as a wanton alienation of agricultural land and a kind of patrimonial sell-out to expatriates. The rift was serious enough for him to break with his father and lead his own Progressive Democratic Party (POP) in the 1970 election which he won to become the island's second chief minister. By John Osborne's own account, he urged on the revolt when Austin wavered. This is plausible considering the closeness of the Bramble family and Osborne's more Machiavellian style. 124

Some Prominent People In Our History

125

When it is considered that Bramble's regime coincided with the worldwide fuel crisis, it has to be considered a remarkable achievement, although there were policies of dubious benefit and others that were at least questionable. Former trade union president Dr J.A. Irish has criticized him fiercely as someone who was hostile to trade unionism. Bramble, who had been a trade unionist in Curacao where he had formerly worked, contends that Irish's brand of trade unionism was harmful to the job creation climate at that particular time. In his haste to attract outside investors to produce jobs, in 1978 he entertained the false 'knight' Walton Jacob who, while posing as a highly respectable investor under the name 'Sir Walton', was wanted for fraud and theft in the USA; and his calling of an election in 1978 in search of a mandate to combat racism may have been an ill-conceived action. It was perhaps due to his particular interpretation of cultural activities spearheaded by UWI resident tutor Dr J.A. Irish and others which reflected a new awareness of the national self and a new pride in indigenous arts and philosophy—all very important for a sense of nationhood which is not out of place even for a colonized people. Again Bramble insists that laudable as these activities were inherently, they were crudely damaging to racial peace and carried a hidden political agenda. (This particular matter is still wide open for research and analysis.) Bramble's response to an invitation to meet a supposed investor in Miami who claimed to have evidence of corruption on the part of the John Osborne government in 1984 got him into some trouble with the American authorities. But this is not the end of the Austin Bramble story. Several productive activities of present day Montserrat resulted from his policies and action. He not only built factory shells, but in an unprecedented and far-sighted move, he loaned govern ment funds to W Et W Electronics to help ensure industrial substance for the shells. It was he who established the Philatelic Bureau which brought not just profit and jobs, but assisted Montserrat to graduate from the British grant-in-aid during John Osborne's term at the helm. The American University of the Caribbean (AUC) an offshore medical school also came into being under the John Osborne government; but the arrangements for the multi-million dollar project were initiated and finalized while Bramble was in power. The prestigious Air Studios which attracted top musicians to the island and gave it international exposure and publicity was not only planned under the Bramble government, it was actually under construction when he demitted office. Bramble took a number of other actions which collectively amount to a policy to develop a sense of self-sufficiency, pride and dignity in our people. These included loans and grants for fishermen, loans to farmers and a guaranteed

126

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

market for some crops, the establishment of a tannery and leathercraft industry and a loan scheme for furniture makers for the purchasing of tools. Austin Bramble's policies were underpinned by a strong social conscience. The rhetoric and the reality were in accord. In his very first throne speech he articulated the "need for government to take its fair share of the increasing wealth its policies will attract, and to redistribute it in a manner that will ensure that the needs of the old, the infirm and the underprivileged are never forgotten" and in his first budget speech he spoke in a similar vein: "I have long felt that the needs of the poor, the old and infirm have been insufficiently recognized in past budgets." It was statements like these and the corresponding policies that drew facile charges of being socialist (using the term pejoratively) and communist from opposing politicians like John Osborne and John Dublin. Clothing his promises with flesh, he introduced a school feeding programme and free milk distribution for young children; and the government hospital gave free medical attention to the aged and to persons with certain chronic debilitating diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. Nursery education in Montserrat started through the efforts of a voluntary association; but Austin Bramble embraced it with a passion and supported it, paying the salaries of the teaching personnel. He also made housing available both for day care centres and pre-primary schools. Indeed it was his government that laid the foundation for the excellent provision of pre-primary education which exists in Montserrat, and Bramble took a personal interest in it. Driven by this same current of social concern, Bramble took the bold initiative of introducing a National Provident Fund in 1972. The present Social Security Scheme is a vital socioeconomic infrastructure which can easily be taken for granted. It ought to be on readily available record that it evolved from the National Provident Fund, and that it is to Austin Bramble that successive generations of pensioners and unemployed persons owe their gratitude for this beneficial institution. It is evident that Bramble laid foundations on which successive governments have built. Although policies such as school feeding and free medicine for the aged led politicians like John Osborne to castigate Bramble as communist, when Osborne came to power, he wisely made no move to discontinue them. These policies are still with us today and the name Bramble is stamped all over them. (It is interesting to note that Bramble's first son is currently Director of the Social Security Scheme.) As I have written elsewhere, Bramble was no doctrinaire socialist. Indeed in many respects he was surprisingly conservative, in spite of the word 'Progressive'

Some Prominent People In Our History

127

in the name of his party. He has generally frowned on any talk of self-government for Montserrat, although in 1975 he got the British to make provision for a local Speaker of the Legislative Council in place of the governor. And to this author's regret, he did not grasp the opportunity to introduce secondary education for all. He seemed to have felt that this would mean a levelling down—a lowering of the standard of grammar school education. It ought to be said in his favour though that his overriding passion was for the improvement of primary education; and he did abolish fees for secondary education which opened it to all those who 'passed' the common entrance examination. Although salaries became an issue during his administration, it is to Bramble's credit that under his regime teachers and nurses began to receive equal pay with persons with equivalent qualification in other branches of the service. In spite of his impressive achievements, Bramble lost the 1978 election to John Osborne, a former minister in his government. To support their wage claim, the civil servants staged a march against him in 1978 and Osborne joined the march. The island was still grant-aided and the British Government did not facilitate the salary rise. Bramble therefore lost the support of the civil servants and naturally some of their dependents. Many merchants enlisted under John Osborne's 'free enterprise' banner giving him wealthy support. In addition, some telescoped Austin Bramble's tenure with his father's and reasoned simplistically that the Brambles had been around long enough. The rest, as is said, is history. Austin began to suffer from a stubborn residue of anti-Bramble sentiment which is difficult to explain. When I am chided for not writing about other people or when I am offered information which portrays W.H. Bramble in a negative light, these are merely manifestations of that sentiment. My guess is that there is still an element in Montserratian society that has not totally forgiven W.H. Bramble for derailing the aristocratic power train; and by the late 1970s many of the voters were not direct beneficiaries of Bramble's liberating work. Besides anti-Bramble informants usually have a personal grouse against either father or son. A profound thinker with great confidence in his ability, Austin Bramble does not always suffer fools gladly and this profile hardly fetches a plus in Montserrat. Austin Bramble's ability and his burning zeal for the arena of social advancement will not let him rest. He was back in the fray in 1983 narrowly defeating Franklin Margetson who had replaced him in the Plymouth constituency in 1978, as well as Dr J.A. Irish. His POP gained only two seats so he had to be content with the opposition benches. In this position he helped to improve the quality of parliamentary governance in a country that had grown accustomed to one-party rule. In an unprecedented move, he tabled a motion of no confidence against the

128

G A LLE RY M 0 NTS E R RAT

John Osborne government and gained much political mileage. It is instructive that for the 1987 election, the new National Development Party (NDP) opened dialogue with Bramble over some kind of coalition arrangement. The talks broke down and the attack on him in the NDP organ, the Montserrat Reporter, for "flip-flopping" may have contributed to his defeat by Vernon Jeffers of the PLM. Bramble then announced his retirement from active politics and was subsequently decorated with the QBE for his role in his country's advancement. Moved by astuteness or magnanimity or both, John Osborne offered him the management of the Philatelic Bureau—a happy irony since it was under his government that it was established. But Austin Bramble will not go easily into a political good night. Prior to the 1991 elections different groups including members of the present ruling party held talks with him about his possible participation. Since then there have been occasional diplomatic efforts to bring him into a political partnership as an alternative to the present government. Bramble has a core of die-hard supporters who see him as a potential saviour of this country especially in its crisis times, and his record of achievement including the absence of corruption from his regime gives justification to this faith in him. Those who oppose him tend to do so with a rhetorical throw-off rather than a rational explanation. There is politics in Austin Bramble's blood and a burning desire to contribute to the social advancement of the island. He produces a reasoned and often persuasive point of view on nearly every national issue, whether it is Montserrat's role in Caribbean integration, independence for Montserrat or the CARICOM Common External Tariff. (In reality, he was never a great integrationist or a pro-independence person, although he cultivated useful bilateral relations within the regional movement and obtained valuable technical assistance from Jamaica and Trinidad.) Whether he re-enters active politics or not, as a reputable elder statesman he is an important national resource. A wise government would do well to make use of that resource.

