A Backward Glance

Chapter 1

My People

I grew up in the era when the crowing of the rooster or cockfoul and the braying of the Jackass or donkey in the early morning signaled that is was time for the early risers to get out of bed. There were few clocks then. Those were the days when some people had elephantitis which we called bigfoot, and several had very red lips which we tagged as redmouth. Those who could not afford toothbrushes rubbed their teeth with leaves from bushes.

The class of people I am referring to, is the significant majority of Antiguans and Barbudans. Children from poor families had to drop out of school to work and help support the younger ones in the family. They ate things like bread and sugar cake, bread and roasted saltfish, bread and sweetoil (cooking oil). Times were hard and the rich folks lived separate and apart from the poor communities, and you had no one to depend on but your own.

Go back in time when the highest level of education offered to students in the nineteen thirties until the nineteen forties, was a standard (class) seven. Unashamedly, I state that an aunt and uncle of mine were extremely smart, but were illiterate. Another uncle went up to standard seven. One aunt reached standard four and my mother made it up to standard five.

I fast forward the tape, however, and there stand before me my six sisters and two brothers. Even though my mother had only a standard five education, her children have made her proud of them in many ways, including educationally. You will find among us, some with PhD’s, Masters and Bachelors degrees. The same pertain to my aunts’ and uncles’ children. Talk about progress! Antiguans and Barbudans have made great strides, even as the world widened and I grew up.

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My childhood memories sprung from two different households in two different villages where I resided. The first portion embraced the formative years of my life up to nine years of age and the second portion consists of ages ten to sixteen.

The former with ‘Mamie’, my grandmother, and the latter was with ‘Mother,’ my mom. You will note the similarities and differences of life, as I experienced them in two villages, located at two different points in Antigua.

I’m highlighting, not my Autobiography, but memories which are forever etched upon my mind and which children born in this the twenty-first century will marvel to hear about. Could they have existed in ‘my time’ without the use of electricity and the technological gadgets that scientific advancement now affords? Children of this generation would shake their head and confess “We couldn’t do without our electronic devices such as the PSP player, Iphone, Ipad, computers smart phones, television, computer and a list that would seem endless.” To them life in the fifties would be dull and boring, but I would not exchange my memories for anything in the world.

Several impressions of life were stamped upon me at birth and reinforced in the following nine years of my life. Such impressions I would describe as exhilarating, euphoric and inspirational. I was sincerely loved and appreciated by every member of my family circle.

Being the first surviving grandchild of paternal and maternal grandparents, I received constant and special attention which some would label as “spoiling.” Looking back however it was my best brand of euphoria. No one was mean to me within my family circle, and I was “the apple of my grandparents’ eyes.”

Delightfully I recount those peaceful scenes of my life, which would prepare me to calmly face some turbulence packaged as experience.

I was one of the Researchers for Christine Barrow who was a Professor of Sociology at the University of West Indies (Cave Hill Campus). I gathered information for her book And I Remember many things.

As I listened and recorded many interviews with seniors of Antigua and Barbuda, I was held spellbound. They spoke of life, culture and superstitious beliefs that they experienced during their lifetime. Each account was indeed gripping. Many years later, I am now a grandmother and I tell my grandchildren snippets of my early life. They found them so intriguing that they kept saying “Grandma tell us about when you were a girl.”

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I was raised with my grandparents. They were the family historians who told me that I was born in Parham Town in their one bed room house and christened in the Anglican Church. Papie also told me that my godmother named me because my mother had not decided on a name for me at birth.

Growing up as a child in Parham, were the happiest memories of my childhood. I felt secure in the extended family; which included several aunts, uncles and neighbours’ children who would share food, love and laughter.

The freedom of childhood, with the scope to explore through play and healthy interactions, were the dynamics of my inspiration and zest for life. It was only as I grew older and studied my history as an Afro-Antiguan, that I can now better understand why having been born one hundred and seventeen years after abolition of slavery in Antigua and Barbuda, there were still some clouds of struggles hanging over my head. My great, great grandparents were slaves. I did not know them, but I knew my maternal grandmother also whose parents were slaves.

Being illiterate, my forefathers passed on their life experiences by way of oral tradition to their off-springs who later transmitted it to us. Things have changed dramatically since oral times and I am now writing, or engaging in the writing tradition.