WIL LIAM HENRY BRAMBLE

B;

orn in 1901, William Henry Bramble rose from peas-

(

ant farmer, carpenter and boat owner to leading

trade unionist and illustrious politican. His record as a political leader of Montserrat remains unsurpassed. W.H. Bramble's mother was the humble Mary Ryan, but his sire was the famous late nineteenth century champion of the oppressed, J.T. (Bodo) Allen, who is profiled elsewhere in this volume. Bramble made good use of the all-age primary school education which was available to him, but because of economic circumstances, he was unable to complete even this. His mother did the next best thing and sent him to learn a trade along with wielding the hoe. In spite of a well-to-do father, Bramble's early circumstances were not comfortable; his was a typical one-parent family situation. Bramble embraced Seventh-Day Adventism in the 1920s and became an ardent adherent, although his zeal and involvement declined in his later years. He actually functioned as a colporteur selling religious books in Montserrat and Dominica. He married Ann Daley of Salem in 1930, herself a staunch Adventist; and the union produced five children: Austin, Doris, Laurel, Howell and Olga. Austin, as we have seen, followed his father into politics. Finding his income from carpentry inadequate for family needs, Bramble took to 'trafficking'. He bought a small boat and carried salt from Anguilla, and animals, cooking oil and vegetables from Montserrat to other Eastern Caribbea islands reaching as far south as Trinidad. Bramble must have been impressed by trade unionism in the region, but there was nothing in his early career to suggest that he would become the formidable debater that he was, or a great champion for social and economic justice. 129

130

GALLERY MO NTS ERR AT

The Montserrat Trades and Labour Union (MTLU) was already five years old when Bramble joined in 1951, and it is suspected that he saw it at the outset as a springboard to a political career. But if Bramble needed the union, the union needed Bramble. Robert Griffith had done a good job in establishing the union, unsettling the cozy nests of the planter elite and irritating the political directorate. It was left to Bramble to develop a platform to assault and dislodge the abiding socioeconomic systems of slavery. The 1958 Malone Commission of Inquiry into labour disputes accused him of using the strike as a vehicle to power, and he did exploit whatever political mileage he could obtain from his union activities, but it was the petty and pitiless planters who played into his hands. There had to be justification for a strike when planters arrogantly refused to negotiate with a union that was seeking an increase in the wage of agricultural families whose pickings were well below subsistence level. Beyond the politics, the genuineness of Willy Bramble's anxiety over the plight of the poor is beyond debate. In his rapid rise to power both in the MTLU and in politics, Bramble obtained important local and British assistance. Ellen Peters' assertion that Bramble was the true hero of Montserrat is significant. She and the other influential persons in the union, including Robert Griffith's brother-in-law W. Graham, perceived Bramble and not Griffith as the true emancipator. Griffith was popular with the people whom he had awakened and sensitized to their collective power, but his idiosyncratic and enigmatic style seemed inadequate for the next stage. Bramble was the man with a coherent plan for liberation and social development. His stirring speeches signalled his intent. On election eve 1951, he had said with messianic fervour and eloquence: Listen to me, you landless people, you people, the industrial machinery of this country, arise, and throw off the yoke that binds you like slaves to the Wade Plantation.

In referring to the new constitution in 1951, he said: If the aristocratic regime appears to be dying, it is right that we prepare its coffin, dig its grave and lay it quietly to its last resting place.

In replying to an Eric Kelsick charge in 1957 he noted: On the Windward Estates there are little boys caring for sheep, also of school age, but don't know the first letter of the alphabet. Because of poverty, they must grow up into illiterate men to be ashamed of themselves.

Ellen Peters, B.W. Edwards and Graham threw their support behind this practical visionary.

Some Prominent People In Our History

131

British Commissioner Charlesworth Ross and the Leeward Islands governor also supported Bramble. They were, however, by no means unbiased in their evaluation of Griffith who was curiously anti-imperialistic in his rhetoric and who had been known to demonstrate against the presence of the commissioner and other British officials. They found Bramble more acceptable, and supported him as a more serious leader. Through his Labour Party, he had gained political power in 1952; in 1954 he received the two-thirds majority vote at the union delegates' conference to replace Griffith as union president. Bramble's passion and programme can be divined from an analysis of the above excerpted speeches. He would work to remedy the landlessness and powerlessness of the masses and strive to improve their social condition. Bramble led two strikes. The first in 1957 was over his bid to acquire lands at Trants estate for rental to peasants. On November 25 of that same year he organized another strike to secure higher wages in the cotton industry. Work stopped on Wade plantations, Tar River, Trants, Farrells and part of Elberton's, and some strikebreakers were assaulted and intimidated. The cotton season was at a vulnerable stage and the strike was effective. As a result wages rose from $1.14 per day for men and $0.78 for women to $1.30 and $0.93, respectively. Increased rates were also secured for picking cotton and farming the land. Willy Bramble represented the Montserrat working class with distinction before two Commissions appointed by the British Government. The first was the Beasley Commission when as vice-president of the union he stole the limelight from a disgruntled Griffith and was commended by the Beasley team for his "sincerity and conviction" and his "indefatigable efforts and co-operation". Bramble took the opportunity to enlighten the commission on the social and economic plight of the people including the vexed question of sharecropping. The commission criticized some of Bramble's union strategies and proposed land policies. They, however, agreed that the government should create housing settlements and abolish the servile practice of 'tying houses' to estates and the attendant evil of vindictive tenant evictions. Bramble nevertheless regarded the report as the 'Beastly' report because it equivocated on the metayage issue suggesting that it should probably be outlawed in three years' time. The commission was obviously reluctant to deprive the estates of captive labour which was a hallmark of slavery. It was not until about 1959 that metayage finally went. The recommendations of the commission headed by Sir Clement Malone in 1958 were something of a triumph for Bramble. Apart from securing higher wages for workers, the commission recommended the appointment of a labour commissioner and a joint industrial council on which both employers and workers

132

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

would be represented. At this period the cotton industry was declining as workers emigrated to the United Kingdom and the trade union movement lost some of its force. So these sensible recommendations were shelved. With Bramble firmly in control of the government, the concerns of the people were presumably being dealt with at a different level. Bramble's political career spanned 18 years from 1952 to 1970 when he was defeated by the POP led by his own son P. Austin Bramble. After winning five general elections, he lost his seat to Eustace Dyer of Salem, but not before he had laid the foundations for the development of modern Montserrat. In 1958 he defeated the Montserrat Democratic Party (MDP), whose members included Eric Kelsick, W.O. Barzey, W.E. Jeffers, T. Roach, and W.S.A. Howes, to become Montserrat's representative in the short-lived West Indies Federal Parliament. Two years later, he was sworn in as the island's first chief minister. Shortly after becoming chief minister, Willy Bramble, answering to the downturn in cotton and a mass exodus to the UK, broadened the base of the agricultural economy with real estate development which attracted foreign investment into home construction and residential tourism. In this, he had the support of Administrator Dennis R. Gibbs. In May 1961, the Montserrat Real Estate Company opened its office in Plymouth. In 1965 local revenue increased over the previous year's by over 25 percent; and in 1966, nearly 100 houses associated with the new real estate thrust were built or under construction. The Vue Pointe hotel was built in 1961 to complement this real estate boom and thrust in tourism. Critical voices were raised against what was deemed an alienation of land to expatriates, but the truth is that no government has since reversed this policy and the present economy still largely resonates Bramble. He is indeed the father of modern Montserrat. Bramble had a remarkably holistic concept of development and he appreciated the fact that modernization was impossible without appropriate infrastructure. It is significant that Blackburne airport was built and commissioned in the Bramble era (1956); this is also true of a major extension in 1961, financed by the Canadian Government. And when other Caribbean governments and media leaders, suspicious of the subversion potential of a 200,000 watt medium wave transmission, denied the original German owners of Radio Antilles an operational base in their country, a far-sighted Willy Bramble took a different view. He convinced the British Government of the wisdom of having it sited in Montserrat. Established in 1963, it truly became the voice of the Caribbean. As far south as Guyana people were tuning to Montserrat's Radio Antilles for their local news. With its Caribbean cultural focus, it became a unifying regional factor and was

Some Prominent People In Our History

133

sorely missed when Hurricane Hugo silenced its signals in 1989. The owners of Antilles Radio Corporation (ARC) blazoned their appreciation of Bramble's role in the genesis of the giant radio in their twenty-fifth anniversary magazine. Bramble saw possibilities for the image of Montserrat in Radio Antilles, but he had an even more vital agendum—the electrification of the island. With a population of only 12,000, all island electricity at manageable cost to consumers was a dubious prospect. In obtaining a licence from the British Government for ARC, the Bramble regime secured from the latter a guaranty to purchase a certain quantum of electricity to be generated by a local plant. In 1963, the antennae went up "and the lights went on in Montserrat". It was a double jackpot for Bramble. Bramble's efforts to house Montserratians started with what came to be known as Bramble Village. Attempts to set up a housing settlement started before he came on the scene, but loosening the hand of C.P. Wade, the owner of Wade plantation and A.W. Griffin, his manager, was no easy matter. Bramble wrote letters, pleaded and cajoled until finally with some support from the commissioner and M.S. Osborne, Wade made five acres of land available at Tuitts and two at Long Ground. Bramble became the architect of a significant cooperative self-help activity in housing. He went on to establish similar self-help schemes at St Patrick's, Salem and Cork Hill. In his wisdom he restricted the sale of lots in the Dagenham subdivision to Montserratians. He thus set the stage for a property-owning democracy and for growth in middle class housing. In addition, he established a housing scheme to empower civil servants to build their own homes. As a result of Bramble's housing policies, the standard of housing in Montserrat even up to the present is hardly surpassed in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Bramble was always concerned about the education of poor children and he did leave a mark on education. For the first time in its history, secondary education was structurally changed to admit more students through the establishment of a 'senior secondary1 wing in 1956. The initiative was not his, but he and his government enthusiastically accommodated the move. He can, however, take full marks for the establishment of an Island Scholarship in tertiary education in 1962. The first (and only) award went to J.A. Irish, a boy from a working class family who turned out to be a first class scholar. Bramble was not without problems and detractors. He was accused of being authoritarian: for instance, a political challenger Claude E. Browne referred to him as a 'dictator1 and his son P.A. Bramble echoed this charge when he sought to replace him in 1970. P.A. Bramble also endorsed the view voiced by J.N.

134

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

Edwards and J.A. Irish that W.H. Bramble's real estate policy involved th alienation of agricultural land. He also ran into trouble with what seemed an attractive venture in agro-industry. In 1960 he permitted the Canadian based Leeward Islands Company Limited to establish a tomato paste factory. It purchased tomatoes from farmers at the miserly price of one cent per pound while tomatoes were being retailed on the local market for 24 cents. In under a year, the factory became a white elephant. None of these setbacks was enormous enough to bring about Bramble's downfall. It was only his son who, while preserving the Bramble legacy and dream, and whose voice and idealism appealed to the younger generation, could have defeated Willy Bramble at that point. "A chip off the old block is still the same block", W.H. Bramble had said in the 1970 election campaign. He lost not only the government, but also his seat, setting a trend for the fate of succeeding chief ministers. Bramble fell from power in 1970, but his country owes him an ineradicable debt as its true emancipator from the trappings of slavery. He is undoubtedly the grand old man of Montserratian politics and the architect of modern Montserrat. He died in 1988 and is the only Montserratian ever to be given a state funeral. If there is one Montserratian who deserves to be made a national hero, it is William Henry Bramble. For nearly a decade this writer has advocated that Blackburne Airport be renamed the William Bramble airport in honour of this noble son. At a special sitting of the legislature summoned to pay tribute to him in 1988, 'leader of the opposition' B.B. Osborne, whose uncle Bramble had defeated in 1952 to initiate his political career, supported the proposal. In 1991 the ruling National Progressive Party (NPP) had stated in its manifesto: We will, however, create our own national songs, national heroes and national place names in preparation for the day when we must choose for ourselves what direction should be taken with regard to independence.

This statement held out a glimmer of hope that at least this mark of recognition might be made of a signal contribution by a man whose life's work will continue to touch Montserratians for generations to come. In the January 7,1995 budget address the announcement came at last like music to many ears. The government had decided to rename the airport to honour W.H. Bramble, the island's first chief minister. But he was more than a chief minister; he was a freedom warrior and the father of our country. Are there no songs for Willy B No echo of his name

Some Prominent People In Our History

135

No ghaut and babbling valley To choir his nameless fame? The stones of Hermitage would shout The trees of Wade Plantation wail The ghosts of Paradise will groan Let Bramble's name prevail You are a hero Willy B No landlord can evict your name Chiselled deep in honest hearts Freedom is a quenchless flame. (H. A. Fergus)

ROBERT WIL LIAM GRIFFITH

R

obert W. (Bob) Griffith was born in better circum-

i stances than his trade union colleague and political

rival W.H. Bramble. Born in 1904, his father was the manager of Weekes estate, part of which he now owns as a small realtor. The poor workers of Montserrat like others in the region suffered the privations associated with low wages and servile working conditions, but they lacked someone to champion their cause and mobilize them for action against unconscionable landlords. So although the workers of St Kitts rioted in 1935 and both St Kitts and Antigua registered trade unions by 1940, it was not until 1946 that the MTLU emerged. Its founder was the flamboyant Robert W. Griffith who came to be referred to fondly as Maas Bob. Blessed with a certain amount of charisma, charm, and middle class resources, he strode onto the Montserratian stage as the working class leader. In 1943, he breached the merchant-planter political monopoly when he won a seat in the legislature at a by-election; this gave him added influence. In addition, he was a Methodist local preacher accustomed to exhorting and rallying an audience. He owned the famous downtown property called Washington Hall which has been variously used as church, social club, library and court house. During the heyday of his trade union career, he lived in part of it. (The present building now houses the Land Development Authority.) Acting with the support of William Brade, an inter-island trafficker of Ryner village, S.A. Dyett, Arthur Riley, Ellen Peters and others, Maas Bob organized the MTLU in April 1946, and registered it in May with an estimated membership of 600. The famous Vere Cornwall Bird of Antigua with whom Griffith forged a lifelong bond, sent seasoned Antiguan trade unionists to assist him. And fortunately so, for the powerful employers of Montserrat, reacting to the emergence of workers' organizations in the region, had in 1943 formed a producers' association to protect their interests and relate to the Federal labour officer. Griffith had 136

Some Prominent People In Our History

137

no illusions about the size and complexity of the leadership role he had assumed, and the courage it demanded, but pledged his "sincerity of purpose". In a major speech in 1949, he condemned sharecropping and tenant eviction, two major social ills perpetrated by the landlords of the day. Colourful in both dress and speech, Griffith was a valuable catalyst for the union movement in its early days. Dressed in a red tie and a red cape and employing steel band, bugle and drums he drew crowds to his town centre meetings. He seasoned his speeches with scriptures which suggested that he was a deliverer of the Mosaic order. "Is it not time for Pharaoh to let his people go? The voice of the man of God says it is time, and all obstacles and hindrances will be cleared. God says again, let my people go 1 ... The cries of the poor people have gone up to God and retribution and distribution will eventually come from on high." The word 'distribution1 used here is interesting as it suggests socialist rhetoric. Griffith mixed a strong dose of vanity with his vision. Calling for a demonstration in 1951, he suggested that it was time for action to be taken so that Montserrat could feature in the newspapers. Griffith may have been guilty of some aberrations, but his genuine interest in the plight of the poor was never in doubt. The union claimed 1,858 members in 1947, but only 237 were dues paying. By 1950, the membership was down to 434 of whom 184 were in arrears with their dues. The strength of opposition to Griffith and his union cannot be overemphasized The commissioner administering the territory allied with the economic dominants against him. When he spoke to Andrew J. Wilson of the powerful Montserrat Company about his trade union intentions, Wilson warned him not to get involved lest he should lose some friends. Wilson was serious; he struck at Griffith's livelihood as a baker by returning to him his 16 shillings which was to purchase wood from the company for his oven. (He still retains, according to him, some of those same coins as a souvenir.) Even after the union was established, Commissioner Hugh Burrowes and his Council elected to deal with disputes in which workers for the Public Works department were involved; without reference to the union and in an official report, the commissioner ridiculed Griffith as being hungry for notoriety, vainglorious "with an overweening desire for the limelight" and unaware "of his limitations". In Bramble's rivalry with Griffith for the leadership of the Union, the former had the support of Commissioner Charlesworth Ross and the governor of the Leeward Islands who, without any evidence, went as far as reporting that Griffith was probably mentally ill. Griffith did not hesitate to use the weapons of protest, marches and strikes. One march led from the War Memorial to the Olveston home of Wilson, the

138

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

Montserrat Company manager who had tried to hold him to ransom by refusing him wood. This particular march increased union membership and improved wages to the company workers. It was Wilson who sought him out and offered to improve wages. "You can imagine how my heart and head swelled", he told an interviewer. In 1950, he led a strike on Richmonds estate even after an agreement for increased wages—an example of an erratic use of the strike. In that same year all cotton workers struck and a satisfactory settlement followed. In August of that same year, he led a major strike over wages for picking cotton. Men armed with stones, cutlasses and a steel band intimidated workers who did not join the strike and there were scuffles with the police. The Defence Force was called out and the HMS BigburyBay called in. Griffith and some of his disciples were prosecuted and fined and he himself narrowly missed prison. He had become something of a martyr, a situation which he relished. Along with his trade union career, Griffith was an active politician who represented the island overseas, including the Leeward Islands Federal Legislative Council in Antigua. He attended the 1947 convention of the West Indian Federation of Labour in Jamaica, and the 1953 Federation Conference in London; and in 1957 he became a member of the Standing Federation and Regional Economic Committees. Griffith was the first black Montserratian of grass roots temper to enjoy such extensive participation in international political fora. He won his seat in post-adult suffrage elections in 1952 and 1955, but in 1958 he lost in the Southern district (which included Plymouth) to J.C.L Wall and Michael Dyer by which time he and W.H. Bramble had parted political ways. He lost again in 1966 as an Independent candidate and abandoned the hustings thereafter. We do not have enough information on the quality of Griffith's representation of the island, but he seemed to enjoy politics for its own sake. Although his evaluation has to be read with caution, Commissioner Ross observed that Griffith had no lust for power beyond being a legislator. He certainly enjoyed hobnobbing with members of the royal family and persons loftily placed in British colonial positions. The following reference to Griffith's letter to the commissioner while he attended talks on federation in London is significant: Mr Griffith had the honour of meeting Her Majesty the Queen, shook hands with the Duke of Edinburgh, the Princess Royal and the Duchess of Gloucester, had a talk with the Duke of Edinburgh about Sea Island Cotton. In this connection, he wrote that the Cotton Industry will have to have a very quick and drastic revision if it is to be the means of support for the majority.

While Griffith enjoyed these flirtatious connections with distant royalty and British officialdom, he was uncompromisingly harsh on colonial officials at home

Some Prominent People In Our History

139

whom he perceived as a hindrance to the advance of the working class. He was particularly harsh on Commissioner Charlesworth Ross and his sometimes deputy, W. Bassett who was the superintendent of agriculture. On July 19, 1951, accoutred in his red tie and red cape, he read a resolution to a large crowd in Plymouth from the 'Book of Life' (this is how his speeches and meetings were styled); he demanded their removal "since their tenure of office was not conducive to the economy and success of the island". In his view Bassett was an ineffective officer: Just as a joke, take a walk to the Groves It is now kept only for mountain doves to rove Years ago before this man came The garden was a peach, tourist had to say the same.

Griffith was intolerant of the brand of imperialism that Ross and Bassett represented and he differed from his trade union colleagues, and was ahead of them, in not tamely submitting to the power and authority of white colonial civil servants. This is one reason why union officials such as W. Graham and B.W. Edwards did not support Griffith in the leadership struggle with W.H. Bramble, and this is one reason too why British officials supported Bramble in his efforts to replace him. By his own account, Griffith and Leeward Islands Governor Kenneth Blackburne were very close friends, but in fact Blackburne too encouraged his replacement as the indigenous leader. But as indicated in the section on Bramble, there are other reasons why Griffith lost power. He seemed to have lost some of his fire early. In 1950 the Montse/rotObservercriticized his leadership as merely tickling people's fancy occasionally "with some sort of jocular fairy tale or some personal affair" and in the following year he was said to have temporarily retired. It is significant that he played only a marginal role in the Beasley Commission which came to inquire into the cotton industry in 1953, thereby yielding leadership to Bramble. Ultimately what Griffith lacked was a positive programme for the social and economic development of the island. With his socialist platform, Bramble came nearest to having one, and perceptive trade unionists like Ellen Peters observed that and supported him. Feeble efforts were made in 1958 and in 1966 to reopen the 'Book of Life' during general election campaigns, and Griffith also contested the election for Montserrat's seat in the West Indies Federation. But his earlier eloquence and messianic tone had given way to banal statements like: "This is the time you should show appreciation and gratitude for the good done... Ingratitude is worse

140

G A L L E RY M 0 NTS E R RAT

than witchcraft... The more people say against me the better I look... Vote for Griffith your liberator and emancipator." There is this negative element in the analysis of Griffith's career, but his pivotal role in the people's long march to full emancipation is undeniable. If he was not the emancipator, he had laid the foundation in his establishment of the MTLU and with the fearlessness and fortitude with which he confronted the powerful forces which united to oppress the people. That Maas Bob was the father of the trade union movement, none can reasonably dispute. Nearing 90, Griffith who is still very proud of his achievements still went to his George Street shop where he was "surrounded by brand names the likes of which we have not seen in other shops for years". In this way, he still serves the community. Maas Bob married Florence Allen, a nurse who gave him five children and more than moral support in his trade union work. She sometimes joined his marches. Formal public recognition came somewhat late, but came nevertheless. In 1981, the MAWU gave him the Award of Merit for his service to trade unionism; on St Patrick's Day 1987, he was honoured in the Legislative Council Chamber when his photograph was unveiled; he was decorated with the QBE at Buckingham Palace in 1991; and in 1992, the Men's Fellowship of the Pentecostal Church at Cork Hill honoured him together with other outstanding persons of that area at a special service. As a trail-blazer in the process of the full liberation of Montserrat's working class, Maas Bob richly deserved these honours.

The Montserrat Legislative Council, 1952

MARGARET MARY (ANNIE) DYER-HOWE

M

argaret Dyer-Howe popularly known as Annie was

the second of three ladies in Montserratian politics to become ministers of government. This by itself did not, however, justify her inclusion in this book. Indeed her electoral success was to a great extent due to her outstanding record in community work. Born November 18,1940, Margaret Corbett as she then was, attended the St Augustine all-age primary school and served there as a teacher between 1959 and 1961 before she migrated to the United States of America, where she received secretarial training. On her return from the USA, she worked for a while in the private sector before joining the Montserrat Water Authority, a statutory body, as executive secretary. Her administrative competence led to her promotion as administrative officer, a position she held until 1983, when she resigned to take up a ministerial position in John Osborne's PLM government. Annie Dyer-Howe brought to government not only executive skill and experience, but a background of caring and social concern. Some of this came from the influence of a grandmother who raised her. This is how she expressed it to Nesha Haniff who profiled her in her book Blaze a Fire:Significant Contributions of Caribbean Women: I was raised with my grandmother and I looked up to her because she was a woman of strength. She was a community woman, she was a district midwife. She was a role model for me. A lot of people say I take after her.

As a young woman of only 23, she was drafted into the OPWA by the stalwart community worker, Patricia Griffin. She rose to be the vice-president and has since been associated with measures for alleviating the lot of the elderly who hold her in high esteem. 142

Some Prominent People In Our History

143

Dyer-Howe's community work took her into the realm of credit unionism, to become vice-president of the vibrant St Patrick's Credit Union. In 1968, she became president of the Social League of Catholic Women, which later became the Social League since under her leadership the remit was broadened to embrace women of other denominations. It is through the league that she made an impressive contribution to the development of women in Montserrat; it initiated projects in tapestry and sewing and made an important breakthrough in the local garment industry. Work with the league criss-crossed her political life and further reference will be made to it. Annie Corbett made her first indirect step into politics when she married Michael Dyer in 1964. He was then representative for the Southern district, which he won on three successive occasions (1958,1961 and 1966), before he lost twice to Mary Tuitt. He died in 1974 and in 1984 she married Robert Howe who, like the first husband, was a businessman. In 1979, Dyer-Howe entered politics winning a by-election. She regained, as it were, the position lost by her husband, but her role as a parliamentarian had a legitimacy of its own, rooted as it was in her record of community service. After winning her electoral division again in the 1983 general elections, Dyer-Howe was assigned a ministerial post with responsibility for education, health, community services, women's affairs, culture and sports. As a backbencher Dyer-Howe made short speeches, but they reflected her social conscience. In her maiden speech, she called for the cooperation "of every man and woman who is prepared to put progress for all just a little ahead of personal gain"; and she supported the granting of the franchise to 18-year-olds commending it as "a very positive and democratic move". In a male dominated government, Dyer-Howe demonstrated the courage to oppose governmental measures of which she did not approve. She strongly objected to a legal amendment which would have empowered the Montserrat Electricity Company to levy charges on owners of undeveloped lots "since a number of Montserratians will be further burdened by the enactment of such legislation". She was sometimes caustic with colleagues as she was with Minister Franklyn Margetson on one occasion when she described him as seemingly "totally out of touch with modern civil servants' arrangements". In supporting amendments to make the pensions ordinance more accommodating to civil servants, Margetson had reservations about extending the proposed privileges to statutory bodies. In this, Dyer-Howe was hardly altruistic because she was still at the time an employee of the Montserrat Water Authority; but her aggressive tone was remarkable.

144

G A LLE RY M 0 N TS E R R AT

She did not hesitate to pounce on issues which touched her deeply. She was at her most severe against her government's move to legalize abortion in specified circumstances including rape. Acting presumably on her conviction and as a mouthpiece for her islandwide Roman Catholic constituents, she condemned the bill in emotive language. She denounced the bill as "an unnecessary and loose piece of legislation" and charged her colleagues with legislating hastily "to take innocent lives". Largely at her insistence, the bill was postponed for reconsideration. What seemed strange was Dyer-Howe's silence when the amended bill returned, although the Montserrat Christian Council was still adamant in opposition, and prominent Roman Catholics thickly sprinkled the strangers' gallery. It may be that on sober reflection and shorn of narrow sectarian compunction Dyer-Howe, then a Minister, saw some wisdom in an abortion bill. She perhaps experienced tension between her responsibility to her cabinet colleagues and the wider public on one hand, and her responsibility to that 'other constituency', the Roman Catholic community. Her silence was an index of this tension. And yet, this judgment has to be qualified. For it is an accepted convention that parliamentarians need not follow the party line on matters of conscience such as an abortion bill. In an interview, Dyer-Howe confirmed that the notion of cabinet solidarity had some effect on her silent attitude. More importantly, she was not personally convinced that government had the right to deny women the option to abort in all circumstances. Her silence demanded a certain kind of courage given the intimidating Roman Catholic presence in the gallery. Dyer-Howe used her influence as a parliamentarian to further those social projects which engrossed her. In her second speech in Council, she voiced the urgent need for an integrated cotton industry which included manufacturing, and anticipated the proud day when she could wear a garment with a 'Made in Montserrat' mark. Although it was far from robust, a cotton manufacturing industry did become a reality. Of more importance as far as her personal accomplishment is concerned, is the fact that boys and girls began to wear uniforms made in Montserrat through the Social League garment industry in which she played a critical role; a number of persons earned salaries and wages through the project. Dyer-Howe used her international travel and ministerial influence to attract funding for the project. United States Agency for International Development, the Canadian International Development Agency and the UN Voluntary Fund for the Decade of Women all gave financial support Partly because of the minister's success in this project, she was recruited into the planning committee for non-governmental organization (NGO) activities for the 1985 World Conference

Some Prominent People In Our History

145

of the UN Decade for Women. The garment project won an international award which was presented to Project Supervisor Mary Charles at the world conference in Nairobi in 1985. This small industry of the Social League is a bright feather in Dyer-Howe's cap, but it was not the only one. In 1987 she was closely involved in a project for teenage mothers and pregnant teenagers, especially those who had to drop out of school as a result. Funded by UNICEF, it provided them with academic, social and vocational skills. During her term as minister, Dyer-Howe displayed an element of irresoluteness which her political opponents and critics sought to exploit. They pressured her, for instance, to vote in favour of a no-confidence motion moved supposedly against the chief minister. In the end, like David Brandt who later defected from the PLM, she supported the John Osborne government. In the Montserrat constitution a vote of no confidence is brought against the government and not against any individual minister. Dyer-Howe was also involved in a PLM caucus coup to replace John Osborne as chief minister and party leader. The instigators dangled the carrot of leadership before her and for a time she was willing to go along. In the end she changed her mind and reaffirmed her loyalty to Osborne. Although these incidents diverted valuable energy, Dyer-Howe's single ministerial term (1983-1984) was not without significant accomplishments. It was appropriate that as a champion of the cause of the aged, she presided over the opening of an attractive old people's home in 1985, although the foundation was laid in a previous regime. The formation of a National Organization of Women (NOW) and the creation of a women's affairs desk in her ministry owe much to her quiet but persistent agitation for greater recognition of women's causes. Hers was a balanced view: "We need to train our sons to respect women and accept them as equals ... Today's woman is not seeking dominance over man, rather she seeks to share in the decision making process, both in the home and in national development." Dyer-Howe's greatest contribution to the development of Montserrat is the transformation of the elitist secondary education system to a more egalitarian and democratic one. Born in an ethos of social discrimination, the Montserrat grammar school catered at first to the children of the wealthy; and entry by a flawed eleven plus examination ensured that it retained the elitist status and the element of vulgar stratification. A restructuring of the system including the abolition of the eleven plus was first proposed by an education advisory body chaired by this writer with representatives from the secondary grammar school, the technical college and the Montserrat Union of Teachers. Dyer-Howe caught

146

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

the vision. She told author Nesha Hannif that the system was unfair and that middle class and upper class children had a better chance of passing because their parents were able to pay to have them tutored. It is to her credit that she persisted in spite of persons with vested interest in the unfair system and even in spite of a UNESCO report which argued unsoundly that the eleven plus was needed to motivate students. By the time she fell from power in 1987, Dyer-Howe had instituted the mechanism to make secondary education a broad highway to development for all the children of Montserrat. Having lost at the 1987 general elections, Dyer-Howe was again recruited by the Montserrat Water Authority as manager and there are indications that she has been doing an efficient job. Not content to rest on her laurels, Dyer-Howe recently became an Executive MBA student at the Cave Hill Campus of the UWI. Inside or outside parliament she will be well poised to contribute to the development of the country. At age 55, Margaret Mary Dyer-Howe has perhaps accomplished more than any other woman in Montserrat's history. It is all the more impressive for it has been done without much ado and fanfare.

JOHN ALFRED OSBORNE

B;

orn in 1936, by the age of 55 John Osborne had

'distinguished himself as the longest serving politi-

cian ever in Montserrat. He takes nearly as much pride in this as in his wealth (he is a reputed multi-millionaire). He won his first election in 1966 and went on to win in five successive general elections, becoming chief minister in 1978. In the 1991 general elections he fell as chief minister, and in the Montserrat tradition, lost his own electoral division in the process. He went out under heavy clouds of controversy and suspicion. Indeed, he gained the notoriety of being the first Montserratian political leader to be arrested on corruption charges, but was eventually cleared by the High Court. John Osborne's grass roots attachment, his simple lifestyle and his appetite for hard work help to explain his political longevity. In 1978 Montserratian scholar and civic activist Dr J.A. Irish paid tribute to his common touch and provided valuable biographical details worth quoting here: John Osborne, despite his present financial means, is a down-to-earth, but extraordinarily successful working class man. He did not inherit his wealth through some oligarchic family line. He has worked hard; he is multi-talented: musician, shipwright, builder, salesman, ship-owner, and his own business manager. In his short life, he has bridged the gap between rich and poor. When people describe him as belonging to the upper classes, they are forgetting his origins, the trajectory of his career and the pattern of his life-style and are looking on his material possessions alone. That is not all. We saw him as a boy playing steelband on the street in the early 1950s, a social factor which determines your class identification now, and more so then. We saw him in the 1960s as a builder, shipwright and fisherman. He has no big gang of slave labourers working for little or nothing, while he gets rich, neither does he use 147

148

GALLERY MO NTS E R R AT

any government position to his advantage to acquire lands and property which should rightly have been placed squarely in the hands of those peasants who worked like virtual slaves on those eastern estates. He has been adventurous, and he has been lucky, but he has also been gifted and perceptive enough to take certain initiatives at opportune times. He has used the capitalist system to his advantage.

This political statement by Irish (taken from The Montserrat Reporter, March 22, 1985) was intended as much as a condemnation of other political aspirants and perhaps others in the society, as it was in praise of Osborne. Writing now, Irish would perhaps wish to revise some of the views particularly on the issue of using political office for land acquisition. Indeed Irish's generous perception of Osborne had apparently changed by 1983 when he challenged him for the leadership of the country. Irish criticized Osborne in that campaign for personally buying 40 acres of prime farming land on an estate which was being purchased by the British Government for the use of small farmers. Osborne would of course argue that he bought the land with actual cash. That Osborne has been lucky, there is no doubt. Seeds planted by his predecessor P. Austin Bramble blossomed to the advantage of his regime. These included a National Provident Fund (later to become a Social Security Scheme), a Philatelic Bureau, electronic assembling, and the establishment of an offshore medical school. They helped to earn Osborne the credit of having terminated the island's grant-aided status two years before the time scheduled by the British; and he has to be credited for his role in bringing some of these into reality. An enigmatic figure who deserves to be described as both famous and notorious, Osborne pursued three major goals simultaneously. He wanted to increase his own wealth, make the island prosperous and take it into independence. These were somehow all interwined. An industrious and hard-working man, he bought and built boats to ship goods between several Caribbean islands, especially Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and Haiti. During his first term as chief minister, he designed and built the H/esternSi/aasteel hull boat, installing the engine himself. Osborne may not be highly qualified academically, but he regards his general education, his business acumen and his capacity to amass wealth as ample qualification to rule the island. In this, he has compared himself with Austin Bramble, to his own advantage. Osborne is a fervent believer in free enterprise, a credo which he voiced in every budget speech and which he used as the rallying rhetoric to his standard. It elicited the support of the monied and merchant classes even though it did not attract significant American investment. It may, however, have contributed

Some Prominent People In Our History

149

to the stable economic climate which the island enjoyed during his early terms. But Osborne's great golden hope that, through investment by invitation, a hotel complex and yacht marina would be developed at Little Bay in the north of Montserrat, never materialized despite numerous rumours of external interest. In his anxiety for outside investment, he attracted some unsavoury characters. One of these was J. Dominelli who in 1984 allegedly fled the United States with $112.8 million of investors' money. He was given VIP treatment by Osborne, for according to the Montserrat Times he had given the chief minister "the personal assurance that he had $40 million capital readily available and that a goodly chunk would be invested in Montserrat". Anxious to increase the national coffers, John Osborne did not ask too many questions. Besides, J. Dominelli was already a client having registered the J. David Banking Company in the island in 1980. The long arm of American justice reached Dominelli in Montserrat, bundled him out and onto a US aircraft in Antigua for a Miami arrest leaving behind, it was alleged, his telephone debt of about EC$5,000. Offshore banking was Osborne's other major mechanism for swelling the national income. It was apparently more successful than the tourism development goal, but it was ultimately a major cause of Osborne's failure to realize his dream of becoming a heroic figure. Most of Montserrat's offshore banks existed merely on paper in a lawyer's office. They paid modest fees amounting to EC$1.2 million in 1989 according to one source; but in the island's miniscule budget the amount was relatively significant and local lawyers also enjoyed a lucrative business. The offshore banking business became problematic as government loosely registered banks which reportedly became instruments of money laundering, fraud and other forms of corruption. Warnings by local legislators and by the British Government went unheeded and the island's reputation stank and sank. At least one US private firm made huge profits by creating and retailing offshore banks in Montserrat. Investigations by Scotland Yard, the FBI and by the firm Coopers and Lybrand followed. Governor Christopher Turner and the British secretary of state had to step in to stem the rot. The language of the Coopers and Lybrand report is polite and diplomatic, but by inference much blame attaches to CM Osborne who as Minister of Finance took a key interest in issuing licenses. The British were forced to downgrade the constitution in 1989, partly to relieve the chief minister of the Offshore Finance portfolio. The behaviour of the British Government indicated that it felt that the Osborne 'cabinet' had become tainted by the ambience of corruption which had been created. In an interview with the Caribbean and West Indies Chronicle in 1978, John Osborne projected that Montserrat would be independent in five years' time. This

150

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

was his ambition—an ambition fed by the prestige which attaches to his prime ministerial colleagues with whom he related on the regional circuit. When he assumed the chairmanship of the OECS in 1984, he stated: "As I accept the mantle of the chairmanship of the DECS for the next year, I am conscious of the hindrance of Montserrat's present constitutional position." Incensed that he could not, like his colleagues, send a Montserratian contingent to participate in the so-called invasion of Grenada in 1983, he threw one of his occasional independence tantrums. The Whitehall diktat embarrassed Osborne. Insult was added to injury when in 1986, US President Ronald Reagan excluded him from an assembly of OECS prime ministers in Grenada. He regarded this as a humiliating rebuff and vowed to boycott the subregional body. This shrewd and hard-working patriot obviously wanted the glory of being Montserrat's first prime minister, but he wanted more; he wanted prosperity for his people and he wanted to instil national pride in his compatriots and wean them from their sentimental attachment to the metropolitan power. In asserting that he preferred to be a Montserratian citizen, he was ahead of his time and of his own political colleagues. It is in the hands of the people that the constitutional fate of the island lies. The British Government has repeatedly stated that Montserrat can have independence if a majority of the people demonstrate their desire for it. It is instructive that Osborne never tested the issue through a plebiscite or on his electoral platform. This is because he realized that sovereignty would be an unpopular proposal. At it turned out, Osborne presided over and was partly the cause of a downgrading of the constitution. This has to be a humbling irony for him and a damaging evaluation of his long reign. During his final electoral term in particular, the media gave a continuing sense of something corrupt in the state of Montserrat. Osborne was forced to defend his honour in a libel suit over an allegedly false claim to a payment of $11,506.00 for goods which supposedly disappeared from his boat while it was in port. He won the case and was awarded $40,000.00 damages and a whopping $178,359.64 in costs. Charges of corruption did not, however, go away. Opting to procure and stockpile galvanized roofing against the possible occurrence of a future hurricane, Osborne went to Puerto Rico and apparently secured supplies for shipping in his own boat in 1990. This venture led to a call for investigation as 'opposition leader' B.B. Osborne charged that government was paying a higher price for the galvanized roofing than the local retail price including duty and mark-up. The 1990 audit report on the island's accounts supported this charge and pointed to the irregularity and violation of financial rules and procedures in the entire

Some Prominent People In Our History

151

transaction. The serious charge has never been seriously answered. It was not surprising, therefore, that honesty and integrity became a key issue in the ensuing 1991 elections. It was not surprising either that Osborne lost the elections although the divisions in his ranks, his inept handling of post-Hugo life, and the state of the economy may all have contributed to his defeat. The British Government had increasingly questioned the probity of Osborne's government and after the people's electoral verdict it called in New Scotland Yard who turned up enough evidence to warrant the arrest of Osborne and his former minister, Nowell Tuitt. They were charged with taking bribes and with misbehaviour in public office, but thanks to due process including a jury trial, they were acquitted. A megalomaniac, Osborne immediately convinced himself that he was a hero and even a martyr on whom the British were wreaking revenge because of his independence policy and his anti-British rhetoric. Osborne has since announced his willingness to return to politics. He will presumably attempt to redeem himself and rescue his country from colonialism. The state of the Montserrat economy in the grip of a severe recession and some supposedly controversial policies of the Reuben Meade government have encouraged him. But Osborne will, one suspects, be shrewd enough once again to dodge independence as an electoral issue.That his regime had made an economic impact is evidenced by the fact some persons are reportedly canvassing his recall. It is still too early to properly assess the Osborne regime. This island enjoyed some prosperity during his first two terms, but the quantum that was due to positive policies is still to be determined. His arrest and trial will ever remain an ugly blot on the evaluation sheet; and the downgrading of the constitution, ironic in view of his pro-independence stance, has to be most unsettling for him. In one of his election campaigns, Osborne posed this significant question which he never answered: "Why is it that Montserrat has no national heroes?" Only time will tell, but one doubts whether Osborne a second time around will find the dizzy climb to national hero status less slippery, in spite of his achievements.

ELLEN PETERS

'lien Peters was born to Levons Elias Dolly and

E!

.Rosanna Dolly (nee O'Garro) of St Patrick's on November 18,1894. She started teaching at the St Augustine School at the tender age of 13 and came to be familiarly called "Teacher Duke". She earned the name "Duke" because a Dr Duke attended to her in her sickly infant days. As a young woman, she lived for some time at Gages estate before moving to Kinsale following her marriage to Abraham Peters in 1912. Ellen Peters took a very active part in the social and intellectual life of the lively Kinsale community. In July 1946 for instance, she was one of the debaters on the topic: "Does tradition hinder progress?" Peters took her debating skills and intellectual ability to the MTLU which was formed in 1946, becoming its general secretary in 1954. A woman of compassion, she witnessed the oppressiveness of post-emancipation landlordism in child labour, the hovels of the wretched with their earth floors, and the heartlessness of sharecropping. She joined the union to help alleviate these hardships and with her background she gave strength and prestige to it. Peters was a woman of courage as well as compassion. The union was condemned by the employer class who felt it undignified to negotiate with trade unionists. As late as 1958, the Malone Commission of Inquiry found employers reluctant to "come down from their ivory towers to negotiate with union officials". Ellen Peters was among those officials who braved the scorn of the economic dominants of the society. The friend of the people was an enemy of their oppressors. For her part, she had harsh words for persons perceived as enemies of the people. In 1957, she dismissed Plymouth merchant Eric Kelsick as "the Hitler of the growers, a great feudalist and the obstacle to the peaceful employer-labour relations, who distorts facts about the cause of reduced production". 152

Some Prominent People In Our History

153

Peters was very loyal to William Bramble. When he and Griffith quarrelled over ideology and industrial action stategy in 1953, she supported Bramble; and it was with her assistance, among others, that Bramble was able to replace Griffith as union boss and set the stage for his political career. Peters, the compassionate, had become something of a king maker. When she says: "The old Bramble is the hero of Montserrat and Peters is the heroine", we tend to agree. One sees in this statement, not arrogance, but personal pride in her achievement and generosity which allows her to recognize Bramble's heroic status with approbation. Claude E. Browne, one of Bramble's political opponents, criticized him for passing over Peters in favour of Rose Kelsick as a candidate in the 1958 general elections. There is no evidence however to suggest that she ever aspired to political office. In fact, her own version is that it was she who deferred to Rose Kelsick, another symptom of her generosity. Illness ended Peters' trade union career in 1968, but not her usefulness to the community. Her life of service continued in the Social League of Catholic Women in which she was a counsellor to young and old. Her work has attracted official recognition; her name tops the MAWU honour roll with an Order of Merit in 1980 for outstanding services to trade unionism in Montserrat. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II awarded her the BEM in 1983 for her services to the trade union movement in Montserrat and other social services. In the following year, she received the ProEcclesiaexPontifice, one of the highest awards which the Roman pontiff can bestow on a layperson, for her outstanding services to the church as a teacher and for her involvement in church activities. She is believed to be the second person in the Caribbean to have received that award. Peters hails from a small island, but she deserves to rank highly among Caribbean women. She is perhaps the first Caribbean woman ever to have become general secretary of a trade union.

MARY ROSE TUITT

M

ary Rose Tuitt, the only daughter of Sarah Ryan nee Dorsett and Edgar Peters, was born at Kinsale on

December 25, 1930. She first staked her claim on distinction in 1943 when she placed first in the national scholarship examination which determined entry to the only secondary school in Montserrat. Following a successful school career, Mary Peters entered primary teaching and received professional training at Erdiston Teachers College in Barbados from 1953 to 1955. Soon after her return she was appointed headteacher at the St Patrick's school in the south of the island. A further one-year stint at the University of Oxford Institute of Education completed her formal training. Mary Peters performed well as a headteacher and looked set for a brilliant career in education when her resignation came somewhat suddenly in 1968. (By then she was Mary Tuitt having married Adolphus Tuitt, a tailor, in 1958.) An ambitious woman, Tuitt became disgruntled when Bernice White another headteacher was selected ahead of herself for the prestigious position of inspector of schools and indeed ahead of other headteachers who were senior in years of service, Tuitt thought. In an effort to defuse the situation, Tuitt was assigned to what turned out to be an empty administrative desk in the Ministry of Social Services which was responsible for education. Realizing that she had been hoodwinked, she requested a transfer to another branch of the service, but this was refused. To salvage some self-respect, she resigned and for a short period she managed the historic Coconut Hill hotel belonging to M.S. Osborne Ltd. Opportunity knocked for Tuitt in 1970 when Austin Bramble formed his POP to contest the general elections. She was recruited to the POP, won in the constituency of the Southern district and became the first woman minister in Montserrat's history. Like her leader Austin Bramble, Tuitt enjoyed better formal 154

Some Prominent People In Our History

155

education than the members of the group which they replaced and therefore had a good opportunity to advance the cause and status of women by contributing significantly to the development of the island. Tuitt spent seven years in government during which a number of development initiatives came through her Ministry of Health, Education and Welfare. These included a school feeding programme, free secondary education, the introduction of pre-schools, junior secondary education, a technical college and the creation of community development officers. Her name obviously has to be associated with these developments, even though her actual contribution as a policy initiator may not have been significant. Both the concept and funding for the junior secondary school and the technical college came from outside the island and it was Austin Bramble who created the ideological context which produced programmes like nursery schools, school feeding and free medical attention for the aged. In any case, ministers in those days did not seem to have as much autonomy in running their ministries as presently obtains. Besides, CM Austin Bramble, a former Minister of Social Services, still had his heart and hand in the equivalent ministry and was still the guiding genius of its policies. In fact, Bramble's zeal for social justice and for addressing the plight of the disprivileged were eloquently expressed through Tuitt's ministry. She did not, however, always agree with her leader's social policies. For instance, Tuitt was reportedly one of those Executive Council members who blocked Bramble's move to use National Provident Fund monies to pay unemployment benefits to the contributors. A study of the Legislative Council minutes between 1971 and 1978 does not associate Tuitt with any burning issue. In fact she was no big debater on the Council floor, as one might have expected given her educational background. It may be that lack of an opposition at the beginning of her political career led to some lethargy; but John Osborne later created one when he left the government and nominated members provided useful debate. Referring mainly to John Osborne, Tuitt took the view that such opposition as existed did not merit her attention. Tuitt's relative parliamentary silence was broken on one memorable occasion with a spirited speech which demonstrated some social conscience. Replying to nominated member, D.R.V. Edwards who had expressed some reservations on the rationale put forward by government for its comprehensive nutrition programme, she averred: We should all wish to have steak, but there [are] those who could not even eat sardines and those [are] the ones that [are] in the greatest need of help ... Children [are] usually mostly neglected particularly by irresponsible fathers, but it [is] very difficult to get hold of those fathers.

156

GALLERY MO NTS ERR AT

It was the mothers, she claimed, who attended the classes and seminars. Edwards had made the point that everyone would like to have steak for dinner every day, but couldn't gratify that wish given their financial leanness. Bramble was the initiator of government schemes for social uplifting and social justice, but Tuitt was a supportive and empathetic colleague. Apart from her indirect involvement in Austin Bramble's successful social schemes, Tuitt plausibly claims some useful initiatives. The Long Ground school, for instance (now a community centre), which was built by funds provided by Jersey in the Channel Islands, and the first minibus used in the school feeding programme, were in a large measure obtained through contacts which she made on official trips abroad. Locally, the Christmas Festival Committee, which still functions as the coordinating body for our colourful Christmas festivities, was her brainchild. It has to be stated in all seriousness that Mary Tuitt imparted a level of dignity to ministerial office and was a worthy first woman in this respect. She did this through her personality, deportment and impressive reading of formal speeches. When she was humorously referred to as 'Minister of Hats', admiration for her entire personal grooming was intended. Tuitt fell from power in 1978 in the whirlwind victory that swept John Osborne's PLM to power with all seven seats. She narrowly lost to Joseph Tailor with whom she tied in the ballots. In the heady swing from the POP, Tuitt in fact performed best at the polls of all her party members. This showing was due to her personal attention to her constituency which, as a rule, she visited every Wednesday. She also gave an annual Christmas party for children in her electoral districts. Tuitt realized that a politician has to preserve his or her base of support by keeping constituents happy and, in Montserrat, by being readily accessible to them. At least she did this by using legitimate means. Although he was busy with the affairs of state, her party leader P. Austin Bramble may have neglected this kind of politicking to his detriment, and to hers. When Tuitt lost power, she obtained an administrative job with the newly commissioned American University of the Caribbean, an offshore medical school. She thus avoided the neglect and shabby treatment that fallen political leaders in Montserrat usually suffer. Tuitt retired from politics in 1978, but remained loyal to her former leader P. Austin Bramble. This is noteworthy in a country noted for fickle political allegiances. "I appreciate the worth of the man", she explained. In addition to education and politics, Tuitt had a third career which ran concurrently with these two, and survived them—netball. She developed the skill at the MSS, became an official member of the school team in 1948 and played

Some Prominent People In Our History

157

her first international tournament as a member of the national team in 1950. She later played for Falcons, an old students club, and after that for Laurels. Tuit rapidly became a force in local and regional netball and performed outstandingly in various tournaments as player and manager. She was captain of the Montserrat team which narrowly lost the West Indian championship to Trinidad in 1959; and her career reached a high point in 1963 when she coached and managed the Montserrat team, and was president of both the Montserrat Netball Association and the West Indies Netball Board. It was at this sub-career that Tuitt was most outstanding and from which she never retired. In recent years, she formed and headed the Invincibles and Classics the latter an 'old girls club1 which became more famous for spirit than prowess, but illustrates Tuitt's undying attachment to netball. She has umpired at both national and regional levels and is presently President of the Montserrat Netball Association. It is through netball that Tuitt has put Montserrat on the map; and it is not surprising that although her role in education has been recognized, it is netball that features highest in the trophies, accolades and honours which she has received. She was deservingly awarded the Montserrat Badge and Certificate of Honour in 1992 and gained the Funkyman Award in 1993. Tuitt lives a balanced life and held or holds several top positions in St Anthony's Anglican Church. She sang in the choir for over 30 years between 1951 and 1994 and has been a member of the vestry since 1978 holding the highest position of Warden for all but one of those years. She has also been the Archbishop's/Bishop's nominee to the Commission on Ministry. What Tuitt did not achieve in politics, she has made up for in other aspects of life in Montserrat. She deserves to rank not only among outstanding Montserratian women, but also among the prominent citizens of the island.

MICHAEL EDWARD WALKINSHAW

T; •

he name of Michael Walkinshaw, popularly known to

Salemites as "Chief, is associated with a tasty bread which persons from Plymouth and other districts sought after. Walkinshaw's bread was a service, but he did not serve by bread alone. A community leader of known integrity, he was an outstanding humanitarian and friend of the poor. Walkinshaw's father Anthony was of mixed race—the son of a Scotsman and a slave. Montserratians referred to him as a mulatta (creole for mulatto). Destiny brought him from Trinidad to Montserrat where he established a reputation as a leading Methodist. He married Jane Barzey of Delvins who gave birth to Michael on June 21,1905. Writing about this, English Methodist Minister Rev. George E Lawrence noted: "Anthony and Jane Walkinshaw set their children an example of godly living and they have been richly rewarded. Their son, Michael, is already serving the Society as a class leader and the Circuit as a local preacher. Their daughter Emma (Mrs Dyer) serves as organist and class teacher." She was also the first "Play Sister" of the Salem Methodist Nursery school which started in 1942. Michael Edward Walkinshaw came from a richly religious background which moulded his life and shaped his career of service. In 1936 he married Ellen Beatrice Fenton of Cudjoe Head who owned a small grocery in Salem. During World War II Michael (also known as Maas Mike) obtained a job on the Lady Nelson, a Canadian ship which went as far south as Guyana. He quit sailing in mysterious circumstances. The wife, it is said, had a premonition of the destruction of the Lady Nelson. She saw the sinking in a dream, and when it docked in Montserrat to pick up other sailors, she implored him to stay home. The ship was in fact torpedoed and everyone on board lost their lives. Providence had spared Maas Mike for service to his people. After this incident he devoted his time to the grocery and established the best bakery of his time. His mission field was Montserrat. He refused opportunities to 158

Some Prominent People In Our History

159

migrate like his brothers to the USA; he stayed and supported his parents and extended family, served his God and served Montserrat in political office. It is said that his prices were very reasonable and since he never turned away customers for lack of money, his profits were only marginal. His debtors were naturally many, but he never resorted to law to recover the debts. Because of his benevolence and his wise counsel, he became a father-figure, indeed the father of Salem. It was this humble benefactor who donated the land on which the Shiloh Pentecostal Church is built. Apart from being an outstanding local preacher, Michael Walkinshaw held his first public office in 1944, when he was appointed to the Salem Rural District Board. The appointment was made by the Governor of the Leeward Islands on the nomination of the commissioner. Given Walkinshaw's humanitarian temper it is not surprising that he became a leading member of the MTLU in the 1940s and an active member of W.H. Bramble's Montserrat Labour Party in 1952. What was remarkable was that when he ran for the Central district in that same year he was unopposed. This was a testimony to his stature and esteem in his area. He served on the Social Services and Public Works Committee chaired by W.H. Bramble, to whom he gave valuable support in his quest for better health and housing for the people of Montserrat. On the burning issue of sharecropping, there was no doubt where Walkinshaw stood. Speaking in support of Bramble's motion for its abolition in the Legislative Council, he condemned it as "a severe social injustice". Wlkinshaw ran for political office for the second time in 1955 and was again unopposed thereby setting a record in Montserratian politics; and when W.S. Howes dared to oppose him in 1958 he lost his deposit, polling only 38 votes to Walkinshaw's 386. In the 1961 general elections, he was again unopposed. Walkinshaw retired undefeated, over an issue to do with casino gambling, it is alleged; so he did not contest the 1966 election. Walkinshaw not only served the people directly, but he served them indirectly by vigorously opposing those whom he perceived as enemies of the people. When Eric Kelsick launched a party to contest the 1958 elections and named it the Montserrat Democratic Party (MDP), the manifesto promised land distribution and democratic socialism. Walkinshaw regarded these promises as a hoax. He responded in these verses which were published in the weekly ObserverNo, slavery must never come back Though some folks say it's on our track; What, Capital playing Diplomat Raise their flag now as Democrat?

160

GALLERY MO NTS ERR AT

Montserratians all, look for yourself, Old things that were hidden on the shelf, Fall down now and want to walk But it's not for tongue why donkey can't talk. These men, some want to make a raid Others though they're afraid they are paid To come forward in a cloak of disguise To prevent their own colour from getting to rise. If we had time we'd be ringing a bell To tell everyone of them to go to hell Where would we be if only now they can see That we are in a very bad calamity? In Antigua this same party, Democrat, Launch a bigger policy than this one in Montserrat But they receive such an ignominious defeat For LABOUR won all seven seats.

This may not have been first class poetry, but it was excellent and effective politics. The MDP started to disintegrate and was finally pulverized at the polls. At his funeral in 1978, Walkinshaw's eulogist hailed him as: the benevolent father-figure, leader, counsellor and guide. His life was dedicated to helping people, and of this he never tired ... Even in rapidly fading health, during his last days he drove himself relentlessly, and his fleeting moments of returning strength were lavished on service to his community and church. A very generous tribute, but by all accounts faithful to the reality.

LINDONA VEREEN THO MASWOOLCOCK

A,

product of the trade union movement, Vereen IThomas rose from relative obscurity to be Montser-

rat's leading trade unionist of international repute. She was born at St John's on August 27, 1948, and attended the village all-age primary school reaching standard seven. Like so many children of her time, she did not have access to secondary education in our stingily rationed secondary system, but native ambition led her to acquire sufficient GCE passes through adult classes to give her entry to a UWI Certificate course as a mature student. In 1993, she graduated with a UWI Certificate in Public Administration. It was difficult to guess that Thomas was destined for a distinguished position given the unflattering circumstances in which she began her adult life. She first worked as a domestic helper (inelegantly dubbed in those days a 'maid') followed by three years as a store clerk and a further three as an agent with the United Life Insurance Company Limited. Thomas' next position was office secretary in the office of the newly formed MAWU in 1973. Although this move was the watershed in her life and career, she could hardly have anticipated that after only four years she would have become MAWU general secretary and poised for prominence in the regional and international trade union movement. Between 1976 and 1977 she was Executive Secretary of MAWU, after which she attained the position of general secretary which she presently holds. Thomas emerged as a trade union leader at a period when special attention was being given to the status of women worldwide. This helped to open new avenues of opportunity for her—opportunities which challenged and stretched her capabilities. She however responded with ambition and courage turning challenges into opportunities for lifelong learning. From her MAWU base, she has acquired an impressive array of titles and positions. She is presently a member 161

162

GALLERYMONTSERRAT

of the Women's Committee of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFU), member of the General Council of the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL) and its administrative committee, 2nd Vice-President of CCL, General Secretary of the Montserrat Trade Union Congress, President of the CCL regional women's committee and member of the CARICOM Caribbean Garment and Textile Industry Board. The only woman secretary general of a trade union in the Caribbean, Thomas has chalked up some other prestigious firsts for women. She was elected to the World Executive Committee of the Postal Telegraph and Telecom International in Brazil in 1984, holding the position for four years; and was the first Caribbean woman to be elected to the Women's Committee of the ICFU Board. The committee meets twice yearly in Brussels. Thomas travels extensively mainly in connection with trade unionism and related activities. Thomas' high profile abroad is paralleled by community involvement at home. She is a member of the Social Security Board, was a member of the Local Development Fund Committee of the Montserrat Christian Council, part of the administration of Plymouth Methodist Sunday school, and a class leader in the church. She was involved in relief work after the mighty Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and it was through that activity that she met W. (Vince) Woolcock whom she married in 1991. Thomas (as she then was) entered politics in 1983 with Dr J. Irish's trade union based United National Front (UNF), representing the St John's district where she was born. Like her colleagues, she fared badly. She was pitted against a still popular J. Bengie Chalmers belonging to a party that was popular at a time when the economy was relatively flourishing. Although the trade union represented workers in an impressive list of employments, the aggregate number of workers was small. Besides, they were scattered across the island rather than compacted in areas, and so could not as a group make any great impact on the election; and in any case, the evidence would indicate that the UNF did not itself attract a majority of the MAWU votes. Then too, Thomas would have suffered from the prejudice and calumny that were directed against the leader of the party. She no longer lived in St John's and she lacked the popularity with the villagers that might have offset some of the other disadvantages. One of the lessons to be learnt from our short history of popular politics is that the transferability of influence from a specific area of activity to politics and its translation into political success must not be presumed. Thomas-Woolcock has not since ventured into the turbid waters of Montserratian politics, but is perceived as having influence. In 1987 she played a

Some Prominent People In Our History

163

brokerage role in trying to effect a coalition between P. Austin Bramble's Popular Democratic Party and Bertrand Osborne's National Development Party, although this effort came to nothing. Because of her position, her views are canvassed on crucial issues. Witnessing before a United Nations Mission on Decolonization in 1982, she endorsed independence for Montserrat at some unspecific time provided certain preparatory steps were taken. It is unfortunate that she gave no positional comment when in 1989, the British Government imposed a new constitution on Montserrat without any consultation. She joined with the Union of Teachers, the Civil Service Association and the Medical Association in admitting inadequate knowledge of the constitution and in asserting that what they termed the 'constitutional crisis' was not a priority. It is not clear whether this position was motivated by political considerations or diplomatic prudence. (John Osborne of the PLM, her political enemy, was the chief protagonist in the resist-the-British drama.) Thomas-Woolcock has herself been active in advancing views on crucial issues as she perceives them—from safety at the workplace to sustainable development. An international traveller, Vereen has a prominent image in Montserrat and in regional trade union circles. Her challenge is to continually translate this into a palpable contribution to the quality of life of women and men in Montserrat. Leading a trade union, she is pivotally placed to do this. There is another side to Thomas-Woolcock. She has a keen interest in drama. She has done amateur acting and has tried her hand at playwriting. She has written three full length plays: HardTimes, The Long Holiday and Leave itto Nina along with several skits, and has reported work on a new play, The People Versus Hugo. Add her interest in sewing, gardening and cooking and you have a rounded Montserratian woman of note.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Browne, Vincent B. "Punch line". The Workers' Defence: Montserrat Allied Workers' Union Newsletter, Vol. 2, No. 1 ( March-April 1984). Burnett, Paula. Review of Letter from Ulster and the Hugo Poems, by E. A. Markham. New Statesman & Society (12 November 1993). Collis, R. "Robert William Griffith QBE remembers". Montserrat Reporter (22 November 1991). Cooper, Wayne C. Claude McKay. New York: Schocken Books, 1987. de Fortis, Paul. The Kingdom ofRedonda: 1865-1990. Great Britain: Aylesford Press, 1991. Dyer-Howe, Annie. "A tribute to Miss Pattie". Montserrat Reporter(13 June 1986). Edwards, Paul (ed). Equiano's Travels: His Autobiography. London and Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books, 1967. Fergus, Howard A. W. H. Bramble: His Life and Times. Montserrat: University Centre, University of the West Indies, 1983. Fergus, Howard A. Rule Britannia: Politics in British Montserrat. Montserrat: University Centre, University of the West Indies, 1985. Fergus, Howard A. Montserrat: History of a Caribbean Colony. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Caribbean, 1994. Ford, I. B., and I. Batchelor (eds). T. N. Kirnon the Man: a Commemorative Magazine. St John's, Antigua: Ministry of Education and Culture, 1984. Griffin, C. N. "Fifty years of medical practice in the Leeward Islands". N.p., c. 1975. Haniff, N. Z. Blaze a Fire: Significant Contributions of Caribbean Women. Toronto: Sister Vision, Black Women and Women of Colour Press, 1988. Henry, Esco. "Doing it well" (Profile of Vincent B. Browne). Montserrat Reporter (28 February 1985). Irish, J. A. Alliouagana in Focus. Plymouth, Montserrat: The Author, 1973. 164

Some Prominent People In Our History

165

Irish, J. A. Alliouagana in Agony: Notes on Montserrat Politics. Plymouth, Montserrat: The Author, 1974. Irish, J. A. "For a Grandmother". In ASong for Alliouagana: Poems. Montserrat: JAGPI Productions, 1988. Irish, J. A. Life in a Colonial Crucible: Labour and Social Change in Montserrat, 1946-Present Montserrat & New York: JAGPI Productions and Medgar Evers College, 1991. Irish, J. A. (ed). Tribute to Annie Cummings Greenaway. New York: The Author, 1990. Johnston, J. R. V. "The Stapleton sugar plantations of the Leeward Islands". Bulletin of the John RylandsLibrary.VoL 48, No. 1 (autumn 1965). Kirnon, Hodge. Montserrat and Montserratians. New York: The Author, 1925. Lawrence, George E. Thomas O'Garra: a West Indian Local Preacher. London: Epworth Press, 1956. Lawrence, George E. "Montserrat and its Methodism". Unpublished typescript, 1967. Morse, A. R. The Quest for M. P. Shiel's Realm ofRedonda. Cleveland, Ohio: Reynold Morse Foundation, 1979. Peters, F. E. The Abolition of Slavery. Montserrat: The Author, 1934. Shiel, M. P. "About myself". The Candid Friend (17 August 1901). Stone, Judy. Theatre Studies in West Indian Literature. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Caribbean, 1993. Sturge, J., and T. Harvey. The West Indies in 1837. London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1838; reprint, London: Frank Cass, 1968. Tyrell, Alex. Joseph Sturge. London: Christopher Helm, 1987. "Vincent Bennett Browne hits 70". MontserratReporter (4 September 1992).

THE

AUTHOR

H

was born at Long

Advanced Level passes in Latin and English Lit-

Ground to two agricul-

erature. After training

tural labourers, Priscilla

as a teacher at Erdiston College in Barbados (1957-59), and later

OWARD FERGUS

(Sissie) and Simon (Bramble) Fergus, and attended the village school until he was nine. He then transferred to the Bethel primary school two miles away, walking and running each morning in sun or

working as a primary school headteacher, he

rain to be frequently greeted by magisterial stripes for unavoidable latecoming. After failing at two efforts to

studied at the UCWI, Jamaica from 1961 to 1964, and graduated with a London University General Arts Degree in English, Latin and History. Fergus joined the staff of the MSS in 1965 before he studied again, this

access the very selective Montserrat

time at the University of Bristol, for

Secondary School (MSS), he finally

the postgraduate Certificate in Educa-

gained entrance in 1950. With the

tion. Returning periodically to formal

assistance of a loan-bursary from

studies, he gained the Master of Edu-

merchant-planter R.E.D. Osborne of Tar River Estate, he completed secon-

cation at the University of Manchester and a PhD from the UWI. Meanwhile,

dary school, leaving with the Senior

he advanced his career in education

Cambridge School Certificate. He opened his teaching career at

becoming in turn deputy principal

his alma mater Bethel Primary, but continued his academic studies with the Rapid Results Correspondence College, which helped him to gain GCE

cation officer. In 1974, Fergus joined the UWI Ex-

MSS, education officer, and chief edu-

tra-Mural Department as resident tutor for Montserrat, becoming senior

lecturer in 1981. He 'diversified' his career when in 1975 he was elected Speaker of the Montserrat Legislative Council 'from outside the House" un-

the Caribbean Examinations Council, the CARICOM Foundation of Arts and Culture, and the Caribbean Council of Churches, and was a member of the

der P. Austin Bramble's government.

1990-92 Independent West Indian

Since 1976, he has also served as the de facto Deputy Governor of Montserrat.

Commission. In 1989, he was an Eis-

Fergus has authored and coauthored several books including:

served as an international consultant

Montserrat Emerald Isle of the Carib-

ters. In 1995, Partners of the Americas

bean (Macmillan 1983), Hugo Versus

in Washington appointed him as an Adviser to its International Fellowship

Montserrat co-edited with EA Markham (1989), Calabash of Gold (poems)

enhower Exchange Fellow and has in education and constitutional mat-

Programme to assist with the man-

in 1993 and Montserrat: History of a

agement and development training of

Caribbean Colony (Macmillan 1994).

40 Fellows from USA, Latin America

He signed a contract with Peepal Tree

and the Caribbean. In 1995 also he

Press, Leeds, for the publication of a

was a member of a five-man team

new book of poems Lara Rains and

from the Commonwealth Parliamen-

Colonial Rites'm 1995. He has publish-

tary Association which conducted a

ed numerous scholarly articles in in-

seminar on parliamentary governance

ternational journals and his poems appear in several literary journals and anthologies. He won a BBC Caribbean Poetry prize in 1978 and the Daily News prize for poetry (University of the Virgin Islands) in 1992. Commenting on Fergus' comprehensive work on the history of Mont-

in Botswana. In 1979 he was awarded the QBE in the Queen's New Year's Honours list, and the CBE in 1995 for his public services. He received a Funkyman Award in 1986 for his contribution to culture, and the Lions of Montserrat gave him their first Citizen of the Year

serrat, the spring 1995 issue of BWee

Award in 1986-87.

Caribbean BEAT observes: "Montserrat, with around 12,000 people, is

Dr Fergus is married to Eudora (nee Edgecombe), a career teacher. They

lucky to have someone of its own to document its life with such affectionate professionalism."

have three children—Coretta, Colin and Carla. Dr Fergus and his family are

The author has served many local and regional organizations including

costal Church in Plymouth.

active members of the Bethany Pente